Questions on Health and Fitness

1.) What is the world's unhealthiest country? City?

In terms of physical fitness, America is very poor in health, but as for disease and life expectancy, America is among the highest in public health. The unhealthiest city in America is Huntington, West Virginia.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080712083106AA9kaxT

2.) What benefits come from drinking Muscle Milk or other protein supplements?

Whenever you have an good workout routine and are aiming to put on mass and increase lean muscle, then this is the best supplement on the market and can work well as a meal replacement and especially as a before bed protein supplement. While you are sleeping, this protein has the power to repair your muscles from training and will prevent you from losing muscle while you sleep.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Muscle-Milk---Why-Do-Pros-Buy-Muscle-Milk?&id=1486509

3.) What is the most popular type of exercise?

According to recent studies, more than 70 million Americans walk to exercise, making it the most popular form of exercise. Depending on the terrain and walking 3 mph, these walkers are burning 15 grams of carbohydrates per hour (100 lb. person), 21 grams per hour (150 lb. person), and 27 grams per hour (200 lb. person). They are also using about 50 percent of their body's major muscles.
http://www.diabetic-lifestyle.com/articles/nov_burni_1.htm

4.) How many calories does the typical american consume in a day?

A brief perusal of the USA yearbook shows a per Capita Daily Consumption of 3,790 Calories for the 2000-2002 years.
http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2006/12/27/do_americans_eat_3790_calories_per_day.php

5.) What are my caloric needs?
Maintenance:
2956 Calories/day

Fat Loss:
2365 Calories/day

Extreme Fat Loss:
1960 Calories/day

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

6.) What are he rates of mental illness in the country?

300 professional interviewers traveled 8 million miles over a five-year period to question nearly 9,300 U.S. adults.

Here are some of the key findings of the study, which examined anxiety disorders, mood disorders, impulse-control disorders and substance abuse disorders:

Half of all lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 14, while three-quarters begin by age 24. Anxiety disorders tend to begin in late childhood, mood disorders in late adolescence and substance abuse in the early 20s. "This interferes with accomplishing major social, educational and occupational milestones, and can cause lifelong disability," said Kathleen Ries Merikangas, lead NIMH collaborator on the study and chief of the NIMH's section on developmental genetic epidemiology.

The majority of Americans will, at some point in their lifetime, meet the diagnostic criteria for one or more mental disorders. About one quarter (26 percent) of the general population reported symptoms sufficient for diagnosing such a disorder during the past year. Most of these disorders, however, were mild and likely to resolve without treatment. "Snake phobia is a mental illness but if you live on the 35th floor of a building in Manhattan, it doesn't get in the way of life very much," Kessler said. "We need to do a better job of which mild and moderate cases are likely to become seriously debilitating."

Six percent of Americans have a severe mental health disorder, reporting a mean of 88.3 days during the past year when they felt they were unable to carry out their normal daily activities.

Anxiety disorders were the most prevalent (affecting 28.8 percent of Americans at some time in their life), followed by impulse-control disorders (24.8 percent), mood disorders (20.8 percent) and substance use disorders (14.6 percent).

In any given year, 18.1 percent of the adult population suffered anxiety disorders, 9.5 percent experienced mood disorders, 8.9 percent experienced impulse-control disorders and 3.8 percent suffered substance use disorders.

In the United States, females have higher rates of mood and anxiety disorders, while males have higher rates of substance abuse and impulse disorders.

For almost all mental disorders, individuals delayed getting treatment. The median delay was about 10 years. For social phobia and separation anxiety, the delay was 20 to 23 years and, for mood disorders, six to eight years. Almost half of all lifetime cases of substance use and impulse control disorders never obtained treatment. "Early-onset disorders are, in general, more persistent and more severe than those that start later," Kessler explained.

http://www.coolnurse.com/mental_healthusa.htm

7.) How can watching TV be harmful to your health?

Cornell University researchers are reporting what appears to be a statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching by children under the age of 3. The researchers studied autism incidence in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington state. They found that as cable television became common in California and Pennsylvania beginning around 1980, childhood autism rose more in the counties that had cable than in the counties that did not.
http://www.slate.com/id/2151538/

8.) What benefits can be derived from video games?

In the latest study to address the impact of video games on game players, researchers at the University of Rochester and Tel Aviv University have found that action-oriented video games can improve players' vision.
The findings, reported in the March 29 issue of Nature, indicate that action games offer players the chance to improve their contrast perception by as much as 58%.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/virtualworlds/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=216401807

9.) How might mental fitness impact physical fitness?

Research shows that anxiety can make you sleep fewer hours, get sick more often, remember less, become more prone to long-term disease and—as if you needed reminding—eat more. In a recent Self.com poll, 85 percent of women said that worries interfere with their ability to catch zzz's, while 71 percent say they're more irritable due to stress.

http://health.yahoo.com/experts/healthieryou/9061/stress-is-sabotaging-your-diet-success/;_ylt=Asnoiev5bNOCGrZw9n4Lr_sQ.ZN4

10.) How can we defeat stress, and improve our mental health?

Turn up the tunes. Listening to music that has a steady (not frenetic) beat may cause brain waves to keep time and relax you, research from a music symposium at Stanford University in California reports. Load your iPod with a playlist of the songs that make you happiest.

Break a sweat. Exercising for 30 minutes makes your body release chemicals that dull the physiological effects of stress response for up to a full day. But the effect only works when the activity is something you really want to do, so make sure you're psyched about channeling your energy in that cardiovascular direction.

Use a better bulb. Outfit your office lamp with an incandescent bulb, particularly if your cubicle is brightened by fluorescent lights. Incandescent and fluorescent lights work together to more closely mimic outside light. And it's sunshine (or the perception of it) that regulates the body's biorhythms. Not getting enough of it can affect hormone levels, suppressing the immune system and increasing the probability of mood swings, depression and sluggishness.