The other day I was at the bookstore and I picked up a book entitled, "Fit to Live" by Pamela Peeke. I was immediately interested in the book because I knew that it was about health and fitness, and I am very involved in both. I have had the book for roughly three days now, and it has already made a huge impact on my life.
Today I am going to be talking about some health facts that I read in this book, and some that I cut out of my mom's "Women's World" magazines (but shush, she does not know that I cut most of the good stuff out). One of the most shocking facts that I read is about diabetes. Peeke explains that one out of every three children born in the year 2000 will have type two diabetes by the age of thirty. When I read this I was flabbergasted, for lack of a better word. What kind of world are we living in where people are this likely to develop such a horrible sickness?
More fun facts:
- People that carry 100 or more excess pounds are all over the USA. If all of these people lived in one state, it would be the twelfth most populated state in the world. That's right, IN THE WORLD.
- Marshmallows were invited by the Egyptians and were created and saved for gods and royalty only. Today, Americans buy nearly 90 million pounds of marshmallows each year, which is about the same weight as 1,286 gray whales. That is crazy!
- Americans consume 16 billion hotdogs each year - that's 70 per person. Studies have linked hotdogs to colon cancer - their preservatives contain compounds that can cause your DNA to mutate and raise your chances of getting cancer.
Pamela did a fabulous job writing her book. There are about 300 pages in this book, and each page contains a huge amount of interesting facts and stats. Now I am going to be telling you a few interesting facts from my mom's magazines:
- Eat bananas to prevent strokes. Eating one a day can slash your stroke risk by up to 40%.
- Prevent sunburn with watermelon. Lycopene, which gives watermelon its reddish colour, actually becomes part of your skin when you eat it.
- Research shows that when we hum, airflow increases to our sinuses, reducing common allergy symptoms.
- We forget 30% of what we have heard after 20 minutes, and 50% within 30 minutes.
I was amazed with some of these facts - utterly amazed. If you want to hear more next week just let me know in the BBS and I can do another health fact article.
This has been Obvibeaut, and I am off to read more "Fit to Live", and maybe fill my mom in on what happened to her magazines.
