Archive for Entertainment Patrol

Soda Can Pack on the Pounds: A Morbidly Obese Guest on “The Dr. Phil Show” Learns The Truth About Her Addiction to Soft Drinks

Posted in Celebrity Corner, Diabetes Articles, Entertainment Patrol, Obesity News, Soda Spotlight by Jennifer Moore on May 8th, 2007

TV talk show host and psychologist Phil McGraw (a.k.a. "Dr. Phil") -- author of The Ultimate Weight Solution -- often describes his work as giving people wake up calls about their lives and behaviors.

He delivered a real-eye opener on a recent episode of "The Dr. Phil Show", called "Overweight and Forgotten."

His first guest was a morbidly obese woman named Lorna, who weighs an astounding 650 to 700 pounds.  Needless to say, Lorna is an invalid because of her weight, and sadly, she depends on an allegedly abusive boyfriend named Blair to take care of her.

So how on earth did Lorna come to be so heavy?

On the "The Dr. Phil Show," she claimed she doesn't eat much -- coffee and bagel with cheese or Cheez Wiz for lunch, a steak, a potato, and some vegetables for dinner, and no lunch most of the time. Dr. Phil didn't quite believe that -- and neither do I.

However, boyfriend Blair mentioned that Lorna consumes as much as three liters of soda every day!

Despite her denial about the rest of her diet, Lorna admitted to ingesting that all those sugary drinks on a daily basis. With some prodding, she recognized that her soda jones is a significant contributor to her obesity.

I felt greatly saddened by Lorna's predicament. I simply can't imagine weighing 650 to 700 pounds -- it's such a massive amount of weight that it probably seems an exceedingly daunting task to do anything about it. But her life is literally at risk if she doesn't do something -- and soon.

Hurrah for Dr. Phil for getting right to the heart of the matter.

He displayed a graphic that revealed this startling information: If Lorna did nothing else but drop the sugary soda, she'd lose 125 pounds in one year.

Indeed, according to his calculations, she ingests 1,200 calories per day in soda alone (or nearly half a million calories a year!

“If you add to that the proper medical care, the proper exercise — and there is very much that you can do, even in the condition that you are now — then you can begin to have an impact on all of these things," Dr. Phil told Lorna. "You know, I’m an incurable optimist, and I don’t see this as a hopeless situation.”

Granted, losing 125 pounds in one year by dropping soda would still leave Lorna dangerously obese. But she has to start somewhere, and if she could lose that much just by cutting out soft drinks, imagine what she could do if she made other lifestyle changes, too.

Thanks to Dr. Phil for showing his viewers just how much these sweet drinks can pack on pounds. I hope Lorna heeds his advice -- as well as others similarly hooked on soft drinks.

From Jennifer Moore for the SUGAR SHOCK! Blog

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Bill Clinton and Rachael Ray Tag Team Childhood Obesity

Posted in Cause of the Month, Celebrity Corner, Diabetes Articles, Entertainment Patrol, In the News, Kudos Corner, Obesity News by Jennifer Moore on April 29th, 2007

Former President Bill Clinton and talk show host Rachael Ray are teaming up to fight the childhood obesity crisis, according to an article in the New York Times by reporter Kim Severson.

For her part, Ray just launched Yum-O, a nonprofit organization that "educates kids and their parents about cooking, enabling them to explore the joys of food while making meals that are easy, healthy, affordable and delicious," according to the group's website.

The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, the anti-childhood obesity initiative Clinton's foundation created with the American Heart Association, will be one of Ray's partners in this new venture.

Clinton's organization, the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, works with schools nationwide to improve their menus and to implement other health-giving programs. Ray will give items from her line of cookware to schools on the forefront of improving nutrition, and may even visit some of those schools as well. Together, Ray and Clinton's alliance will also promote Nickelodeon's "Go Healthy Challenge," which is part of the channel's "Let's Just Play" series.

The two announced their plans on a recent episode of the popular "The Rachael Ray Show," which reaches 4 million viewers, according to Severson's story.

Clinton's zeal on this issue was partly inspired by his 2004 quadruple bypass, which, as he says in this clip of his appearance on Ray's show, was necessitated by years of indulging in fast food, fried foods and other artery-clogging stuff.

Both Clinton and Ray will bring an amazing amount of star power to this worthy endeavor. In fact, Clinton has interesting weight tales himself -- he was overweight as a child, he tells Rachel Ray, noting that when he was 13, he was 5'8" and weighed 185 pounds.

Of the scary possibility that today's generation of kids may actually face shorter life expectancies than their parents, Clinton declared "it will be immoral if we let that happen," according to the New York Times story. I couldn't agree more!

His appearance on "The Rachael Ray Show," isn't the only time that Clinton's been sounding the alarms about childhood obesity lately.

Now, a cynic might ask why Clinton didn't do more about the issue of childhood obesity when he was president -- and that's certainly a valid one. And not every recipe on Ray's Yum-O website is a perfect example of healthy food, in my opinion (like her Chocolate Yogurt Parfait).

But for me, raising a 4-year-old in this junk-food saturated world, it's never too late for our leaders and celebrities to take action, and I don't need perfection. I applaud Clinton and Ray for trying to address the very serious issue of childhood obesity, and I hope that their popularity and influence will inspire others to take action, too.

From Jennifer Moore

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