Americans Celebrate Independence Day July 4

Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, family reunions, and political speeches and ceremonies, in addition to various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Independence Day is the National Day of the United States. Two-hundred and thirty-seven years later, the United States still knows how to celebrate its independence.
Americans across the country gathered Thursday for 4th of July festivities.

July 4 Photo Gallery

About America's Independence Day

You Might Be at Risk for Diabetes

Are You Feeling Tired and Sluggish After Eating?

Ready to nap right after a big meal? This is a normal response to an influx of carbs (think of that post-Thanksgiving dinner feeling). But if it happens often, your body may be sending a message that your diet is too diabetes-friendly.
After eating, all carbohydrates -- whether in a doughnut or a carrot -- are broken down into the bloodstream as glucose (blood sugar), the body's main energy source. When the blood containing the glucose hits the pancreas, this organ gets the message to release insulin, a hormone it produces to help the cells throughout the body use glucose. Cells have insulin receptors that allow glucose to enter and either be stored as future energy or used right away.
It's a great system. But a diet that's high in simple carbs like sugar, white flour, and sweet beverages -- especially when consumed in large quantities at one sitting -- overwhelms it
What helps you: Slow your carb load. Choose more complex carbohydrates, such as whole grains (barley, oats, quinoa, spelt, brown rice), vegetables, and whole fruits (not juices) that the body has to work harder to digest. This means blood sugar stays stable longer. Move around right after eating -- take a 15-minute walk; even washing the dishes helps -- rather than plopping in front of the TV. The activity will help your body begin to process the big glucose intake faster and more efficiently.

Depression Can Be Contagious

How we perceive stressful events, interpret them, and process them has a major impact on our ability to cope adaptively with them. For example, people with cognitive vulnerabilities might perceive events more negatively, feel more helpless about them, and ruminate about them, while non-cognitively vulnerable people might see the same events as less dire, feel less paralyzed by them, take them less personally and respond to them more positively.

Obesity Crisis

Obesity is a leading preventable cause of death worldwide, with increasing prevalence in adults and children, and authorities view it as one of the most serious public health problems of the 21st century. Obesity is stigmatized in much of the modern world (particularly in the Western world), though it was widely perceived as a symbol of wealth and fertility at other times in history, and still is in some parts of the world. In 2013, the American Medical Association classified obesity as a disease.
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health. It is defined by body mass and further evaluated in terms of fat distribution via the waist–hip ratio and total cardiovascular risk factors. Body mass is closely related to both percentage body fat and total body fat. In children, a healthy weight varies with age and sex. Obesity in children and adolescents is defined not as an absolute number but in relation to a historical normal group, such that obesity is a Body mass greater than the 95th percentage.

                                                  

 What is Obesity:

Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems. People are considered obese when their body mass , a measurement obtained by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by the square of the person's height in metres, exceeds 30 kg/m².




 Obesity increases the likelihood of various diseases, particularly heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea, certain types of cancer, and osteoarthritis. Obesity is most commonly caused by a combination of excessive food energy intake, lack of physical activity, and genetic susceptibility, although a few cases are caused primarily by genes, endocrine disorders, medications or psychiatric illness. Evidence to support the view that some obese people eat little yet gain weight due to a slow metabolism is limited; on average obese people have a greater energy expenditure than their thin counterparts due to the energy required to maintain an increased body mass.

A case study  led to the prediction that if we do not take appropriate measurements to curb the increasing obesity problem and raise alarms, then by the year 2015,  2.3 billion adults will face the problem of being overweight and 700 million adults will face the problem of obesity. This in turn, will affect the economy of the health systems and associated elevation in the medical costs for the insurers.