Dear ,
Here's
a quiz that I developed while I was recovering from my overdose earlier
this week. My Swine Flu Media Alert Overdose. (The straw that broke
the swine's back was when NBC pre-empted Kathie Lee and Hoda TWO DAYS
IN A ROW for TWENTY minutes to listen to NYC's Mayor Bloomberg shrug
his shoulders.)
Answers are at the end of the article.
1. What is more dangerous?
a. Gaining 5 lbs every decade after age 30
b. Traveling through airports without a face mask
c. Not washing your hands every time you pee
d. Wearing white before Memorial Day to a Greenwich Polo Match
2.Which of the following events is more likely to happen to you in your lifetime?
a. You win the New York State PowerBall lottery with a dollar ticket you found in the street.
b. You catch H1N1, the new strain of swine flu
c. You die of an obesity-related disease like heart diease, diabetes, high blood pressure or cancer.
d.You become multi-orgasmic as you approach menopause.
3.Your idea of the most horrible way to die is:
a. in your sleep at the ripe age of 90 years old after having beaten your 20 year old grandson in tennis that afternoon.
b. In an preparedness shelter with a handful of other survivors from a
recent world-wide plague with no private bathroom, cell phone reception
or flat screen TV.
c. In bed after several decades of languishing inactivity and pain related to being obese.
d. From full cardiac arrest directly brought on by the shock of becoming multi-orgasmic as a 60 year old grandmother.
Are you in a panic about Swine Flu? I have a better idea. Instead,
panic (if panic you must) about the current pandemic of obesity. The
CDC and WHO have both thrown up their (freshly washed) hands, shrugged
their health shoulders and confessed to not having much of a clue about
what to do about this flu. But statistics should reassure us, about
swine flu at least. For example, there are 100 confirmed cases of
swine flu where I live in Connecticut. That may sound like a lot but
with a population of 3.5 million, Connecticuticans (say that three
times fast) are more likely to contract the bubonic plague than to
contract swine flu, not to mention that it's spread is largely beyond
our control unless you've figured out a way to breathe selective air.
Obesity, on the other hand, is totally within our control and is
exponentially more widespread (an appropriate term, I think) than this
strain of H1N1 flu bug.
Three in ten Americans are obese with a BMI in excess of 30.0, not to
mention that six in every ten citizens is on his or her way to obesity
by being just overweight.
Childhood obesity in the U.S. has more than tripled in the past two
decades and according to the U.S. Surgeon General, obesity is
responsible for 300,000 deaths every year. This does not include deaths
from obesity-related diseases like heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
Why aren't we panicked about those extra pounds? Why aren't we wearing
those face masks to keep ourselves from overeating? I think it is
because (READ MORE and see how you did on the quiz)
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