Obesity and High Blood Pressure - Are Our College Kids the Next Big Wave of Heart Attacks?
0 commentsWho would guess that young, intelligent adults attending college may already have more health issues like high blood pressure and obesity than their parents did at that age? In a study done by the University of New Hampshire of 800 undergraduates, that's just what they found.
The University has a popular Nutrition class that they intended to spice up by making it more interactive. The new syllabus called for the students conducting a number of health screens on each other to bring home the subject material. When officials looked at the finished lesson plans, they realized they had an opportunity to gather a world of health information on a demographic that is woefully understudied.
The results of the tests were surprising. Fully a third of the students were obese. Sixty percent of the men had high blood pressure. Eight percent of the men had metabolic syndrome. Nearly 45% of the women were not meeting daily nutritional needs for calcium, folate or iron.
Students completed health surveys, had their Body Mass Index computed, prepared a diary of food eaten to evaluate nutritional content, and were screened for high blood pressure, triglycerides, glucose and total cholesterol.
Nobody was more surprised at the results than the students themselves. The general perception was that high cholesterol, obesity, and blood pressure problems belonged to an older generation not to them.
The bad news is if they stay on the same health trajectory, they will represent a bigger health burden on society than their parents will. The good news is there are fewer smokers. That's about the only area of health that has improved over their parents' generation.
Perhaps not surprising but very telling is a uniform deficiency in diet of both men and women. Essential minerals and vitamins simply weren't being consumed. Study after study has shown a strong link to poor diet and diseases like obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure.
While this study probably had a personal impact on the 800 participants, the trend that they set for their demographic is a dangerous one for us as a country. If our most educated are ignorant in the basics of nutrition and healthy lifestyle, this country will be in for a major health crisis in 25 to 30 years.
Autor: Rachel Willson
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Added: January 2, 2010
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/
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