America’s still fattest, but Mexico is catching up

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Less than 20 years ago, the problem facing Mexico wasn’t an overweight population, but one plagued by hunger. Today, Mexico rivals only the US in the percentage of obese citizens, with a new survey revealing that 71% of Mexican women and 66% of Mexican men are overweight.

Diabetes is now the leading cause of death in Mexico, responsible for roughly 70,000 deaths each year. The rise in obesity has been blamed largely on the proliferation of soft drinks, fast food, and increasingly sedentary lifestyles, three things I’ve always thought of as being “as American as apple pie”– a telling expression.

Mexican health officials fear that, if the current trend continues, Mexico will overtake the United States’ current role as the fattest nation in the world. I can just see Lou Dobbs having a field day with this information: “Mexicans are once again taking a position that should be held by Americans.”

More here, and my apologies to the boys in the photograph.

A bathroom problem of “Olympic” proportions

by Jeremy Kressmann on

When I first saw the venue designs for this summer’s Olympic games in Beijing, I was quite impressed. The Chinese have pulled out all the stops to create several cutting-edge stadiums for the games, including the Beijing National Stadium designed by award-winning architects Herzog & de Meuron and the Beijing National Aquatics Center, which looks like a huge floating cube of water.

However, as the BBC reports, China may have spent a little too much money on those architecture fees. Prompted by frequent visitor complaints at test events, the Chinese are scrambling to replace traditional squat toilets at the venues with western-style “loos” for an expected 500,000 visitors. According to the BBC, who quotes Yao Hui, Deputy Head of Venue Management, “Most of the Chinese people are used to the squat toilet, but nowadays more and more people demand sit-down toilets.”

Gee, Yao, do you think? I have no problem adapting to a traditional squat toilet if I’m coming to visit China on my own, but perhaps when you have visitors coming from as many as 200 different nationalities you might want to standardize? I guess if you’re headed to this summer’s games in Beijing, make sure you bring your own toilet paper and maybe take a look at this for advice. Also take a look at this for more “traditional” background info on Beijing before your visit.

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The top 10 World’s Dirtiest Cities:


You’ll never guess what made the list!

Woman suing American Airlines over masturbating incident

by Jeffrey White on

Here’s a question: Are airline passengers covered under the mythical Rule 240 if they fall victim to a rogue, in flight masturbator?

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is reporting that a 21-year-old Texas woman has now filed a $200,000 lawsuit against American Airlines for failing to protect her against a pervert.

The woman alleges that while sleeping on a flight from Dallas to Los Angeles last year, a man changed his seat, sat next to her and preceded to “masturbate to her” before ejaculating in her hair.

The woman tried to get the attention of flight attendants, to no avail. A few passengers finally intervened (she woke up to the guy still going at it, the newspaper says) and when the plane landed at LAX he was arrested.

During the investigation that followed, flight attendants said they saw the man change his seat. The woman accuses the flight staff of not properly vetting passengers to keep the cabin free of unsafe situations.

American has apologized to the woman, but she still wants a jury trial and damages.

New York City water and David Letterman’s Eliot Spitzer joke

by Jamie Rhein on

Recently, an AP news story came out about the traces of pharmaceuticals, including sex hormones and antibiotics, found in 41 million people’s drinking water in the U.S. The traces are teeny tiny and probably aren’t much to worry about. It’s not that people are dumping medicine directly into the water in large amounts, but a body absorbs only so much. What isn’t absorbed goes into the toilet and on out into the water supply. That’s the watered down version of what occurs. All those hormones and antibiotics animals are given are also part of the mixture.

The pharmaceuticals could become more of a concern because there aren’t regulations about how water is treated in order to get rid of the traces of such ingredients. It seems to me that if people are taking more and more medicine for whatever ails them so wouldn’t that have an increase? On the other hand, if what people are taking more of is anti-anxiety medication, maybe we’ll all be a little more relaxed and problems like road rage with go down. If it’s sleeping pills though, accidents could go up. (I’m just musing here. Don’t take me seriously.)

New York City is one of the places where the traces have been found. Leave it to David Letterman to come up with a funny combination of two New York stories. Last night, pairing Eliot Spitzer’s recent woes which have caused him to resign as governor of New York with New York City water quality, Letterman talked about what has showed up in the water and showed a picture of Elliot Spitzer with an announcer’s voice over that said, in reference to the water, “The fuel that keeps the Spitzer Spitzin.” Letterman was pretty pleased with himself.

Hanta Virus in American Southwest

by Erik McLaughlin on

The Hanta Virus is a little known problem of those who live and travel in the American Southwest. Unfortunately, Hanta has a reputation for killing people and should be taken seriously. A recent article discusses a case from February, 2008. Knowledge of transmission and prevention are needed to prevent a great “Indiana Jones” style adventure, visiting ghost towns, from making you very sick.

Hanta Virus first got major media attention with an outbreak in New Mexico in the early 1990’s. The “Four Corners” area (Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado) was the epicenter of infectious disease and epidemiological research. This outbreak allowed researchers to determine that the disease is spread through contact with infected rodent urine and feces. Spread of Hanta between humans, directly, is not common and believed impossible.

Rodents are ubiquitous in the American Southwest and they are the primary vector for disease transmission. People especially vulnerable to this are hikers and backpackers and those who live in more rural areas. Exploration of ghost towns is a popular vacation activity and caution should be taken when doing this. These ghost towns attract the rodents and visitors to these buildings are putting themselves at potential risk through contact with animal urine and feces. However, of more than 100 reported cases, only 2 have come from hikers. The rest are from people cleaning their garages, vacation homes and other areas that include rodents excreta. Bleach solution and rubber gloves are proper protection measures, along with adequate ventilation while cleaning vacation homes or garages.

Hanta Virus symptoms include a flu-like illness with muscle aches and pains, headaches, nausea and vomiting and fatigue being common. There is no cure for Hanta Virus and care is supportive (treating the symptoms only). Worse is the Hanta Pulmonary form that classically appears after the person appears to have recovered from the initial infection. The person;s lungs fill with fluid and progression can be quite rapid, in hours in fact.

There have been 76 cases in New Mexico, since 1993, with 31 deaths.