Obesity as an infective disease and how we girls can eradicate it

my statement of obesity being an infective disease goes well against my knowledge as a medical doctor and as a scientist. but personally i do think that it is. i am not going to elaborate on the hard facts, why don't we just examine our own families.

in any average obese family, often times in the beginning someone started to gain weight first.. and usually it will be the mom. pregnancy weight gain is one of the most rapid and probably the hardest one to combat out of all the other forms of weight gain (except weight gain due to medical conditions of course)..and i do believe that it can also be very depressing (which adds up to why it being hard to combat). but as moms, Imagine, that some kids have never seen their momma not fat. Their one and only mom, their role model has always been at least a BMI of 30.

i bet that 50 years ago, when a person weighing 150 kg walked around the city, everyone could not have resisted but to stare. it is so uncommon to find anyone in the overweight category, let alone obese.. but today, you see them every where, everyday. even some actors and actresses are large... and they don't even look awkward to our eyes. This sense of familiarity made us feel comfortable seeing with an obese individual and worst, being one.this, my friend,i believe is the very reason why i say obesity is infective..like an infective laugh, only more deadly.

i know, "Large" is only a size. but it comes with a big price tag. bigger clothes, more foods, more fuel consumptions and extensive medical bills... all of the known side effects of being the size which is above average. and who is there to blame?

children grew up looking at us, moms being fat... they developed a sense of familiarity with the size and didn't mind being one. husbands saw us let go of our figures, saw that we started to overlook all those extra cheese in the takeaways and deliveries, he also began to let him self go. Our little families started to enjoy more of the comfort in the food, and less of what life may have to offer. the emotional attachment started to develop with food and sooner or later, the emotional dependence.

like an old saying ...fire, when small is a friend, when big is a foe.
Food, when adequate in enriching, but when abundant, kills.

But in my limited experience of being a young doctor I have also seen women, girls, working moms, stay at home moms, moms of country clubs or even moms of book clubs that managed to turn their lives around simply by realizing the bad relationship they have with food. These courageous women, overcome their emotional dependence on food, and the inertia at the starting line to take their first steps toward preparing healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner... They also incorporate long walks on the beach or regular hikings as part of their weekend family times, not only do they change their lives, but also the lives of the people in their families..

come on lovely ladies, let's quickly realize our role that might have helped to spread the obesity epidemic and once and for all USE THAT ROLE TO TURN IT ALL AROUND.
if you are the one responsible to put dinner on the table, than you are in a way responsible to make your child fat. and since you are the one responsible to determine what food they eat today, why not MAKE TODAY A HEALTHY FOOD DAY, every day.

it is so hard to be on a weight loss journey alone, with the sole aim of "to lose 20 lbs for the wedding", instead, it would be so much easier..and not to mention much healthier if we are doing this as a mission to change everything that is wrong in our families when it comes to food. i hope by the end of the day, we can finally ditch that BAD GENES theory..lol.it was just plain old obesity and we eradicated it from our families..

keep fighting lovelies
XOXO

and with that i rest my case

hello lovelies

I haven't been blogging for quite sometimes now. as much as i miss blogging i just couldn't bring myself to write anything because i was too affected by the Allah issue that i fear that i will write too emotionally on a topic that may be i am not the expert to discuss.

but hey, the Allah issue is interesting heh?

i even took the time to discuss it with Hannah, Jessica, Eleanor, Sheeda and Hatice on the hot issue. interestingly Eleanor actually read about it..she's so current affair savvy.lol! anyway, all of my aussie friends do think that it is weird to use the word Allah to preach Christianity even in Malay Language as the Muslim God is totally different from their God...that's what they said...And further more, they would never call their God Allah on the first place. Why creates confusion?

but hey, i'm not an imam nor am i a pastor.
i can not really comment about this. as i said, maybe, the pope and the muftis should sit together and settle this problem.

it has been few days since i googled anything on the Allah issue, so i'm really unsure about what is the stand now. did we win Malaysians? Did we finally manage to knock some sense into ourselves that there is only one God and the one God is Allah? OMG, didn't i sound sarcastic for a while. i am not. i am a very lovely girl. lol.

owh i should say that recently i have came to notice that in Aussie they are airing so many english movies (be it from the UK or US) that use islamic terrorism as their theme. never mind the evil mastermind being a muslim guy, with or without a beard, educated or not, and he can be either rich or poor..the determination to kill innocent people is always revenge. in some cases these men were pictured as power hungry while in another cases they were also pictured as simply being mad for seeing so many of their family members died.... whatever the theme is, i think the majority of these movies are meant to relate the religion with aggression [pull stop]

well i kinda enjoy them knowing that we Malaysians, are far better than those people that became their objects of ridicule. though my heart ache by the negative impressions these sadistic, box-office hungry film makers create for the world to see..it still jump several mountains high in excitement when always at the start of these movies, there is always an AZAN..with the complete word of Allahuakbar sounding loud and clear to fill in what i imagined a theatre full of muslim-hatreds. [pretty funny huh?] we don't have to work hard to spread the word Allahuakbar anymore, they do it for us.what can i say He is the Almighty after all.

so lovelies
don't ya think that despite being looked down upon, ridiculed, and unfairly judged on,
deep down we know that we still win.
silently and secretly..
without much effort..
WE STILL WIN

and with that your honour, i rest my case
wabilahitaufik walhidayah
wassalamu'alaikum w.b.t.

=^.^=

Heart broken..but we should work with what we are given.

heya olls,
its Sunday. i woke up and checked my FB in my iphone to find this:

so i take it that the court has already decided.
i am heart broken you guys. we didn't work hard enuff. i am happy if we are going to share the kalimah Allah together, InsyaAllah, this will also help spread the understanding of the purity of Islam. but for layman to use it mindlessly for cursing is really really breaking my heart into pieces.

OMG now is OMA
how about OMFG?

[tearful]

Friends,
most of us believe that there is only ONE deity. HE is the ALMIGHTY.
let's understand the fact that HE SEES US ALL, ALL THE TIME. making fun of his holy name is very intolerable, and in fact is inappropriate. i'm not a political analysis but i can almost assure you that we can't avoid from racial dysharmony if we continually make fun of the kalimah Allah.

Muslims,
i am heartbroken and i believe you are too.[tearful]
this is what happen if we let islamic related cases be heard in the secular court. this is what happen when islamic related cases be judge by the 'non-knowings' of Islam. but i can not change the law. Until the law is change back again, this may seem to put us at a disadvantage, let us make use of this condition to spread the LOVE for Allah, and let the world know that ALLAH, the ALMIGHTY is not to be compared with any living things, our ALLAH does not marry and neither does he procreates. HE is in SOLIDARITY and yet HE is COMPLETE.

To my yet to be Muslim friends,
Islam is beautiful my friend. Islam is all about living life according to the guidelines given by ALLAH. though many other religions may also believe in HIM but what use of a believe when we do not follow his order?
if you want to find ALLAH, ALLAH will find you. always know that in your heart. if you crawl to find ALLAH, ALLAH will run to get to you. HE is the most beautiful, the most merciful and most gracious. Go, run into His "arm" and be the child of ISLAM.

let's not spread racial hatred here. what's done is done. and even though we are left with the damage made in the court of law, life does not end here, we can still work with it. insyaAllah. Ameen

ANA

A break

Funny iPhone app I downloaded for free yesterday. U guys be the judge. I'm not sure if this is the original pic..but try to compare the subtle differences between these pics, and you will get the idea of why I likenit so
Much.. =^.^=



Changed to blue contacts.. What do u think?



Nah, maybe brown contact is more for me..




How about change the eyeshadow and blusher? Too tan I guess..



And this perhaps is too pale.. I don't think green eyeshadow looks smashing on me, do u agree?



Maybe she's born with it, well maybe it's maybelline.. Lol!!!



Aaaah, perfect....


Seriously, it's hilarious!!!
This is what I do when I need a break. Freak!!!

Till then.
XoxoxO


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

spital scare

Heya ols,

my father in law masuk hospital sekejap for uncontrolled BP.wpun masa masuk tu BP dah below 140 systolic and around 90+ diastolic but dia ada symptom TIA sket masa kat rumah. sedar tp tak ingat apa yang berlaku, tak larat even to makan sendiri, my mom-in-law yang kene suapkan. so nampak cam ada a certain degree of loss of power.. sbb tu beria2 nak suruh jugak gi hospital. CT scan tujuk ada small infarct but dunno old or new, i was not there. small infarct mmg boleh jadi assymptomatic tp utk mengeluarkan symptom2 yg dia alami tu menunjukkan either it couldnt have been small or it was not the infarct that was causing the symptom,..either way, he is now healthy as a horse. BP well controlled everythinglah. it was intriguing that he couldnt remember what happen to him preceding to the event when he was carried away from umah to hospital in an ambulance. all that i know is that, leaving the house while he was symptomatic was actually the best solution.

lest i know, my own father pun ada high blood pressure jugak, newly diagnosed, but he's only 50..smoking and working hard every single day to match hiss fat*ss payroll. travelling semban-KLCC everyday for work, org muder pon bleyh dapat HPT camnie. i hate it that ppl take their health for granted. you are not getting younger men. if ada makanan yg org suh pantang tuh, pantang jerlah sbb it could be good for you. wpun you've eaten that food for like 50 yrs, tader paper problem pun, tp you are not 25 anymore, not 30 not 50..for all we know that food could be seriously endangering for 50+. and smoking..i know its been ingrained in you tapi try to stop ok..not to reduce it. STOP it.

i think people who does not listen to other people's advice (including advices from qualified DOCTORS) on health are not just arrogant, but SELFISH too. penah tak dia imagine if dia meninggal what is going to happen to the family? dont they care about their children? kalo dia actress, takder family member, tak kawen, hidup hanya tuk kerja n glamer jer, i think i wont mind if she wants to kill herself with anaroxia or something..sukati dia. but bagi org yg ada keluarga nie.. if you cant do it for yourselves, do it for your loved ones.

Orang gemuk yang tanak diet PALING SELFISH SEKALI DALAM DUNIA. nak makan sedap jer!!!tapi tak kesah, mati kene kencing manis pun takper asalkan dapat makan sedap. abestu how about your family if you are the breadwinner in the family. PIKIRla sendiri. ko dah mati everything settle, org yang hidup la susah.

of coz ajal maut ditangan Allah, but to die becoz of stubbornness and refusal to care for health sumer is beyond ridiculous.

i know i can only take the horse to the river but i can never make the horse drink

so lu orang pikir la sendiri

may be u all ok jer, healthy, tp penah tak u all buat something potentially self endangering?

cam driving recklessly

atau bungee jumping

atau sky diving

atau SMOKING

atau choose to have a sedentary lifestyle?

kalau ada, think about your choices tu. worth it ke kalau the end result is death?

ballet dancers, Eating disorders and absent menstruation

Hye, it's me again.. just because i blog in 2 different languages doesn't mean I have a double-personality-disorder.. but, I still kinda like to call myself;

Ana in Malay and Intan in English.

 so here it goes.

Intan likes art, she loves creating them and displaying them. it gives a sense of pure gratification when she gets compliment for all of her artworks.. she looks forward to mothers days, birthdays and anniversaries just to find an excuse to be creative..if she was allowed to join an artistic class, she would have joined ballet dancing. it is a shame that life was tough when she was growing up [broken family & stuffs] that she had to miss all that life's little blessings. but it doesn't stop her from dreaming to be one.

"we only have one shot at life. but there's no limit to imagination"

but in real life, Intan is more Ana..

she was, a medical student graduating one of the top in her class

always, a doctor who has too much compassion than she can handle

and now,  is pursuing a career as a medical scientist

somehow, the choices made by her parents ended her up here..

but Intan's interest in ballet and art as a whole, NEVER FADES

here's an article on ballet dancers, Eating disorders and absent menstruation

In July 1981, the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published an extensive study made of ballerinas by the Harvard School of Public Health. The Harvard School is mystified by a phenomenon known as "Terpsichore's Syndrome" or "Dancer's Syndrome."

What is this syndrome?

It is "delayed" menarche, irregular or nonexistent "menstruation" and other "abnormalities" among ballerinas. Many ballerinas do not start "menstruation" until 18 or later and even then a very high proportion "menstruate" only infrequently.

First, let's understand what these researchers of the Harvard School of Public Health mean by menstruation.

They do not mean the "sloughing off of the menses" which is what menstruation is, but "bloody discharge" which is not menstruation even though it accompanies menstruation almost universally in women of childbearing "age" in the modern world.

The article is primarily devoted to "reasons" and hypotheses as to why delayed menarche or menstrual abnormalities are characteristic of ballerinas. If the researchers had been looking on a broader scale they would have researched the subject more and discovered this same syndrome among the following: female tennis players, runners, swimmers, gymnasts, and in fact, all female athletes who exercise regularly and consistently. Further they would have found this syndrome among primitive females in certain areas of the world, most notably among Hunza women and among women who live thoroughly in accord with our biological adaptations per the health system advocated by Life Science!

If the Harvard School researchers had looked even farther, they might have noted that female domesticated dogs and cats often have bloody menstruation whereas their wild relatives do not.

Does not all this evidence begin to paint very plainly that the medical concensus on the subject is off-base?

In trying to explain why ballerinas do not have "normal" menarche and menstruation the following hypotheses were offered:

Late maturers choose to be ballet dancers.

Ballerinas are undernourished.

Hard physical exercise delays puberty.

The low fat/high lean ratio of body tissues may delay menarche and cause menstrual disturbances.

We'll comment on these "reasons" and hypotheses after presenting the gist of yet other discussions held at the Harvard School of Public Health. These discussions focused on the physiological agencies that triggered the onset of puberty.

The foremost hypotheses advanced were as follows:

Puberty is a physiological change controlled by an independent neurologic clock genetically encoded.

Puberty onset is triggered by a biological signal when a specific weight or body composition is reached.

In presenting these hypotheses the health officials made an observation that has a very vital bearing on the study: it was noted that ballerinas who had an injury that prevented further dancing very soon thereafter realized menarche and/or "normal menstruation."

Let's examine these hypotheses one by one in the light of established biological principles and see what truths, if any, have emerged from this study.

Saying "late maturers" choose to be ballet dancers obviously wins the dunce's award! You might as well say that people not inclined to be ballet dancers choose to mature early. Such an asinine observation implies that females have preset menarche times which would start from nine to nineteen years and only mothers whose daughters' menarche are set for the upper teens enroll their daughters in ballet.

But this first suggestion "late maturers choose to be ballet dancers" is flatly contradicted by the observation that ballerinas who sustain debilitating injuries speedily begin menarche. Don't these researchers see their own inconsistencies? Why do "late maturers'' become early maturers when they are injured?

Because ballerinas eat frugally does not justify saying they are undernourished, as the article implies. Ballerinas exercise long and hard. As any fan of ballet or other dancing will tell you, ballerinas are wonderful specimens of superb femininity, fitness, beauty and health.

If our researchers wanted to see the effects of undernourishment among young women, they had only to observe certain-parts of India where undernourishment is perpetual. There, young girls consistently menstruate at ages eight to ten! America's average age of puberty onset is now ten to twelve! Does this observation point to undernourishment or something else as a cause of "late onset of puberty"? Obviously this hypothesis is unwarranted conjecture.

"Hard physical exercise delays puberty." is another witless statement though it is closer on target than the first two statements. Yes, exercise does "cause" delay of menarche and it does "cause" abnormal and irregular menstruation. I have put "cause" in quotation marks because these researchers are using the word "cause" in a misleading sense.

The statement "the low fat/high lean ratio of body tissues may delay menarche and cause menstrual disturbances" is as illogical as the attribution of undernourishment. Skinny and malnourished young Indian girls begin menarche and menstruation at eight to ten years with the same dispatch our young girls enter into it at ten to twelve years of age. So it is plain our researchers are wrong here too.

The next two hypotheses about what triggers puberty are without a great deal of relevance although both contain some truth.

Puberty does, indeed, occur in humans and all other animals in clocklike fashion at almost identical ages where environmental and extrinsic body factors are more or less the same. But, where these factors differ the time of menarche also differs. Just what are these factors that cause onset of menarche? Are they inherent factors or environmental factors or an interaction of both? Menarche, the onset of puberty, is genetically encoded— that's why, obviously, some animals reproduce within a year and others cannot reproduce until an age of many years has been attained. But, when we have members of a given species arriving at menarche with such wide variations as 8 to 18 years of age, something strange is involved. Mother Nature doesn't work that way—ask any farmer and he will tell you how close are his hens in age when they begin egg-laying or his heifers in their first heat.

The hypothesis that the onset of puberty is genetically encoded, controlled by a biological clock, does not account for such a wide variation of age on onset.

Another theory is that puberty onset is triggered by a biological signal outside the central nervous system when a specific weight or body composition is reached. Again, this hypothesis is more or less on target. Though an obviously true hypothesis, these researchers do not come close to the real reason why this hypothesis might be correct.

What is the real story?

Those who have perspicaciously examined and studied the phenomenon of menstruation (the sloughing off of the menses periodically in preparation for ovulation) observe that it is abnormal for this to be accompanied by blood-letting. Yet menstruation accompanied by bloody discharge is abnormal, then why is it so universal?

Let's establish one thing right away. Blood discharge is, indeed, abnormal—it is unnatural. We do not observe in nature a scheme for blood-letting, discomforts, disability or disease under natural conditions. Obviously some unnatural conditions exist among creatures who exhibit variances to nature's norm.

The medical establishment and those with a medical orientation in our society regard bloody menstruation as normal and are mystified and perplexed when that periodic bloody discharge fails to put in its regular appearance. What they regard as normal is obviously unnatural by the criteria we have cited. Hence there are obviously some flaws in medical premises or assumptions on this subject.

Those who have studied the subject know that the age of onset of puberty is advancing one month every five years in our society. Can it be that our genetic encoding is evolving to make puberty in humans an ever-earlier occurrence? Why is not the same accelerated appearance of menarche occurring in wild animals too?

To arrive at the answer, all our researchers had to do was to go back to our biological basics. The foremost instinct in animal life, humans included, is preservation of self. In certain circumstances a secondary instinct becomes primary: the survival of kind or species. Nature has built into creatures a multitude of safeguards to insure against extinction.

Hence we witness under a broad spectrum of circumstances or crises this salient factor, survival of kind, (either family, tribe, community, nation, race or species) takes precedence over personal survival. This happens on a biological basis as well as on a psychological basis. Thus the instinct for reproduction of kind often asserts itself with untoward emphasis when a life-endangering situation exists. This is most dramatically expressed by a farmer's adage: "plants that are sickly go to seed quickly."

This sheds some light on the dilemma the researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health got themselves into. They failed to take cognizance of basic principles that appertain within the biological realm.

Thus it becomes apparent that the earlier the onset of menarche and reproductive faculties, the more a life-endangering situation exists for the organism. And, likewise the longer menarche requires to put in an appearance, up to a point, the more normal and salubrious is the condition of the subject organism.

Once this salient fact becomes a part of our thinking, the sooner we will begin to comprehend what the "ballerina syndrome" is all about. Ballerinas' extraordinary fitness is evident to all. Fitness and health are practically synonymous terms. Thus we begin to ascertain that menarche and "menstruation" (the kind accompanied by bloody discharge) has something to do with the woman's state of health.

A mere 150 years ago our female forebears (young women who arrived at menarche) experienced puberty at an average age of fourteen to fifteen years. In some European countries the average age was sixteen to seventeen years. The same held for some Asiatic countries, notably those ultrahealthy Hunzas whose menarche was not reached until sixteen to seventeen years of age.

The principle is thus revealed: the healthier the female the later menarche occurs, which happens when the genetically encoded biological clock decrees it. The less healthy the female, the sooner menarche occurs to offset the possibility that poor health will evolve into infertility.

In the case of the ballerinas as well as women athletes we witness but one thing: the phenomenon of health. This contrasts with a medically established "norm" of a population that is, on average, pathological!

Reprinted from Better Life Journal, January 1981

hey, i am so not commenting on this.

i am a doctor for God's sake, i should really say the opposite

but, what the heck, i am also a scientist, remember, and from a scientist's point of view, the author of this article does have a point.

think about it

=^.^=

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone