Recently in the news across the USA there have been several reports of parents leaving their children locked in their cars, while the parents sit in a casino and gamble.

A great way to stop this from happening would be to legalize online gambling so that parents that can not afford a baby sitter will not do something as stupid as locking a small child in a car alone for several hours.

Another solution would be for the casino industry to take responsibility of the people they lure in with promises of riches beyond belief. If the casinos all offered 24 hour free daycare for all casino players those parents who are so far gone in their addiction will not have to make the decision of what to do with their children, they can just take them to the casino and let them be watched after in the casinos daycare centers.

As well as making sure children are not being neglected by their parents or legal guardians, the children in their care can be checked for signs of abuse and any parent that brings a child regularly to the casino can be talked to about gambling addiction.

Please do not get me wrong I feel the parents should be the ones taking responsibility for their kids, but gambling addiction is a disease, and at least this would provide a way for the government to monitor parents gambling habits, and to provide them with help if they need it.

Besides being the right move for the casinos to make for its own civic duty, it also makes good business sense. If the casinos offer such a service they also open themselves up to single parents that could use a little time for some adult fun, and by making the day care 24 hours a day there is no reason why a parent would leave their kid at home instead of at the casinos free daycare.

The parents could relax and have a little fun with the knowledge that their kids are being taken good care of.

This is not a new concept there are several casinos in Las Vegas that offer day care. These centers offer children of different ages fun things to do, such as all the popular videos, and games fro kids. This will appeal to people with kids. The parents get to gamble and have some adult fun and the kids get to do fun kid stuff.

By doing this the casinos will get more business and they are doing the responsible thing for their customers with gambling problems. I understand that the casinos are a business, but they should make sure that some of their less responsible gamblers do not put their children’s lives in danger just to make an extra few dollars in a multi billion dollar a year industry

If enough people recommend this to their local casinos and state officials, casinos could be required by law to provide child care when they are open.

Diabetes is the fifth-deadliest disease. Since 1987 the death rate has increased 45 percent. In 2002; diabetes claimed an astonishing 224,092 lives in the United States alone. It is believed that the number was actually higher since most deaths of the elderly had multiple chronic conditions associated with their death including diabetes. Many people do not know that they have diabetes until they develop other life threatening conditions such as, heart disease, high blood pressure, blindness, kidney damage, nervous system damage, dental disease, sexual dysfunction, and a number of other complications. When you have diabetes the above complication are side illnesses, diabetes is this root of all of your medical problems and must be under control for you to recover from the side illnesses period! Being checked by your physician on a regular basis is absolutely necessary for your overall quality of life. If you do not know that you have diabetes, there is no other way of knowing that you have this deadly disease without a check up.

There are several different types of diabetes such as, type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes. Type 1 is the body’s inability to produce insulin, people with type 1 are insulin dependent for the remainder of their lives, and they must also keep close track of their diets. Type 2 is the most common form of diabetes; diabetes is a chronic disease and has no cure. While an estimated 14 million people have been diagnosed with diabetes it is also estimated that close to 6.2 million are unaware that they have this deadly disease. In 2005 1.5 million new cases were diagnosed in people age 20 and above. If this dangerous trend continues it is believed that 1 in 3 Americans will develop diabetes in their lifetime. It is also estimated that 41 million Americans have pre-diabetes today.

Pre-diabetes is a dangerous condition in itself, this is when the glucose level in the blood is not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes yet damage is being done to your internal organs. The body can not handle any unsafe level of sugar or glucose in the blood for any extended period of time.

Diabetes is the body’s inability to use the sugar called glucose. Glucose is created when the body breaks down food for energy. The hormone insulin opens up the cells in the body to allow glucose to enter into the cell and be used as fuel. In diabetes the cell never opens up and the glucose flows through the blood stream causing high blood sugar levels. With diabetes the body either dose not make enough insulin or is resistant to its own natural insulin. High blood sugar can lead to very serious complications. Heart disease is the leading cause of premature death in people with diabetes. Diabetes is the major cause of leg and foot amputations in Americans today. Infections are much harder to control in people with diabetes, they are at greater risk of complications and death due to infection. The high risk factors leading to type 2 diabetes is too much body fat and high sugar intake!
Diabetes is on the rise; Americans are eating poorly and are lacking physical activity and this is starting to really show in the children of America.

Free-radicals are very active in a person with diabetes. They attack a number of cells at once because diabetes causes an abnormal immune function due to high glucose levels in the blood and organs. Free-radicals are the reason you see so many different complications or side illnesses in this disease. Free-radicals are molecules or atoms that are missing an electron, free-radicals attack healthy cells trying to steal an electron from them. Chronic inflammation is also a major player with this disease and in the side illnesses. Chronic inflammation is being called the silent killer by doctors and scientists. All of the above diseases need medications to help regulate the disease, but you need to know this, medications cause free-radical damage, and this damage is called side effects. All medications can cause side effects. So eating properly to help your condition is absolutely essential for your life.

Think of free-radicals as a school of piranha, they feed on everything in sight, they are not picky eaters. Free-radicals cause healthy cells to become mutated or deformed and they attack any cell they come in contact with. Now if they do manage to steal an electron then that once healthy cell, in turn, becomes a free-radical doing what was done to it. This is a vicious cycle, basically there is a war going on inside your body. You can not see or feel this war but it is there, and one day it will show its ugly head in the form of a serious disease or illness. You must be on the defensive and feed your body what it needs in order to combat these little piranhas.

Inflammation is a bully, after the free-radicals have done the damage the inflammation is sent by the body to help heal but it is unable to heal mutations and deformities so the deformed or mutated cells begin to feed on the healthy inflammation cells. Now the inflammation cells are deformed or mutated and become chronic inflammation cells, the chronic inflammation cells begin attacking your healthy tissues and cells.

You have the power to take your health into your own hands and put a stop to the damage now. As we know anti-oxidants help the body fight against free-radicals, anti-oxidants are molecules or atoms that has an extra electron. It gives this extra electron away and in turn the free-radicals stop attacking healthy cells. Science has proven that ALL diseases and illnesses are caused by free-radical damage and the vast majority have chronic inflammation as their side kick. There are risk factors for all diseases but free-radicals and chronic inflammation are the source and cause of major complications. Free-radicals can not be avoided; they are in air and water pollution, in the junk foods we eat, and caused by traumas and injuries. Free-radicals are a part of life; they even affect the aging process itself.
Anti-oxidants are essential for health, plants contain about 1,000 to 1,500 anti-oxidants, a diet of fruits and vegetables is essential, supplements are key, vitamins and minerals contain high numbers of anti-oxidants. You need to do some research and try to find fresh supplements; they tend to lose their potency the longer they sit on the self.

Anyone with diabetes or even pre-diabetes must re-think their diets, moving towards fresh and properly cooked foods, stay away from fast foods and anything with high sugar content. Taking in a large number of anti-oxidants everyday, is essential to help your body recover and maintain better overall health. Type 2 diabetes can be controlled with diet and exercise, as long as you begin now. Pre-diabetes can be reversed.

There are also super charged, super powerful anti-oxidants in nature called Xanthones. Xanthones have the power to defeat a larger number of free-radicals at one time, due to strong carbon bonds that make the molecule stable. Each Xanthone performs a specific biological function inside the body unlike regular anti-oxidants. Universities and scientists have been studying xanthones for over 20 years. Scientists have found that xanthones are able to relieve a variety of problems and also help in the improvement of serious conditions. This is the reason that more and more universities and scientists are becoming involved in the research on these amazing xanthones. Two hundred xanthones have been identified in nature, and 41 are in the mangosteen fruit alone, you can compare that to the Aloe Vera plant that contains only one xanthone. The mangosteen fruit also contains 25,000 anti-oxidants. How can that help your health? The mangosteen fruit has the highest number of anti-oxidants and xanthones ever found in one source. One thing about xanthones you need to know is that they must be consumed in their natural form. For more information on xanthones you can call toll free 1-888-374-4148 and listen to a message about the mangosteen fruit juice and its powerful medicinal abilities.

People with diabetes are ruled by their medications and checking their blood everyday, they must see their doctor on a regular basis in order to keep their blood sugars under control by adjusting their medication. If their sugar goes too far up or too far down, massive damage to the internal organs and tissues is done and even the brain is affected, and can cause comma. This is a very deadly disease, but with the right food intake it dose not have to be, take care of your self.

These are just a few habits you can embrace to start revving your metabolism right away. You may have heard stories about people who have lost dozens of pounds simply switching to diet soda or walking a few minutes each day. These are all small habits that contribute to a big difference and increase your metabolism over time. You will make weight loss quicker and easier by increasing your metabolic rate and burning more calories.

1 Move More

Sedentary people burn about one-third less calories per day. By simply taking every opportunity to move can make quite a dramatic difference to the amount of calories you burn in one day. Small movements will add up over time to lots of calories. The trick is to keep moving throughout your day. Write the word move on post-it notes and put them in places youll notice them when youre sitting still. Then, take every opportunity to move heres some ideas for burning extra calories

Tap your feet
Swing your legs
Stand up and stretch
Move your head from side to side
Change position
Wriggle and fidget
Pace up and down
Use the restroom upstairs
Park in the furthest corner of the parking lot
Stand up when youre on the phone and step from side to side
Clench and release your muscles

2 Eat Little and Often

Evidence suggests that eating small meals every 2-4 hours will keep your metabolism burning faster than larger, less frequent meals. When you eat small amounts often your body is constantly working to digest and absorb food which requires energy.

3 Eat Fat

If you want feel good and keep the fat off you need to first put it in. Fat not only tastes good our bodies need it to work efficiently. By consuming several servings of healthy fats every day you will actually increase your calorie burning potential. Try incorporating fats like Flaxseed oil, hempseed oil, olive oil, avocados, salmon, albacore tuna, nuts and seeds into your diet daily.

4 Drink Cold Water

Evidence shows that your body might expend more calories trying to raise cold water to the temperature of your body then hot beverages. And overall being well hydrated will help your bodys metabolic processes burn quicker.

5 Exercise With Weights

Training with weights boosts your metabolism in a number of ways. By lifting weights you will build muscle tissue. And muscle tissue is metabolically active, so it requires calories even when at rest and so it helps to increase fat-burning enzymes in your body.

6 Spice up

Eating hot spices might speed up your metabolism. Just half a teaspoon of cinnamon per day can help boost metabolism and keep blood sugar levels in check. Cant stand the thought of cinnamon in your morning cup of coffee? Spice up with cayenne, crushed red pepper or wasabi.

7 Eat More Protein

Protein requires a more complex chemical breakdown by your body in order to be digested and used as fuel. For example, 100 calories of protein may take up to 30 calories to process. Protein also takes longer to digest and helps to stabilize blood sugar for longer periods of time and this can help you to not overeat later in the day. Eat a portion of protein at every meal and as part of your snacks and you will increase the total number of calories you burn each day.

Childhood breathing problems can be stressful and frightening for parents. After all, you want your child to be able to play just like every other child. You don’t want him or her to have to live in a bubble or struggle to breathe.

Unfortunately, breathing problems–usually related to asthma and allergies–are becoming more and more common in Western countries. Experts are still exploring why this is so. But the bottom line is, if you’re a parent of a young child, there’s a good chance you’ll have to deal with asthma at some point in time.

So what is a parent to do? Just give up and accept that your child will never be “normal”? Of course not! The good news is, there are quite a few positive actions you can take that will go a long way towards helping your child live a happy, active life.

Here are three main steps you can take to help keep your child with asthma healthy…

Step 1 First, you need to understand asthma.

Knowledge is power, and knowing what actions to take start with understanding what’s going on in your child’s body. Asthma is a chronic breathing problem that interferes with your child’s ability to get air in and out of his or her lungs.

When your child has asthma, the airways often become red, swollen and irritated. This means the passages become narrower, which makes it harder for the air to flow in and out. Also, the airways overreact by producing large amounts of mucus, which can clog the airways further. This causes symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath.

There is no cure for asthma, but there are many medicines and treatments that can keep it under control. Some children do grow out of asthma over time as well.

Step 2 Get a handle on your child’s asthma triggers.

It’s a well-known fact that asthma symptoms are set off–or triggered–by certain environmental substances. For unknown reasons, your child’s body “sees” these triggers as threats, even though most people are not bothered by them. The lungs then overreact by triggering an asthma attack.

The most common asthma triggers in children are pollen, dust, molds, food allergies, pet dander, and even colds. Scents and cigarette smoke can also set off an asthma attack.

As a parent, you will be able to notice the things that trigger your child’s asthma symptoms. Make note of the patterns, and then do your best to help your child avoid those triggers as much as possible.

Step 3 Play an active role in your child’s health care.

Children who have asthma do need medical care. It’s important to consult with your pediatrician or an asthma specialist and get your child on a treatment program that will help control or prevent his or her symptoms.

The doctor may prescribe the treatment, but it will be up to you to carry it out. It is essential to follow the plan laid out for your child to the letter. Skipping doses of medicine or nebulizer treatments–even on good days–will lead to health problems sooner or later… probably sooner.

So, talk with your health care professional. Ask questions until you are sure you understand exactly what is going on and what to do for your child. Ask your child’s doctor to help you fill out an “Asthma Action Plan” that guides you when to take emergency action during asthma attacks or when an attack is building.

Lastly, keep your child’s doctor informed about what is working or not working. Report when your child’s symptoms change. The doctor will not know when to update the plan of treatment unless you keep him or her informed.

So, in summary, parents are in the best position to help their children with asthma stay healthy and live active lives like other kids. All it takes is a healthy dose of knowledge, good observation skills, active communication with the care team, and a generous helping of love.

On bad days when I try to get out and do something such as go to the store or ride my bike, I soon feel the need to get back to my appartment. Sometimes I cover the windows with my draped afgans and hybernate.

It feels almost like my identity is being absorbed when I am out and about. It takes a long while to feel better after I’ve returned home. It’s a terrible feeling which I am sure
many people have…..low self esteem which can go even lower when around people. It seems like a loss of my self that leaves my physique grasping at anything just to feel better. I
will smoke more, eat a lot more, and be very restless.

I try to keep busy and also try to sleep as much as I can. It really does feel as if “I” don’t exist.

Children can be cruel to their peers – especially if there is a child that is a little different from the majority. Children go through many stages as they grow up. There is the gangly period when the girls physically outpace the boys. The boys then endure the lanky stage where they deal with two left feet while trying to come to terms with the newly discovered rib Adam had lost in the Garden of Eden. Each growth spurt carried it’s own pain for most certainly – if not for all children.

Compound the normal growing pressures by adding something like being obese, and a child can find himself or herself lost in a hell from which he or she can see no escape. Many of us spend a lifetime battling our childhood insecurities. Those of us of a certain age remember cruel jokes and poems. Poems like “fatty fatty two by four, can’t get through the kitchen door”. As adults we all too often find that the cruelties were not left behind at the school ground doors. They tend follow man through adulthood fed by an ever increasingly judgmental society.

It happened to Two Hundred and Sixty Five 265 pound Ricky Labit and his wife’s cousin, weighing in at Two Hundred and Seventy Seven 277 pounds, on Dec. 21, 2007, when they told FOX News they were overcharged and banned by an all you can eat buffet in Houma, La. Why? Because the owners apparently believed them to eat too much. They said before finishing their meal, they were presented with a bill for 46.40, roughly double the normal buffet price. The waitress explained, “Y’all fat, and y’all eat too much.” And, finally the two men were barred from the restaurant before leaving the facility.

Who knew the people of the Sportsman’s Paradise could be so cruel? Certainly not yours truly. Having lived in the great State of Louisiana for five 5 years we fell in love with it. The Tennessee Mountain Man not being a light weight himself can actually see both sides of the Houma issue. In younger years he certainly got his money’s worth when eating at such places.

Computer man owned a restaurant at one time. Sundays were an open buffet and there was a husband and wife couple weighing in around four hundred 400 pounds each who drove over an hour to get to the facility every Sunday. They were dreaded because they were the first to arrive – usually before the doors were unlocked, and they were the last to leave. And, incredibly they were able to eat the entire time. Then you never saw them for a week when the buffet was once again open. They were a site to behold
as they waddled about the place and had to turn sideways to get through the door. Unlike the skinny customers, they always had a smile on their faces. They were apparently happy and they were always treated with respect.

The treatment the two Louisiana men received at the restaurant was appalling enough. The State of Mississippi decided it should pile on. The big brother component of the legislature wants to make sure if one is of a certain BMI he or she cannot get service in a public restaurant. Mississippi is quick to say the bill is dead and will not become law. But, it has been the experience of the American people that once such a dumb move gets started it grows legs and keeps crawling along until the state manages to subdue another liberty.

Are the food police about to strike again? Back off people!

Have we found yet another way to assure that only the beautiful people dare be seen in public? Do we really want big brother regulating such things? First, the airlines started charging over weight people for two seats explainable – see picture above, and now the government wants to bar them from even getting through the kitchen door.

Would you super size that and… give me a bag of chips and… a… diet coke, please?

It’s hard to get out around other people when I am depressed
and I have been depressed all my life. My self esteem makes
me think I in no way measure up to others. I wonder if maybe I am too
tall, overweight, clumsy, don’t wear the right clothes, people
hate me, people think I am a bum. Those are all of the things I am
thinking when I go out in the world. I feel I am under constant
scrutiny.

I have been trying something different lately and
sometimes it works. I have been trying not to look at people
to see if they are looking at me. Now I realize that if I go through
life with my head down or with blinders on, people may look
at me even more.

What works for mesometimes is to focus on
other things. We are all people watchers but I try to limit it
to watching people at a distance. At closer range I try to
focus on something else like the scenery, be it trees, buildings
or the traffic light when I am waiting to cross the street.

It is very discouraging and heartbreaking when we don’t feel
like we are just as good as other people.

On bad days when I try to get out and do something such as go to the store or ride my bike, I soon feel the need to get back to my appartment. Sometimes I cover the windows with my draped afgans and hybernate.

It feels almost like my identity is being absorbed when I am out and about. It takes a long while to feel better after I’ve returned home. It’s a terrible feeling which I am sure
many people have…..low self esteem which can go even lower when around people. It seems like a loss of my self that leaves my physique grasping at anything just to feel better. I
will smoke more, eat a lot more, and be very restless.

I try to keep busy and also try to sleep as much as I can. It really does feel as if “I” don’t exist.

When you are depressed it is so hard to keep yourself motivated and get out of bed. When you wake up you just lay there. You try to enjoy your coffee when you do get up and not just need it.

The last few days I have tried to do at least something such as wash clothes one day and dishes the next. The important thing is that I give myself credit for what I do, no matter how little it is.

I think I have motivated myself to get out of my apartment today and do some walking I picked the coldest day of the year so far. ha! ha!

When we are feeling like this, it is our struggle and no one else’s. Our self esteem is low, our confidence is low, and we feel lost. We are in control of what we actually do accomplish. Yes, a pat on the back is in order, even if all I do today is wash my dishes.