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Michelle Obama, Obesity and the Black Epidemic
Last month, Michelle Obama announced that she hopes to make a deep and lasting policy impact by spearheading an initiative to reduce childhood obesity. Knowing our first lady, she’ll move beyond kids and also make it her business and her legacy to get everybody, adults included, to slim down and shape up. Is Michelle speaking…
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My Gay Thanksgiving
A few months ago over dinner with my mother, I leaned across the table and asked, “Do you wish I was straight?” During a pause that seemed at least nine months pregnant, I felt myself dancing with the demon I thought had left my party long ago. Over the past 20 years, my mother has…
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A Pill a Day to Keep HIV Away?
What if there was a pill you could take once a day to keep from contracting HIV? That idea may not be as crazy as it sounds. In countries around the world, scientific studies involving thousands of participants are looking at whether a person who does not have HIV can take a once-a-day, anti-retroviral pill…
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When Weight Loss Makes You Fat
Pamela K. El has a job she loves, as a marketing vice president for State Farm Insurance Company. Two years ago, her company began sponsoring “The 50-Million Pound Challenge,” a national, interactive program to help people lose weight. El traveled across the country with Dr. Ian Smith, the physician, journalist and well-known author of The…
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How to Avoid the Seven Biggest Weight Loss Mistakes
Yeah, yeah, “eat more, weigh less,” we’ve all heard it. But this isn’t just a women’s magazine cover line. As counterintuitive as it sounds, eating too little and not often enough is one of the most frequent mistakes people make when trying to lose weight. Dr. Ian Smith, author, medical/diet expert on VH1’s Celebrity Fit…
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Phylicia Rashad's Mission
Peripheral artery disease or PAD is probably the most common and dangerous medical condition you’ve never heard of. Although it affects as many as 8 million Americans and increases the risk of deadly—and better-known—diseases like heart attack and stroke, most of us have no idea what it is. But knowing the signs and symptoms of…
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An Appetite for Hunger
To most everyone, the prototypical sufferer is an insecure, sickly-thin, young, white woman who looks in the mirror and sees a fat girl. It is Karen Carpenter, singing the sad songs of the 1970s as she starved herself and finally died in 1983. It is so many Hollywood actresses, splashed across magazine covers, their pretty…
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Killer Stigma
Ainsley Reid is the face of HIV/AIDS in Jamaica. Smiling in a bright yellow shirt under the words “Positive Truly Positive,” Reid, 43, is part of a campaign on the island to raise awareness about HIV and fight the stigma and discrimination. On posters, billboards and television ads, he looks strong and healthy and is,…
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A Cocktail for Prevention
Before we begin this discussion of HIV prevention, a few questions: · More than a handful of studies show that any American adult who’s made it past seventh grade knows how AIDS is transmitted and how to prevent it. So why do we still need to raise awareness about the disease? · How many of…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
