July 26, 2009 |
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A high percentage of blacks are obese, according
to a Centers For Disease Control study.
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Fat Black Land
Blacks Are The Most Obese, According To A Study
Americans are growing more obese every year, but African Americans hold the distinction of being the kings and queens of obese land, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control.
Some 39.2% of black women and 31.6% of black men are obese because of a lack of regular exercise. Many say they are satisfied with their body size and are unwilling to lose weight. African Americans also lack supermarkets to purchase healthy foods in their neighborhoods.
The high rate of obesity among blacks compares with 29.4% of Hispanic women, 27.8% of Hispanic men and 21.8% of white women and 25.4% of white men, according to the study, "Differences in Prevalence of Obesity Among Black, White and Hispanic Adults--United States, 2006-2008."
The study also revealed the percentage of black obesity in the country's regions. In the South, 36.9% were obese; 36.3% in the Midwest were obese; 33.1% in the West were obese and 31.7% in the Northeast were obese.
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication associated with the Centers for Disease Control, published the report in its July 17 issue.
Body Mass Index (BMI) is calculated from using a person's weight
and height. Body mass index provides a reliable indicator of body fat for most
people and is used to screen for weight categories that may lead to
health problems.
In the case of obesity, the Centers for Disease control defines obesity as an individual having a body mass index of more than 30 pounds above his weight based on his height.
Obesity is associated with type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, hypertension and stroke. Blacks are not the only ones considered obese.
Morbidity and Mortality reported that the prevalence of obesity in the United States has more than doubled among all ethnic and racial groups in the last 30 years.
The results of the latest findings are based on a random telephone survey of individuals 18 years old and older in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and three unnamed U.S. territories.
The Centers for Disease Control analyzed data gathered over three years, beginning in 2006 and ending 2008, to reach its conclusions. The authors, however, note the study's limitations. Because it was a telephone survey, some of those questioned may have under reported their weight and claimed they are taller than they really are.
The study found that African Americans are more obese than other ethnic and racial groups because of a lack of regular exercise.
"Compared with non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks are less likely to engage in regular physical activity," says the report, noting that blacks may be afraid to take a walk in their neighborhood to exercise because they fear they might become victims of violent crime.
Black women and Hispanic women also are more satisfied with their body size than non-Hispanic white women, the study says.
In addition, neighborhoods with large black populations have fewer chain supermarkets that sell healthy produce. To address this problem, the study suggests community groups should grow fresh vegetables in low-income neighborhoods. Cities also should create mobile farmers' markets to serve low-income neighborhoods and implement food stamp nutrition programs to increase the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. ^ Top|Share |
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Calculating Your Body Mass Index
Black men can easily check their body mass index using free websites.
The Department of Health and Human Services and National Institutes of Health operates the website www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi.
There also is the website FindMyBMI.com.
To use each site, enter you weight and height and click on compute my BMI. The categories are underweight, normal weight, overweight and obesity. The sites also provide the user with information as to how to achieve a normal weight.
Both websites are free, but FindMyBMI.com may attempt to sell users a product.
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| The Senate confirmed Bolden as NASA administrator. |
Senate Confirms Bolden
As NASA Administrator
Charles F. Bolden Jr., who flew into space four times as as an astronaut, now has a desk job after the U.S. Senate confirmed him as the 12th administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the government agency that runs the United States' public space program.
"It is a honor to have been nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate to lead this great NASA team," Bolden said Thursday, July 15, after the Senate approved his nomination.
President Obama nominated the 62-year-old Bolden to as administrator May 23.
He is the first African American to serve in the post full-time, although Frederick D. Gregory, a black shuttle astronaut, served as acting administrator from February 2005 to April of that year.
Bolden is the second former astronaut to head the agency. Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly lead the agency from 1989 to 1992.
Bolden is taking over NASA when there are disagreements about its future. NASA will retire its three remaining space shuttles by the end of 2010 and develop the next generation of rockets that will not carry astronauts until at least 2015.
Bolden noted the challenges ahead in a statement.
"Today, we have to choose. Either we can invest in building on our hard-earned world technological leadership or we can abandon this commitment, ceding it to other nations that are working diligently to push the frontiers of space," he said. If we choose to lead, we must build on our investment in the International Space Station, accelerate development of our next generation launch systems to enable expansion of human exploration, enhance NASA's capability to study Earth's environment, lead space science to new achievements, continue cutting-edge aeronautics research, support the innovation of American entrepreneurs, and inspire a rising generation of boys and girls to seek careers in science, technology, engineering and math." NASA, which is based in Washington, manages 11 space programs, including the Johnson Space Center in Houston, and the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Bolden joined NASA from JACK and PANTHER LLC, an aerospace-consulting firm based in Houston.
This is Bolden's second time working for NASA. A career officer in the United States Marine Corps, Bolden spent 14 of his 35 years in the Marines assigned to NASA beginning 1980. He traveled into space four times between 1986 and 1994. He commanded two of the four flights.
His flights included deployment of the Hubble Telescope and manning the first U.S.-Russian shuttle mission, which featured a cosmonaut as a member of the crew. Following his last space flight in 1994, he served as commandant of the United States Naval Academy, where he had graduated in 1968 with a bachelors degree in electrical science. After graduation, he joined the Marines and became a naval aviator, serving as a combat pilot in Vietnam and later as a test pilot.
A native of Columbia, S.C., Bolden retired from the Marines as major general in 2003.
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A. Barry Rand Named
CEO Of AARP
A. Barry Rand, former executive vice president of worldwide operations for Xerox Corp., has been named CEO of AARP, the world's largest membership organization for individuals 50-years old and older.
The board of directors of AARP, which has its headquarters in Washington, selected Rand to succeed Bill Novelli, who led the organization for eight years, according to the website AARP.org.
Rand is the first African-American man to lead AARP, formerly known as as the American Association of Retired Persons, which has 40 million members nationwide. He began his new job in April.
The 64-year-old Rand, a native of Washington, D.C., says he will focus his efforts on improving health care. "AARP and I have long shared the belief that health care and long-term financial security should be goals of this nation--goals we all have an obligation to help achieve from government to corporate America to the individual," Rand said in a statement.
Rand attended a White House ceremony in June in which President Barack Obama announced plans to slash the prescription drug expenses of Medicare beneficiaries who fall into part D coverage. Beneficiaries would pay 50% of the cost of brand-name drugs instead of the 100% they now pay.
The White House and Max Baucus, the Senate Finance chairman, brokered an $80 billion deal in which drug manufacturers agreed to donate half the cost of their brand name and biological drugs to people who fall into the Part D coverage gap. The new benefit is part of the health care reform package.
The Medicare Part D program provides
beneficiaries with assistance paying for prescription drugs. The drug
benefit, added to Medicare by the Medicare Prescription Drug,
Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, (MMA), began in January 2006.
Unlike coverage in Medicare Parts A and B, Part D
coverage is not provided within the traditional Medicare program.
Instead, beneficiaries must affirmatively enroll in one of many hundreds
of Part D plans offered by private companies.
Rand called the agreement a 'significant breakthrough on the road to health care reform."
Prior to joining AARP, Rand began his career as a sales representative at Xerox in 1968. He rose through Xerox's ranks, becoming executive vice president of Worldwide Operations. In this position, he was responsible for Xerox's $18 billion business, overseeing 70,000 employees in 150 countries.
Business observers were certain that Rand would become the first black man named CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Instead in 1999, Rand was passed over for the top job, and he left Xerox.
The board of Avis Group Holdings Inc. later named him CEO. He transformed Avis from the world's second largest car rental company to the world's leading service and information provider of comprehensive automotive transportation and vehicle management solutions. Cendant Corp. purchased Avis in 2001. In January 2003, Equitant Ltd., a Ireland-based company that provides outsourced management services, named him CEO. IBM Corp. purchased Equitant in 2005.
In addition to AARP, Rand is chairman of the board of Howard University. He is a graduate of American University and earned an masters degree in business administration from Standford University.
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Henry Louis Gates will investigate racial profiling,
following his arrest. |
Gates Will Film Documentary
On Racial Profiling
Henry Louis Gates, who charged his recent arrest involved racial profiling, said he will present the history of racial profiling in an upcoming documentary for the Public Broadcasting System.
Gates disclosed plans for the documentary in a single sentence, which was included in a much larger statement published by The Root, an online newspaper, which he is editor.
"I look forward to studying the history of racial profiling in a new documentary for PBS," wrote Gates, explaining that his arrest can be used to diminish racial profiling and to enhance equity in the criminal justice system for poor people and people of color.
Gates did not provide details about the planned documentary, nor did he say when he expects it will be televised.
Gates is a good friend of President Barack Obama, and the Obama administration says it is committed to ending racial profiling.
Gates' arrest may provide the U.S. Justice Department with an
opportunity to study the effectiveness of racial profiling as a
crime-fighting tool used by law enforcement, an approach U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has questioned.
During his career in the Illinois Senate, Obama studied and crafted legislation prohibiting racial profiling. The President has referred to Gates' arrest as a "teachable moment" for the country to discuss the issue of racial stereotyping. Gates' arrest has sparked discussions, echoing Rosa Parks' arrest in 1955, which galvanized blacks to boycott buses in Montgomery, Ala., to improve their lives.
Some scholars have referred to Gates as racial profiling's Rosa Parks. Like Parks, Gates, a Harvard University professor, and a world renown scholar, has an impeccable character. Prior to his recent arrest, police never had arrested him.
Gates' decision to produce a documentary focusing on racial profiling follows his July 16 arrest at his Cambridge, Mass., home by Sgt. James Crowley, a Cambridge police officer.
Included in the statement published by The Root, Gates said he will have a beer at the White House with Crowley and President Obama to discuss racial profiling. Gates and Crowley will visit the White House at President Barack Obama's invitation.
Gates also said, "It was very kind of the President to phone me today [July 24]. Vernon Jordan is absolutely correct; my unfortunate experience will only have a larger meaning if we can all use this to diminish racial profiling and to enhance fairness and equity in the criminal justice system for poor people and for people of color."
Crowley arrested Gates at his home after a white woman Lucia Whalen telephoned the police, saying that two black men were breaking into the house through its front door.
Gates had just returned from China, where he was filming a documentary about immigration to the United States.
He could not open the door because it was jammed, and he asked the cab driver to help him force it open. Crowley arrived with several other officers, including a black police officer, who arrested Gates. Crowley charged Gates with disorderly conduct, but the Middlesex County district attorney's office dropped the charge.
President Obama said the Cambridge police acted 'stupidly' in arresting Gates, and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick called Gates' arrest "every black man's nightmare."
Police unions supporting Crowley demanded apologies from President Obama and Gov. Patrick.
With respect to racial profiling, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Rights Working Group, a Washington-based group concerned with the restoration of civil liberties, following 9/11, wrote in a 71-page study titled "The Persistence of Racial and Ethnic Profiling in the United States."
The report states that racial profiling is "major cause of the disproportionate stopping and searching of racial minorities by law enforcement officials."
Recently, Holder said ending racial profiling was a priority for the Obama administration, and racial profiling was not good law enforcement, according to the ACLU. The ACLU submitted its report June 30 on racial profiling to the United Nations.
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E. Lynn Harris Dead At 54
E. Lynn Harris, a prolific author of novels about black-gay life, died Thursday, July 24, while on a West Coast book tour.
The 54-year-old Harris was found dead in his Los Angeles' hotel room, said his publicist, Laura Gilmore. It is not known what caused his death.
Harris wrote 14 novels, and 10 became New York Times' best sellers. Harris found success through perseverance, confidence and hard work.
When he could not find a company willing to publish is first book Invisible Life, he published it himself in 1991. He sold the book from the trunk of his car to black beauty salons and bookstores.
He credited Invisible Life with launching his career and helping him come to terms with his sexuality.
"When I wrote Invisible Life, it was the first book out of me--it helped me deal with my own sexuality," Harris told an interviewer in 2000. "For me, my 20s and early 30s were spent just hiding and running because there was no one to tell me that my life had value and the way I felt was okay."
Some credit Harris with developing the black gay novel, which described the double life some black men lived--being being married to a woman on one hand and having a series of male lovers.
James Baldwin, the openly gay writer, also wrote about gay life in his 1956 novel, Giovanni's Room. Harris received the James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence in 1998 for his novel If This World Were Mine. Not all of Harris' book were about black-gay life. In 2004, he wrote What Becomes of the Brokenhearted--A Memoir.
Harris was born in Flint, Mich., on June 20, 1955, but he grew up in Little Rock, Ark. In his memoir, he wrote about almost committing suicide to escape his abusive stepfather. He attended the University of Arkansas, where he became the school's first male cheerleader. He also taught cheerleading at the University of Arkansas. After graduation, he worked as a computer salesman for IBM. ^ Top|Share |
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