JOSH'S CONDITIONS & TREATMENTS BLOG

The Sweetness Tax

The mayor of San Francisco, who probably lives in a giant castle with tons of crenelated parapets at the end of a winding road near the sea, declared that there will be a city-wide tax on soda pop. He is instituting the fee in a reckless attempt to slim down the city.

"He's either a genius or a madman," said a San Franciscan. "Or possibly, his genius drove him mad or, perhaps, his madness increased his intelligence to the genius level. I don't know if madness has that sort of power, and I don't have the time to research it. I do, however, have time to postulate about it."

The fee would be charged directly to big stores that sold sugary beverages. Any drinks that were made with high-fructose corn syrup would bring about the fee.

Sodamongers said that the plan would never work. They called the mayor's plan "stupid," and said that the mayor was always ruining everyone's fun. They blamed computers and video games for making everyone fat.

"Have you played that Crash Bandicoot game," said a sodamonger. "That game makes me feel hammy just thinking about it."

The mayor also planned to tax sadness, heartbreak and loneliness. He also wants to put stray kittens to work carrying thimbles full of dew.

The imposed soda fees would be spent on San Francisco's anti-obesity campaign.

To find a doctor that treats obesity in San Francisco click here. For all other doctors go here.

Thanksgiving is Stress-Increasing

Some Minneapolitan scientists, who are mostly likely at odds with their parents, have released a study on the stressfulness of Thanksgiving. It is, apparently, very stressful.

Kids coming home from college often clash with their progenitors. The struggle may be the age-old Freudian Oedipal/Elektra complex where the child will compete with their same-sex parent for the love of their opposite-sex parent.  Or it could be the Norman Rockwellian version of perfection that the family feels it needs to achieve that causes all that angst. There is also an epic battle of the wills between the neophyte adults and the geriatrically-teetering parents.

"Judith thought it would be a good idea to get a nose ring the same year Pastor Louis came down from Little Falls. She's such an attractive girl. Why would she do that to her face?" Said one mother. "I could scarcely finish my oyster stew."

According to experts, the best way to avoid the familial struggle without avoiding the family is to have a frank and open discussion about what is expected from both parties prior to the gathering of relations. As with any relationship, communication is the key.  Remember that and Kin-related stress can be a thing of the past.

Stress is a condition that is usually treated by a Psychiatrist. It can lead to a wide-variety of health problems:

• Headache
• High-Blood Pressure
• Sleep Disorders
• Hatred of Mondays
• Weight Gain
• Skin Problems
• Depression
• Anger
• Etc. Ad Nauseum

If the source of stress is unidentifiable, a medical doctor should be consulted. A physical problem may be to blame. Consult an Internist or Family Physician.

To find nearby medical services, click here.

Stairs VS. Obesity

Stairs, an antiquated, stationary version of the escalator, may be the newest weapon in our nation's struggle against obesity. These stairs, a series of rising footholds, might be the key to beating back the bulge. To use stairs, a person merely needs to place one foot on lowest foothold in the series, then bring the other foot onto that aforementioned foothold. Repeat the process in order of ascension. Make sure to stop when there are no more stairs.

Researchers in England brought back the ancient device, probably getting the idea from a Medieval castle or some markings on Stonehenge. They placed the stairs in a modern-day shopping mall and adorned them with signs that said, "7 Minutes of stair climbing daily protects your heart."

Although many shoppers were confused by the presence of these stairs, thinking that they may have wandered into a museum or the childhood home of Charles Dickens, there was a six-percent increase in the amount of people who used the alternative elevating device.

"Making the stairs brightly colored and decorating them with signs covered with positive messages, will increase the number of climbers who use them," paraphrased one psychologist.

According to doctors, climbing stairs for seven minutes a day can lower the risk of cardiovascular disease by seventy percent. Cardiovascular disease kills more people than cancer. The most common form of cardiovascular disease is atherosclerosis which causes clots, hardening and/or narrowing of the arteries and can lead to stroke, heart attack and death. Cardiovascular disease is most often treated by a Cardiologist. 

Other low-end workouts include, parking the car far away, playing Nintendo Wii and wearing heavy gloves.

Local medical services can be found here.

Eating a Sadwich

People who eat when they are unhappy have trouble losing weight. They also tend to gain weight, because they eat in response to their feelings. They become sad about being overweight and eat more. It is an unending cycle.

Callous, unsentimental people are the skinniest people. Their bodies are mangy and harsh like a coyote's. They are used to the inherent injustice of existence and know that a cupcake will not cure the constant ache of the human condition. That ache, in fact, is what motivates these people to action, however futile those actions may be. 

Science is looking for a way to cure emotions.

"We can cure joy," said one scientist. "If people do not know that they can have a better life, perhaps they will not be depressed when they do not obtain a better life. Mediocrity in all things." 

The cure for joy will be released in the April of 2008. It will be available at retail stores.

To find joyful, local medical services near you, click here.

More to Love

Researchers have discovered that extra weight, up to twenty-five pounds, has some benefits, but people who are overweight are still more liable to have heart disease, diabetes, hot sauce on shirt and kidney failure.

People who carry a little extra baggage (not the emotional kind) are more likely to survive pneumonia, emphysema, buffet poisoning, injuries and infections. No one knows why this is, but it is possible to tip the scales and still be healthy.

Eating right and exercising is healthy and beneficial, looking like Ichabod Crane is not. The extra weight may be, as one doctor described it, "additional nutritional reserves." Another doctor described it as "more cushion for the pushing, the pushing of extra nutrients through the bloodstream during times of illness."

The study didn't show if people who are merely overweight are more likely to become sick, but they are more likely to survive death.

What should we take away from this study?

It is still a good idea to eat healthful things and exercise regularly. Yet, maybe we shouldn't get all hung up on perfection. We should learn to enjoy life. Have some pie when offered, but don't seek it out. Take the time to smell the flowers, hold a newborn babe, and haphazardly stack boxes in the corner of your garage instead of taking that trip to the dump.

Life is short, you know.

To find medical services in your area, click here.

Those Weak Obesity Ads

Critics have blasted the government's new anti-obesity campaign for being too soft on fat. The critics say that the ads are" namby-pamby." The critics, if they want to make their case heard, should not use the hyphenate namby-pamby.  The criticism of the critics lacks razzle-dazzle.

This is how I pictured the ads before watching them:

I imagined a man eating a glazed donut. The man would be tragically obese and sad as he grazed on the donut. He would turn the camera and say, "being overweight is unhealthy, but it's much better than starving to death." The man would take another bite of the donut and wipe a tear from his eye. "Also, there is nothing morally wrong with being obese."

That's a pretty namby-pamby commercial, but the actual commercials are just lame.

The basic plot is that some kids are hanging around playing video games. Suddenly, some cartoon characters or some celebrities or a combination of celebrities and cartoon characters break into the house where the children live and, as far as I can tell, take the children away without parental permission.  The kids shoot hoops and climb on jungle gyms. Everyone feels good about life. The website smallstep.gov appears and everyone, human and animated, wave goodbye.

The cartoons and humans who earn their money by being watched on television are telling kids to go outside and to not watch television. Also, the commercials are loud and obnoxious with horrible soundtracks. It's like watching a television advertisement for a third-rate roller coaster, or listening to that screaming man talk about the monster truck rally that is to take place on the day of our lord, the day of our lord, the day of our lord.

So,the critics are right, although very wrong.

When did we become reliant on television ads to help us better ourselves? If I were a critic, which I am not, I would criticize the general public for listening to advertising. It's probably what got them hooked on fast food and fizzy drinks.

Speaking of advertising, to find a good doctor near you, click here.

Make Food, Not War

Hardee's, the fast-food restaurant, recently released a new breakfast burrito that contains 920 calories.  The Center for Science in the Public Interest is calling the meal, "Food Porn."

Brad Haley, marketing chief of Hardee's, made no apologies. But if he did, they should go like this:

"Food has been used in literature as a metaphor for love throughout the ages. Especially, in the works of Alice Munro, but that is beside the point. Food will no longer be only analogous with love. Modern technology has allowed us to create a meal where food and love become one. We are making food love, not food porn."

Hardee's is also the home of the Thickburger which contains 1,410 calories. The Thickburger ranks fourth in calories right behind Blimpie's Panini-Grilled Ultimate Club Sub at 1,440. Subway ranks second with its Double Meat, Meatball Marinara Sub at 1,720 calories.

But the real winner is Arby's with their 2,751-calories Pecan Sticky Bun 4-Pack. A mere 806 of those calories are from fat.

A scientist who helped develop the Sticky Bun 4-Pack had this to say, "We built the sticky buns using neutron star technology. That's how we were able to pack all that energy into such a confined space."

An internist or family physician can help a patient plan a healthy diet. A plastic surgeon can give a patient liposuction if he or she insists  on eating the Sticky Bun 4-Pack. If a patient can't stop eating all those sticky buns, they may have to get bariatric surgery from a  general or bariatric surgeon.

To find a wide array of doctors in various lands and outfits, click here.

Let Corporations do the Parenting!

Recently, Nickelodeon and Disney have taken a stand against childhood obesity. Nickelodeon stopped broadcasting for three hours on a weekend to encourage kids to go outside and play. The kids were allowed, however, to change the channel.  Disney plans to release a line of cartoon character-themed fruits and vegetables and market them to children.

According to Minnesota child labor laws, a child under the age of thirteen may not be employed except as a model, an actress, a youth program referee, paper carrier or an agricultural worker and most of those job require parental consent.  They still, however, have to do chores.

Where are these children getting the money to buy junk food and expensive televisions with cable channels that broadcast cartoons all day? Is little Timmy out in the soybean field with a corn knife chopping at a patch of lambsquarter?  Unless you grow a cash crop, probably not. 

Let's take a look at the kid ecosystem: Parents are the sun. They are the source off all life and all energy in the child's ecosystem. The energy the parents radiate on the children can be measured in dollars. Now, there will be two types of things the dollars provided by the parents radiate upon. There will be those things that exist in the ecosystem that do not take dollars away from the child's dollar input and the things that do.

The child cannot receive dollars without the parents. They cannot buy candy or sod-ey (sic) pop.  They can only sit on their thumbs and watch television or use their imaginations in a meadow or something dumb like that.  Either way the child cannot obtain fattening agents in the environment without the parental dollar-input.

The television on the other hand exists in the kid ecosystem without direct cash input from the child. It did take direct cash input by the parents to make the TV flourish in the living-room biome.

Really clunky metaphors aside, a kid can't get very far without the help of the parent. These corporations aren't really doing anything for the kids. They just want to try and make an honest buck off parents like they have done since time immemorial.

Don't let the wizards of Madison Avenue get to you through your kids. They don't really need an allowance.  After all, isn't the word allow in allowance. Doesn't that mean that it is a sum of money you allow your kids to have. Zero allowance is still, by definition, an allowance.

On a personal note, I'm not a parent, and I talk big about standing firm with kids. If I were a dad, my kids would be the first on the block to own an M1 Abrams military tank. So, there is that.

If you want to talk to someone who knows what they are talking about, talk to a family psychiatrist or a pediatrician. To find one near you, click here.

Cheeseburger takes Manhattan

A New York judge disallowed a rule that would force fast-food chains to post calorie counts in their stores, citing something called the First Amendment. This amendment grants citizens and corporate citizens freedom of speech and expression.

    Fictional reports say that this was the same judge who let the Hamburglar, a misshapen, beef-obsessed corporate mascot, go with only a "slap on the wrist."

   New York lawmakers have tried to pass the law because obesity rates have doubled in the last twenty-five years, and it seems that fast food has been caught holding the grease-soaked bag.

  First Amendments aside, even if laws demand that lists of calories be hung upon walls in speedy eateries, what good would it do?

People still smoke even though the government (and all its First Amendments) forces tobacco companies to put warnings on their packages. Yet, in nearly every pharmacy in America, there is a monolithic wall of cigarettes behind the check-out counter.

  Most people know that fast food is bad for their bodies, but they eat it. Ask yourself, "Who amongst my peers thinks that fast food is healthy meal?" Then tell those people that it isn't. It should be a short and easy task.

There have been reports released about the dishealthiness of fast food by doctors. Bestsellers have been written, movies made, documentaries and TV spots all produced and out there for the public to see.  A mandatory sign is going to be a waste of paper.

Here is a list of better deterrents to place on those walls:

*Pictures of actual food

*The taunts of children

*Cute-looking cows being marched into a slaughterhouse.

*Pictures of attractive people who are too shallow to date you if eat too much fast food.

Obesity is no laughing matter. It's the second biggest killer of Americans after tobacco. Obviously, something should be done, but it can't be done with laws and warning labels and signs. Choices, that are protected by amendments, need to be made.

  To find a doctor to talk with about the risks of smoking or fast food, click here.