Pre-Ramble: Ok, that’s it.  Somebody needs to start keeping a closer eye on these scientific break-through, expert, researcher people.

Just when I thought I was on the righteous road to health and happiness …  All those good clean living habits – green leafy foods …, running circles around myself …, popping vitamin D’s …, flossing regularly…, cutting back on sweets (a little) …, and, ever since Conan went off the air, even getting a decent amount of sleep. … I figured that I had more than checked that box that asks, “Are you basically taller than you are wide?” …

Well, now, according to a study conducted at the Mayo Clinic, “fat” can be a significant factor in your health, even if you look and weigh in THIN. !

So, basically what they’re telling me is that I can work out and eat “super-foods” ’til I’m blue in the face (blueberries have topped the superfoods list for a couple of years running), and I could still be considered a fatty? 

No way.

Yes way. Cardiologist Francisco Lopez-Jimenez and his team have studied body-mass index data from over 6,000 Americans and found that those who looked to be of normal weight but had a high percentage of body fat were “at significantly greater risk of future heart problems than those with lower amounts of fat … their bodies behave like they are obese, but they are not.” Lopez-Jimenez estimates that as many as 30 million Americans could fall into the category which he has named “normal-weight-obesity.”

Great. We thought we were a nation of slovenly, rotund, bacon-eaters BEFORE — NOW, even the folks who can slither into their skinny jeans are potentially suspect. And, even if we are able to cinch that belt in another couple of notches, the only way to know for sure if you are obese … or rather, “at increased risk,” is to measure the fat to muscle ratio. 

While there’s not yet an app for that, body fat can apparently be measured using a special scale that passes a small electrical current through body tissue. (Look for the study that finds that the majority of people who measure body fat index with these special scales are at increased risk for repeated electrocution to the feet.)

I’m sorry, but I am not going to pull my head out of the sand to buy into every one of these scientific break-throughs that comes along – at least not right away. Remember when eggs were evil and oat bran was going to save the world?  Remember when we were supposed to eat a whole bunch of fish? … until — wait, … just kidding,… too much of that stuff will give you mercury poisoning … I’m just saying … what’s next? Are scientists going to try and tell us that dinosaurs had red tail feathers??  Please!!

The Take-Away:  I think I’ll wait a a couple of months to see if the research holds up before I run out and throw myself onto the taser-scale.  I guess until we’re able to put some healthy skepticism into scientific speculation, my best suggestion is moderation in all things, and just in case they’re actually on to something — shake those tail feathers once in a while!!

Pre-Ramble: Well, if you’re sitting at your computer reading this blog, you’re probably going to want to read real fast and then get up and take a lap …

This just in: Health experts warn that “sitting is deadly.”

That’s right. Sitting. Sitting in your office, … in the car, … on the couch, … at the movies, … on the porch, … at the dinner table … wherever…

Apparently, it doesn’t matter where the sitting takes place, it’s all about the overall number of hours spent in a seated position.  According to an article in this week’s British Journal of Sports Medicine,

After four hours of sitting, the body starts to send harmful signals … genes that regulate the amount of glucose and fat in the body start to shut down … Research is preliminary, but several studies suggest that people who spend most of their days sitting are more likely to be fat, have a heart attack or even die.”

Get up, lard butt. I always feel antsy when I have to sit in a meeting for longer than 45 minutes, … I can practically feel the blood pooling in my ankles and the few traces of muscle fiber left in my big old fanny breaking down, but I always thought that was just me being impatient or squirrely. Now I know that it’s actually the genes in my backside degenerating. 

It’s clear that there needs to be a whole lot more research and some useful metrics on this scenario. For example, are these researchers telling me that a marathon-runner sitting on the beach in a lounge chair is in greater danger than, say, a truck driver standing at the bar eating a double cheese-steak?  When does the “generally-accepted-as-healthy-sitting-down-person” trump the “generally-accepted-as-unhealthy-standing-up-person”?  I need to see a graph. 

Well and then …  Have you ever wondered if articles that appear side-by-side in the newspaper ever read each other?  I’m pretty sure they don’t, or else a researcher from the ”Sitting is deadly“ article would totally have called the researcher from the adjacent, “Young people are getting more screen time than ever” article to sound the alarm.

This doesn’t sit well …  A ten-year-long study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation on 2,000 young people between the ages of 8 and 18 confirms that youth are now spending more hours on the computer, in front of a television, playing video games, texting and listening to music than an adult spends full-time at work — more than 53 hours per week. The study goes on to report a positive correlation between kids who spent the most time in front of electronic media and earning poor grades, getting into trouble and reporting that they are “often sad.”

With the exception of the Wii, an entire generation of kids - millions and millions of them – will have been sitting on their failing sorry asses in front of a screen for the better part of their lives. The public health ramifications could be daunting; the personal health ramifications, even more so.

The Take-Away: For gosh sake, GET UP AND MOVE AROUND!