Stand Up!

This might explain why bus drivers have such big butts.

"Scientists have found intriguing evidence that one major reason so many people are overweight these days may be as close as the seat of their pants. Literally. According to the researchers, most of us sit too much."

Scientists Say Just Standing Up May Be as Important as Exercise

He's No Christian Bale

Bale is, of course, the very fit star of "American Psycho". And he's Welsh. That's where this dude is from.

I knew this was coming, but I am very surprised to see it already -

"New Zealand Bars British Man's 'Fat' Wife"

I'm not sure why "fat" is in quotation marks there. Would they prefer to be referred to, as in the body of the article, as "morbidly obese"?

Shop Around

Newt.org has a clip of a little anecdote delivered by Newt Gingrich, in case you were thinking of some other Newt. He discusses the kind of market efficiency that is potentially attained by employing HSAs with the example of an expensive sleep apnea machine.

It's Retirement Tips from Britney, Bitch

Sorry. That's like the line from her new song. I couldn't help myself.

The Yahoo Finance page has a great article about how important it is to save for retirement. Well, it turns out Britney Spears spends over $700,000 a month, yet she doesn't save a portion of her income.

The article points out that "the overwhelming majority of American 20-somethings aren't saving anything for retirement, either. Research from Vanguard shows that two-thirds of all 25-year-olds who have access to a 401(k) plan aren't contributing." That is really bad.

Consider this -

"Assuming she could scrape by on 70% to 80% of her pre-retirement income in retirement - or about $590,000 a month in today's dollars - Ms. Spears would have to accumulate a nest egg of just over $300 million by age 65."

"Sound daunting? Nah. All she has to do is keep working and put away 8% or so of her monthly $737,000 income until she retires and she'll hit that goal."

Now, translate into normal recent college graduates' incomes -

"A 25-yr old making $30,000 a year, for instance, and putting away the same 8% of his pay into a 401(k) plan annually for the rest of his career is virtually guaranteed a comfortable retirement by time he hits his 60s."

Read the entire article here.

Delicate Genius Alert!

Dr. Scott Haig, an orthopedic surgeon in New York, has written a piece in Time about patients who Google. I have wondered how the abundance of health information on line has impacted the communication between doctor and patient, and here is an inside look. The phenomenon seems to irritate him quite a bit.

Frankly, the doctor comes off as a pompous jerk. He berates the patient for being selfish, but I think most normal people out there can sympathize with a person who is sick or injured. This doctor seems to prefer when patients don't ask too many questions, but on the other hand, ridicules "non-compliant Bozos who won't read anything longer than a headline. They don't want to know what's wrong with them, they don't know what medicines they're taking, they don't even seem to care what kind of operation you're planning to do on them. 'Just get me better, doc,' is all they say."

George Costanza would definitely throw his hands up about this delicate genius.

Red Bull Gives You Vings! (and high blood pressure)

And increased risk of heart disease, if you drink 2 or more energy drinks per day. I'm sure there are some of you out there...

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/88066.php

More Cheddar, Anyone?

Well, the Green Mountain State has done it again. Vermont not only has the best schools, but also the healthiest residents, based on criteria developed by the United Health Foundation and the American Public Health Association for its ranking of the 50 states. Half of the top ten are in New England.

Those criteria include, but are not limited to, obesity rates, access to health care, cancer incidence, child poverty, smoking, and heart disease. Southern states, not surprisingly, are the fattest, stupidest, and most likely to smoke. Well shoot, that right thurr is a big surprahs.

Read the article in Forbes right here.