Isegoria

This isn’t a humor piece. Manufacturers Supersizing Stretchers:

The sharply rising number of obese Americans is leading medical-equipment manufacturers and ambulance crews to supersize their stretchers.

Manufacturers are adding thicker aluminum frames, bulkier connectors and extra spine supports to create stretchers with a capacity of 650 pounds, instead of the standard 350 to 500. Ambulance crews are switching to the heavy-duty models to avoid injuries to rescue workers and patients alike.

This passage gets a bit Onion-esque:

Josh Weiss, a spokesman for Southwest Ambulance, which serves the Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz., areas, said the company’s paramedics used to employ a tarp to carry patients too big for a standard stretcher.

“You’d have to have five to 10 different firefighters lift it up. It was unsafe for our units. There would be many physical problems for our crews,” he said. “Back injuries would often occur.”

Southwest, which operates 225 ambulances and answers more than 200,000 calls a year, recently replaced its stretchers with those that can handle up to 650 pounds. It has also created a special unit with wider ambulances that have special hydraulic lifts and shock absorbers to carry the obese.

Disturbing. 1 in 50 Americans Morbidly Obese:

The number of extremely obese American adults — those who are at least 100 pounds overweight — has quadrupled since the 1980s to about 4 million. That works out to about 1 in every 50 adults.

The accompanying graphic from the CDC shows obesity more than doubling since 1986 and severe obesity almost quadrupling.

Inconceivable! At least for the Nutrition Establishment. From Low-Carb Diets Are Working:

Over the past year, several small studies have shown, to many experts’ surprise, that the Atkins approach actually does work better, at least in the short run. Dieters lose more than those on a standard American Heart Association plan without driving up their cholesterol levels, as many feared would happen.

Skeptics contend, however, that these dieters simply must be eating less.
[...]
In the study, 21 overweight volunteers were divided into three categories: Two groups were randomly assigned to either lowfat or low-carb diets with 1,500 calories for women and 1,800 for men; a third group was also low-carb but got an extra 300 calories a day.

The study was unique because all the food was prepared at an upscale Italian restaurant in Cambridge, Mass., so researchers knew exactly what they ate. Most earlier studies simply sent people home with diet plans to follow as best they could.
[...]
Everyone’s food looked similar but was cooked to different recipes. The low-carb meals were 5 percent carbohydrate, 15 percent protein and 65 percent fat. The rest got 55 percent carbohydrate, 15 percent protein and 30 percent fat.

In the end, everyone lost weight. Those on the lower-cal, low-carb regimen took off 23 pounds, while people who got the same calories on the lowfat approach lost 17 pounds. The big surprise, though, was that volunteers getting the extra 300 calories a day of low-carb food lost 20 pounds.

I followed a link to the Richard Sandrak fan club, and this is the first post I looked at:

Here are Richard’s stats from the RSFC Chatroom in March 2003.
Born: April 15, 1992 – Wt 6 lbs-Ht 19 in
3 yrs: Wt 25 lbs-Ht 2ft 5 in.
7yrs: Wt 60 lbs-Ht 4 ft.
10.5 yrs: Wt 80 lbs-Ht 5 ft.

Flexed Relaxed
Neck: 13 inches 12 inches
Chest: 33 inches 29.5 inches
Biceps: 11 inches 9.5 inches
Waist: 23 inches
Thighs: 18 inches 15.5 inches
Calves: 12 inches
Forearms: 10.5 inches

Lifts: We know Richard curls his bodyweight for reps, squats with 1.5X bodyweight for 1/2 hr, and benches 240 lbs. for several reps! (impressive to say the least).

However, Moderator Paul Thompson posted this message on 6/14/02:

His biceps are 12″ His chest is 35″ His waist is 21″ His legs are 17.5″ He is 4’8″ and weighs 75 lbs. He has 4% body fat.

And this post from 8/7/02: One-rep max lifts are not part of his training, but Richard benches over 200 lbs., does 100 behind-the-neck chins slowly with perfect form, squats with the 100 lb. vest for 45 min., and I believe he can curl almost twice his body weight (as of several months ago).

I’d probably go with the larger numbers from the above, since months have gone by.

Those numbers are crazy! He benches 240 pounds? He does 100 behind-the-neck chins? He squats for 45 minutes straight? With a 100-pound vest on?

Edit: Evidently the Richard Sandrak Fan Club no longer exists — or no longer exists as the original Yahoo! Group.

Breathing-Muscle Training Helps Emphysema Patients reports on some unusual resistance training:

The muscles involved in exhaling can be strengthened by specific training, and for patients with emphysema, this can help them be more physically active, Israeli researchers report.
[...]
Thirteen of the patients were randomly assigned to receive a half-hour of expiratory muscle training daily, six times a week for three months. Training involved the use of a breathing device that applied resistance during exhalation, which was gradually increased over the first month. The other 13 control patients received training only at the very lowest resistance setting.

Patients in the special training group had significantly greater improvements in expiratory muscle strength and endurance. Also, the distance they could walk in six minutes improved much more than in the control group.

Jiu-jitsu seems to offer more inhalation muscle training — since you’re often trying to breath with someone’s weight across your chest.

While the title of the article is a bit misleading, Americans Are Gaining, but ‘Ideal’ Weight Keeps Shrinking presents some interesting history:

Sixty years ago, Metropolitan Life Insurance created the first widely accepted charts setting ideal weights for American men and women. ‘Overweight is so common,’ the company declared at the time, ‘that it constitutes a national health problem of the first order.’

I didn’t realize “overweight” was a noun, and I didn’t realize it was already a national health problem sixty years ago.

Naturally, “ideal” weights have changed over the years.

Until the early 20th century, however, an extra 10, 20 or even 30 pounds of flesh was considered a sign of robust health — a buffer against so-called wasting diseases, such as tuberculosis. In her prime, the actress Lillian Russell, after whom the “American Beauty” rose was named, weighed 200 pounds. During his presidency, which started in 1909, William Howard Taft weighed more than 300 pounds.

A few thoughts:

• Until the early 20th century, an extra 10, 20, or even 30 pounds of flesh probably meant you were almost as big as a trim 21st-century American. And if you were a farmer or laborer, it might have been lean mass.
• Lillian Russell was not 200 pounds in her youth, and she wore a corset. That tends to shift the extra weight to where it’s welcome.
• Taft did not look good at 300 pounds, and he was the butt of many jokes.

Some stats:

In 1941, for example, an average 5-foot-10-inch 35-year-old man weighed about 171 pounds. Metropolitan Life’s weight chart for men, published in 1943, set the desirable weight for that man at 159.
[...]
By 1963, the average 5-foot-10-inch 35-year-old man weighed 169 pounds. Luckily for him, Metropolitan Life had just revised its weight charts, resetting his ideal weight to 165, six pounds heavier than the 1943 charts.
[...]
In 1983, Metropolitan Life again revised its charts to reflect new health and mortality data. Desirable weights were raised for most people, roughly two to eight pounds depending on height and frame size.

Interestingly, I’d never read the history of the body-mass index before:

While some health professionals still use Metropolitan Life’s weight charts, many others have begun using another gauge of fat: body mass index, a stricter measure for many people. Developed by a Belgian statistician, Adolphe Quetelet, in the 19th century, the formula (weight in kilograms divided by the square of one’s height in meters) in 1998 became the U.S. government’s official standard of healthy weights. Using the new definition, an additional 25 million Americans instantly qualified as fat or obese. Today, about 97 million adults in America are considered overweight.

One of my fitness goals was to reach a BMI of 30 — technically obese — at single-digit body-fat. Technically, a six-foot, 221-pound bodybuilder has the same BMI as a six-foot, 221-pound couch potato.