Recent News: Documentary on Obese Teenager

Documentary focuses on teenager as it looks at national childhood obesity crisis

Pam LeBlanc, Fit City

When Ashley Castoreno was a baby, her parents put Big Red soda in her bottle to quiet her. Growing up, she never learned to bike or swim. At school, someone once taped a sign on her back that said, "Don't feed the cow."

By the time she was a senior in high school, Castoreno was more than 100 pounds overweight — and typical of a growing segment of American children.

But in the past year and a half, Castoreno, now 20, has shed weight, gotten hooked on running and traveled to Washington, D.C., to tell legislators what it's like to grow up obese and why it's important to keep physical education in the classroom.

Her story is featured in a new documentary by first-time Austin filmmaker Jen Ohlson, a former Austin sports reporter and author of the coffee-table book "Every Town Needs a Trail."

Ohlson founded the nonprofit PE3: Mind, Body, Spirit in 2009 with the goal of improving physical education in public schools. One way to do that, she decided, was to tell the story of childhood obesity by focusing on one student.

Read more...

DJ Diamond Kuts Supports Our Children's Sports & Fitness Expo

 (Pictured: Dawn Hardy, Publicist; Vincent Ferguson, President/CEO of Body Sculpt of New York, Inc.; DJ Diamond Kuts)

Monday, May 9, 2011, DJ Diamond Kuts came out to Boys & Girls High School to show her support for our upcoming 8th Annual Children's Sports & Fitness Expo and filmed a short promotional video. You'll soon be able to check out her video once we launch our revamped website: www.bodysculpt.org

Recent News: The "Friend Effect" of Obesity

How Obesity Spreads Among Friends

May 5, 2011 | 4:09 PM ET | By Rachael Rettner, MyHealthNewsDaily Staff Writer 

 

Obesity is known to spread among friends, but how does this transmission happen?
Obesity spreads socially not because friends have shared ideas about acceptable body size, but rather because they share environments and carry out activities together that may contribute to weight gain, a new study suggests.
 

In other words, shared social behaviors, such as eating out at restaurants, and shared surroundings, likely play a bigger role in the obesity "friend effect" than do shared social norms.

The study suggests ways public health professionals can best combat the obesity epidemic in America. For instance, it suggests interventions that try to change people's ideas about how fat or thin they should be won't be very effective.

"What people think about others' bodies is not that important to protecting them against weight gain," said study researcher Alexandra Brewis, director of the Center for Global Health at Arizona State University. "There's a lot of assumption that you can shame people into losing weight through social pressure," Brewis told MyHealthNewsDaily. "That strategy is probably not going to work very well," she said.

Instead, efforts should focus on promoting healthy environments, for instance, making people's neighborhoods more walkable and increasing access to healthy foods, the researchers say.
"We need to focus on what people do together, rather than what people think," Brewis said.

 Read more...

Recent News: Man on a mission across America, and on Staten Island, too

By Jodi Lee Reifer  

Published: Monday, April 25, 2011, 6:02 AM

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Blisters punishing his feet and with dehydration a constant threat, Dean Karnazes could easily give up on his 3,000-mile run across America. And no one would blame him.

But the ultramarathoner — whose trek began in California and will end in Manhattan, after taking a turn through Staten Island — never really considers quitting.

He knows the road hazards are minor compared to one of the biggest dangers facing this country: Childhood obesity.

“It’s an epidemic,” Karnazes says, by cell phone about two miles from the Indiana-Ohio border, 53 days into what is expected to be a 75-day trek.

“It’s very important to the future of this country. The healthcare costs are staggering, but even beyond that, the quality of life costs are higher.”

The 48-year-old New York Times best-selling author of “Ultramarathon Man,” set out on his cross-country journey after the producers of ABC’s “Live! with Regis and Kelly” invited him to undertake the challenge to inspire Americans to become more active and healthier.

Officially, the effort is dubbed “Regis & Kelly’s Run Across America with Dean Karnazes.” The show is following his progress on air and on the website, liveregisandkelly.com.  Read more...

Recent News: McDonald's grimaces at Happy Meal lawsuit

By DAN LEVINE Reuters
Published Wednesday April 20th, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO - A lawsuit seeking to stop McDonald's Corp. from offering toys with Happy Meals must be dismissed because parents can always choose not to buy the meals for their children, the hamburger giant said in a court filing late Monday.

A lawsuit is seeking to stop McDonald's Corp. from offering toys with Happy Meals.

The lawsuit accuses McDonald's of unfairly using toys to lure children into its restaurants. The plaintiff, Monet Parham, a Sacramento, California mother of two, charges that the company's advertising violates California consumer protection laws.

The Happy Meal has been a huge hit for McDonald's - making the company one of the world's largest toy distributors - and spawning me-too offerings at most other fast-food chains.

One recent and very successful Happy Meal promotion was a tie-in with the popular DreamWorks Animation film Shrek Forever After. The meals included toy watches fashioned after the movie's characters Shrek, Donkey, Gingy and Puss in Boots.

McDonald's use of Happy Meal toys also has come under fire from public health officials, parents and lawmakers who are frustrated with rising childhood obesity rates and weak anti-obesity efforts from restaurant operators, which are largely self-regulated. Read more...

Recent News: For schoolchildren, where's the water?

By William Hudson, CNN

April 18, 2011 8:19 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- When 12-year-old Mason went to lunch each day last year, he could choose between orange juice and milk, but he couldn't get a cup of water.

Like many public schools, his doesn't provide cups. To have free water with his lunch, Mason would have to wait in line at a water fountain shared by hundreds of other middle-school students and take a few sips of water before returning to eat.

Not surprisingly, he usually didn't bother.

His mother, Johanna Whittlesey, like other parents across the country, assumed her child had enough water, but nutrition advocates believe schoolchildren's access to water is a national problem the federal government has only begun to address.

Fifteen percent of kids in Mason's age group consume adequate amounts of water, according to the CDC's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

"Since children spend a large percent of their waking hours at school, they should be consuming at least one-half their total water intake at school," says Dr. Melina Jampolis, CNNHealth's Diet and Fitness Expert.

Read more...

Ten Steps to a Flatter Stomach, Explained!

About once a month, Vincent Ferguson, NYC Fitness Czar and President of Body Sculpt of New York, Inc. holds the seminar, "How to Flatten Your Abs." During this two hour seminar, he (along with a certified nutritionist) presents ten guaranteed steps to get a flatter stomach and a fitness trainer does an hour long cardio-respiratory fitness class. During the presentation, Mr. Ferguson discusses in detail what it means to take each of the steps he presents, explains common misconceptions, and answers any questions the attendees have as they arise.

The steps truly are quite simple. However, implementing them correctly and steadfastly is where most of us fall apart.

After a few months of doing these presentations, we realized that without fail, certain questions were always being asked. As an attempt to provide better answers to participants, all of this year's monthly newsletters have included articles that provide more in depth answers to some of the seminar's most frequently asked questions, and about the ten steps themselves. Eventually, all ten steps will be answered, but for now, here are articles about:

First and foremost: The Dangers of Abdominal Fat
The Importance of Water
Why We Need to Reduce Salt Intake
The Importance of a High Fiber Diet
Why We Need to Limit High Fat Foods
What IS the Big Deal About Sugar
The Differences Between Types of Sweeteners

In the next month's newsletter (May), will be articles about Portion Control and Eating 5 Daily Meals, and Eating Late, and The Impact of Stress on Our Bodies.

If you'd like to join our newsletter mailing list send an e-mail to bodysculptofnyinc@gmail.com

Free 12 Week Fitness & Nutrition Class

Body Sculpt of New York, Inc. in Association with the Brooklyn Community Recovery Center is presenting a free 12 week exercise and nutrition class for individuals in treatment or recovery.  Please pass along this information to anyone you know who may be interested in this free service.

For more information contact Body Sculpt of New York at (718) 346-5852

Welcome!

Welcome to our new blog, where you can receive news about the organization, upcoming events, tips from NYC Fitness Czar, recent health information about obesity and diabetes, and more!

So who are we??

Body Sculpt of New York, Inc. is a not-for-profit health and fitness organization created in March 1989 by NYC Fitness Czar and President, Vincent Ferguson. Our mission is to educate adults and children about obesity and offer healthy lifestyle alternatives in fitness and nutrition. The organization consists of certified fitness instructors and nutritionists who conduct a wide variety of clinics throughout New York City.The organization provides a variety of services including the Six Weeks to Fitness Program, How to Flatten Your Abs Seminar, and Motivational Speaking.

The Six Weeks to Fitness Program is conducted by certified fitness and nutrition instructors who travel to your company, school, or church 3 days a week for six weeks. The program is designed to increase the participants' overall fitness level by focusing on cardio-respiratory endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, and flexibility. The How to Flatten Your Abs Seminar is a 2-hour program that includes and hour-long discussion with Mr. Ferguson and one of our nutritionists about guaranteed steps to achieving a flatter stomach and an hour-long fitness class conducted by one of our certified fitness instructors.

The organization is most well known for its annual Children's Sports & Fitness Expo, created in 2004. The Expo serves as a great mechanism to energize communities across the city to regularly practice consistent and varied physical activity as well as good nutrition. Thousands of children participate in over 25 sports clinics, health screenings, and nutrition classes that encourage them, along with their parents, to choose healthier lifestyles.

This year's expo will be held on Saturday, June 11, 2011 at Boys & Girls High School.

So, please, subscribe to our blog and keep up with the latest information of how we're working to eliminate obesity in New York City.

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