That’s because improving your physical and mental health gives you a strong leg up on hiking the Alleghenies, getting back your 32-inch waistline, learning a foreign language, running your first marathon and countless other life-enhancing changes.

Our list of five resolutions starts with one we think you’ll especially appreciate:

Think in terms of what you’re gaining, not what you’re forcing yourself to sacrifice. “Giving up cheese chile rellenos” sounds rather punitive, doesn’t it? One might even say it unfairly demonizes one of the noblest examples of Texas-Mexican fusion cuisine. So why not set the positive goal of balancing culinary pleasure with health eating? Work with your doctor to create a dietary plan that gets you where you want to be — and allows occasional gooey, queso-rific rewards for a job well done.

Slow the throttle on aging. For our first three decades or so, youthful health and fitness are durable assets we can almost take for granted. From then on, they’re conditional gifts we have to work to maintain. The best way to do that is a half hour or so per day of vigorous physical activity. If you lack the time for daily gym visits or the cash for a personal trainer, get creative.

From your body’s standpoint, a six-level parking garage is as good a walking track as a hilly hiking trail. Office building stairs sub nicely for Stairmasters. Dumbbells store neatly under a desk and can work almost as many muscle groups as a multifunction exercise machine. Then, on the weekend, set your DVR to record less urgent games and use the daylight to play Frisbee or touch football with your kids, ride a bicycle or do a long-delayed home repair project.

The satisfaction and visible benefits of exercise grow more obvious over time because, although physical activity can’t keep your hair as dark and lush as a 20-year-old’s, it can put the brakes on most other physical and mental signs of aging. For advice on lifelong physical health and fitness, go to the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services’ websites GetFitTexas (www.getfittexas.org) and Texercise (www.texercise.com), or the Department of State Health Services’ Walk Texas! Site (http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/diabetes/walktx.shtm).

Take a breather: Quit smoking. Yes, we did urge you to think in turns of what you can add, not give up during 2012. But really, can it be anything but a plus to spare your lungs a daily bombardment of more than a dozen harmful chemicals (including arsenic, benzene, formaldehyde and vinyl chloride) and dramatically lower your risk of lung cancer and emphysema? You’ll need plenty of will power and help to succeed, but it’s well worth the effort. Start by visiting the Yes! I’m Ready to Quit website (www.dshs.state.tx.us/tobacco/quityes.shtm).

Head off or control adult-onset diabetes. Heredity, ethnicity and age all can influence risk of diabetes, but other variables are under our control. If you’re 45 or older, the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) recommends a test for diabetes every three years. If you’re at risk for diabetes, there are plenty of steps you can take to manage it, including dietary changes, physical activity and blood sugar monitoring. For more information, visit DSHS’ Diabetes Prevention and Control Program website (www.dshs.state.tx.us/diabetes/tdcprgrm.shtm).

Volunteer in your community. For social engagement, mental stimulation and pure emotional satisfaction, few activities are more rewarding than volunteering your time and energy to improving the lives of others. Volunteers are needed in every Texas community, so you’ll never lack for opportunities to help. Start your adventure by going to the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services’ Volunteer and Community Engagement website at (www.dads.state.tx.us/volunteer/vce.html).

McDonald’s should heed a call from some of the nation’s leading health professionals and stop marketing junk food to kids.
It certainly has good reason to do so. One in three children is at risk for developing type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives as a result of diets high in McDonald’s-style junk food. This generation may be the first in U.S. history to live shorter lives than their parents.
That’s why more than 1,750 health institutions and professionals from all 50 states published full-page newspaper ads across the country in May calling on McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner to stop targeting kids with its advertising and promotions.
The ads featured an open letter signed by renowned experts like the noted pediatrician, author, and Harvard Medical School professor Dr. T. Berry Brazelton; editor in chief of The American Journal of Cardiology Dr. William C. Roberts; and Dr. Donald Zeigler, a visiting assistant professor of community and social medicine in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Rush University Medical Center. Leading health institutions, including the Chicago Hispanic Health Coalition and Oregon Academy of Family Physicians, signed too.
There were also luminaries like the Hollywood-immortalized doctor and clown, Patch Adams, as well as Oprah regular Dr. Andrew Weil. My organization, Corporate Accountability International, led the initiative to publish the ads shortly before the fast food giant’s annual meeting in May, and thanks to an outpouring of support from leading health professionals, we’re still getting the ad published in newspapers.
The letter’s signatories summed up the crisis that McDonald’s has helped create, noting that “today, our private practices, pediatric clinics, and emergency rooms are filled with children suffering from conditions related to the food they eat.”
They pointed to the growing body of evidence, from organizations like the Institute of Medicine to the National Bureau of Economic Research, which shows that kids’ health can significantly improve when companies stop urging them to eat unhealthy food.
McDonald’s, like the rest of the fast food and junk food industry, often tries to get off the hook by blaming the alarming pediatric health crisis on a breakdown in parental responsibility. However, research doesn’t back that argument up. A Yale-Rudd Center study found no authoritative data indicating such a breakdown has occurred. And a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study concluded that adolescents exercise as much as they did two decades ago, when rates of obesity and other diet-related disease were significantly lower.
So what has changed?
The food children eat and the amount of marketing bombarding our youth. Every year McDonald’s spends at least $400 million on marketing directed at U.S. kids. The comparatively under-resourced prevention and public education initiatives are at a significant disadvantage to compete with such marketing might.
Adding further impetus for McDonald’s to retire Ronald McDonald and other kid-focused promotions were the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, who brought forward a shareholder resolution at the company’s annual meeting. With support from 13 other institutional investors, the Sisters appealed to the corporation to assess its “health footprint.”
After all, McDonald’s fast food and its marketing are taking a real toll on the public’s health, as the Sisters noted in their remarks. It’s irresponsible for the corporation not to publicly assess this impact.
Patti Lynn is the Corporate Accountability International campaigns director. For more information, visit www.LetterToMcDonalds.org

The Center for Disease Control reports that diabetes has become one of the most common chronic health problems for American children and adolescents.  Approximately 151,000 patients under age 20 have the disease.

Traditionally when the illness has afflicted children it has been Type One, or juvenile onset diabetes.  Yet over the past 20 years there has been a steadily increasing incidence of Type Two (adult onset) Diabetes among American children and adolescents.  Studies in Europe have also revealed a growing frequency of Type One Diabetes in young children.

East generic cialis canadian Texas phentermine without prescription Medical Center (ETMC) sponsored a camp for more than 40 diabetes at-risk children.  Called the East Texas Medical Center Growing Together Day Camp the event provided children with hiking, fishing, swimming, archery, rope courses, arts and crafts and, especially, diabetes education.  The campers ranged from age 6 to 15 and already suffer from both Type One or Type Two diabetes, or are overweight, and other campers who are at risk because of genetic factors.

Thirteen-year-old Taylor Betts is from Lindale, and attended because she became diabetic following an illness.  The camp taught her that having the disease is not a cause for shame, and that talking about it can help.  She found the camp an empowering experience and taught her she can do the same things as a non-diabetic child.  Siblings Nathan and Terianna Mbariket, and Laura Floyd, meanwhile, attended because of their families’ history of diabetes.

One of the most fascinating campers was Illissa Vandergriff from Chandler, who developed diabetes at the tender age of 23 months.  She learned the importance of exercise.  Armed with this new realization she aims to start participating in scholastic sports programs.  She discussed how she has become comfortable with and adept at using her second insulin pump.  She got her first one at age six.  She explained how the pump administers small amounts of insulin without her having to take injections.  Outgoing and confident she spoke of how eager she is to commence serious athletics and exercise because this will help regulate her insulin naturally.

“I do not feel embarrassed,” she said.  “I just want people around me to know that I have a pump and what it does so if I need help they will be able to render it fast.”

Although she has not yet decided on a career, she is certain of one thing:

“I will do something where I can give advice to people about diabetes,” she said.  “I am going to be someone who helps others.”

Camp Director Anjani Upponi is an instructor for the ETMC Diabetes University.  She said the camp helps children learn about diabetes if they can enjoy themselves during the education process.  She described children as being more accepting of unwanted facts than are adults.  When it is time to take their blood sugar they simply do it, although this may change when they are older.

“They see themselves as being in charge, and it won’t be cool to wear a diabetic pump,” she said.

Still, she is very positive about what faces diabetic patients.

“We know more now.  We have more choices.  We have made great advances,” she said.  “We have more physiological experience, and we encourage updates in education.”

She herself has a family history of diabetes, and she daily fights to avoid contracting the disease with exercise and good nutrition.

“Exercise is absolutely crucial,” she said.  “Exercise is the sole way to make sure the body wakes up…wakes up the insulin that opens the door to the body.”

She also spelled out the four pillars of diabetic management–food, medication, exercise and emotional health.

“Exercise is a type of medicine,” she said.  “Just get up and do something.  Just get moving.”

She described how the whole world is partaking of “easy food.”  Easy food is fast food, not  cooking your own good nutritious food -  this leads to obesity.

“Exercise and nutrition must become one of the core courses right from elementary school if the world is to survive the disease onslaught that comes with easy food,” she said.  “No matter what you do, eat right and lose weight.  Period.”

For further information on ETMC and its diabetic camp or diabetes education please call (903) 596-3763.

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Heart disease, 27.2% of total deaths
Cancer, 24.3% of total deaths
Unintentional injuries, 6.1% of total deaths
Stroke, 5% of total deaths
Chronic lower respiratory diseases, 5% of total deaths
Diabetes, 3% of total deaths
Influenza and pneumonia, 2.3% of total deaths
Suicide, 2.2% of total deaths
Kidney disease, 1.7% of total deaths
Alzheimer’s disease, 1.6% of total deaths

Heart disease, stroke, respiratory diseases and kidney disease are actually preventable illnesses if only men will learn how to live a healthier lifestyle in the first place.
Healthy Woman, a FREE Longview Regional Medical Center resource will be holding a seminar Thursday, June 10 on the above topic. Come and get the information for the male individuals in your life. Dr. Robert Warden is the presenter.
To register or get more information, please call Claire Henderson at Longview Regional Medical Center marketing department at 903-381-7238 or 903-381-7239 or register on line at www.longviewregional.com