Exercise May Not Limit Weight Gain by Pregnant Moms

Exercise and weight gains unrelated — Exercise and weight gain unrelated

Exercising during pregnancy was safe for both moms and babies in a new study of heavy women in Brazil, but fitness classes and at-home exercises didn’t keep moms-to-be from gaining too much weight.

The finding is “not surprising,” according to Dr. Patrick Catalano, a maternal-fetal medicine researcher from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland.

“Lots of studies have not shown any benefits relative to weight gain in pregnancy using either diet or exercise,” said Catalano, who didn’t participate in the new research.

The U.S.-based Institute of Medicine recommends that overweight women should gain between 15 and 25 pounds during pregnancy, and obese women 11 to 20 — less than the amount recommended for normal-weight women.

Being overweight or obese while pregnant, or gaining too much weight during pregnancy, increases the chance of having a large baby and needing a Cesarean section. It also ups the risk that babies will have birth defects or grow up to be obese, researchers said.

Plus, women who gain a lot of weight during pregnancy tend to keep in on afterwards, Catalano told Reuters Health.

He said that starting an exercise or diet program mid-way through pregnancy probably isn’t as useful as intervening very early in pregnancy — or better yet, before.

‘MODERATE EXERCISE IS VERY GOOD’

In the current study, researchers led by Simony Nascimento from UNICAMP Medical School in Campinas recruited 82 heavy women who were already between three and five and a half months into their pregnancies.

They split those women into two groups. Half went to weekly exercise classes and got counseled on nutrition, weight gain and home exercises or walking they could do daily. The other women received standard prenatal care advice, but no extra information on exercise.

Regardless of whether they were assigned to do group and at-home exercise, about half of the women gained more weight than recommended upper limits.

On average, obese women gained 23 to 24 pounds in both groups. Overweight women gained an average of 22 pounds when they exercised and 36 when they didn’t, but the researchers caution that those findings were based on a small group of only 14 women.

The majority of all babies were born by c-section, but there was no difference in their health at birth based on whether or not moms exercised, Nascimento and colleagues report in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Catalano said the findings don’t take away from the fact that, “moderate exercise is very good, no question about it.” But he said that the farther women get into pregnancy, the harder it is for them to stick to an exercise program. That’s why starting with exercising and diet improvement early is so important.

One of the problems is that historically, women have been given the wrong message about eating and physical activity in pregnancy, said Dr. Raul Artal, head of obstetrics, gynecology and women’s health at Saint Louis University School of Medicine.

“Pregnancy is not a state of confinement and indulgence. It’s an ideal time for behavioral modification for the benefit of both mother and the baby,” Artal, who wasn’t involved in the new research, told Reuters Health.

He considers pregnancy an opportunity to address unhealthy behaviors in patients. “In general women are more prone to adopt healthy lifestyles in pregnancy because of the concern for the unborn child.”

Nascimento’s team also pointed out that women typically have more contact with health providers when they’re pregnant.

But, Artal added, “The sad thing is that as a society we have become more sedentary and more overweight and obese. This is not confined to pregnant women.”

In an email to Reuters Health, the researchers recommended 30 minutes of moderate exercise each day for overweight and obese pregnant women, along with stretching and nutrition counseling.

Source: Reuters Health

October 20, 2011

Sub-Saharan Africa to Grow by 5% in 2011

Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to show 5% growth in 2011, according to the International Monetary Fund’s latest regional report.

Its outlook for next year is even brighter, with 6% average growth.

However, the IMF’s Africa director, Antoinette Sayeh, warned of the impact of global financial volatility on the region.

She told the BBC it could mean “lower exports, inward investment flows and decreasing aid levels”.

Ms Sayeh also said that inflation, driven by high food and fuel prices, could become a problem.

She advised governments of the need to “tread a fine line between addressing the challenges posed by strong growth and preparing to ward off the potentially adverse effects of another global downturn”.

Middle-income countries, most notably South Africa, have not had the same success, with growth of 3.5% this year.

The region has been hit by high unemployment and household debt, fragile consumer confidence and weak demand from Europe

October 19, 2011October 19, 2011

Republican Michele Bachmann Doesn’t Know Libya Is Part of Africa

Amanda Terkel

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) criticized President Obama’s foreign policy during Tuesday night’s CNN debate, saying, “Now with the president, he put us in Libya. He is now putting us in Africa. We already were stretched too thin, and he put our special operations forces in Africa,” she said.

Libya, it should be noted, is in Africa.

Bachmann was referring to Obama’s recent announcement that he will be sending 100 U.S. troops to Uganda to help battle rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army.

In October of 2006, before Bachmann emerged as a superstar of the conservative movement, the Minnesota congresswoman raised eyebrows when she suggested that a sizable portion of the scientific community discredits the theory of evolution.

Bachmann said, “There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design.”

More recently, Bachmann discussed her views on the matter at this year’s Republican Leadership Conference.

“I support intelligent design,” she told reporters at the conservative gathering, according to CNN. “What I support is putting all science on the table and then letting students decide. I don’t think it’s a good idea for government to come down on one side of scientific issue or another, when there is reasonable doubt on both sides.”
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October 10, 2011October 10, 2011

Firebrand Rick Perry Pastor Robert Jeffress Says He’s Not Jeremiah Wright

The Texas megachurch pastor who made waves at this year’s Voter Values Summit is not backing down.

One day after describing Mormonism as a cult and saying presidential candidate Mitt Romney is not a Christian, pastor Robert Jeffress defended his remarks on CNN.

“I am not a Jeremiah Wright on the fringe, making fanatical statements,” he said.

The pastor characterized his controversial statements as an honest response to a reporter’s question about his personal views.

“When somebody asks me a theological question about Mormonism, I have a responsibility to tell the truth,” he said. “Mormonism has never been considered a part of evangelical historic Christianity.”

He said he would vote for Mitt Romney over President Barack Obama in the general election, but that he would rather support a Christian for the GOP nomination. That doesn’t make him a bigot, he explained.

“To religious people, religion matters,” he said. “Those of us who are evangelicals have every right to prefer and support a competent Christian over a competent non-Christian.”

Jeffress endorsed Texas governor Rick Perry at the event, introducing him as “a proven leader, a true conservative, and a committed follower of Christ.”

While Perry has said he doesn’t share Jeffress’ views of Mormonism, a recent poll suggests that many pastors do. Three out of four pastors agree that Mormons are not Christians, according to this survey of 1,000 pastor, representing dozens of denominations.

But some pastors are coming to Romney’s defense. Rev. Myke Crowder, a senior pastor in Utah, released a statement condemning Jeffress.

“As an evangelical, born-again, Bible-believing Christian, and a pastor with more than 25 years’ experience living with and ministering among a majority Mormon population, I find the comments by Pastor Jeffress unhelpful, impolite and out of place,” he said. “Insulting Mitt Romney adds nothing to the conversation about who should be president. We’re picking the country’s chief executive, not its senior pastor.”

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October 7, 2011

Three women Win Nobel Peace Prize

The women had led the non-violent struggle for women's political rights, said the committee

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded jointly to three women – Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen.

They were recognised for their “non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work”.

Mrs Sirleaf is Africa’s first female elected head of state, Ms Gbowee is a peace activist and Ms Karman is a leading figure in Yemen’s pro-democracy movement.

Announcing the prize in Oslo, Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland said: “We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women achieve the same opportunities as men to influence developements at all levels of society.”

“It is the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s hope that the prize… will help to bring an end to the suppression of women that still occurs in many countries, and to realise the great potential for democracy and peace that women can represent.”

Mrs Karman heads the Yemeni organisation Women Journalists without Chains and has been jailed several times over her campaigns for press freedom and her opposition to the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

She was recognised for playing a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights in Yemen during the Arab Spring pro-democracy uprisings “in the most trying circumstances”.

Ms Karman, a mother of three, told the Associated Press she was dedicating the prize “to the youth of revolution in Yemen and the Yemeni people”.

She is the first Arab women to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Mr Jagland said the oppression of women was “the most important issue” in the Arab world.

He said awarding the prize to Ms Karman was “giving the signal that if it [the Arab Spring] is to succeed with efforts to make democracy, it has to include women”.

Ms Sirleaf, 72, was elected to office in 2005, following the end of Liberia’s 14-year civil war. She had said she would only run for one term, but is standing for re-election next week.

Ms Gbowee was a leading critic of the violence of the civil war, mobilising women across ethnic and religious lines in peace activism – in part through implementing a “sex strike” – and encouraging them to participate in elections.

“She has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war,” said the award citation.

The women will share the $1.5m (£1m) prize money.

The BBC’s World Affairs correspondent Mike Wooldridge says that the Nobel Peace Prize originally recognised those who had already achieved peace, but that its scope has broadened in recent years to encourage those working towards peace and acknowledge work in progress.

October 4, 2011October 7, 2011

Mitt Romney Slams Rick Perry on Niggerhead Gate

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is criticizing rival Rick Perry for what he calls “offensive” language in the name of a Texas hunting camp his family once leased.

Romney told Sean Hannity’s radio show Monday that he found the camp’s name, “Niggerhead,” inappropriate and said called on Perry to address it. The same day, the White House communicated a similar message on the matter, characterizing the name as “clearly offensive.”

Perry’s campaign has said Perry’s father painted over a rock with the camp’s name soon after he began leasing the site in the early 1980s. The campaign says the Texas governor and his family never controlled, owned or managed the property.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that the origins of the name were unclear and there was no definitive account for when and how the name first appeared on rock at property’s gate. But it hasn’t spared Perry criticism.

AP/Huff

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October 3, 2011October 7, 2011

Republican Rick Perry Niggerhead Controvery, Meltdown and Backpedaling

Rick Perry’s Ranch keeps Texas Governor Backpedaling

Stephanie Condon

Republican presidential candidate and Texas governor Rick Perry spent Sunday on damage control after a stinging report in the Washington Post tying Perry to a racial slur used at a Texas hunting camp his family once leased.

The Perry campaign and some Republican commentators downplayed the story, saying Perry was not associated with the use of the name “Niggerhead” at the Throckmorton County property. The word was painted on a large rock at the entrance of the camp, but Perry said he and his father quickly painted over the word when they started using the property and noticed it in the 1980’s. Some of the people interviewed by the Washington Post gave different accounts, with one former ranch worker saying he saw the word as late as 2008.

Even if the Perry campaign is right about the story, however, it keeps Perry backpedaling as his campaign continues to falter. Almost immediately after bursting into the race and seizing frontrunner status in August, Perry was left defending controversial statements, weak debate performances and overall questions of electability.

Perry’s ties to the ranch were criticized over the weekend by Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, the businessman who in recent days has stolen some of Perry’s thunder and the only African American vying for the Republican nomination. Cain said Perry was insensitive for not acting sooner to remove the offensive name from the camp.

As conservative voters once intrigued by Perry turn to Cain (as evidenced by his victory in a Florida straw poll) and moderates pine for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to get into the race, liberals suggest Perry’s campaign is unraveling.

CBSNews.com special report: Election 2012

“Even though he’s running in a party whose primary [does] not have a substantial African-American vote, the average American does not want to be identified to such racial insensitivity,” liberal Rev. Al Sharpton told Politico.

David Axelrod, senior strategist for the Obama re-election campaign, declined to comment specifically about the ranch to the New York Times, but he said it illustrates the challenges Perry and other candidates face.

“Campaigns are like an MRI for the soul — whoever you are, eventually people find out,” he told the Times. “Time will tell whether this comes to reflect him or not.”

White House Calls Republican Rick Perry’s Niggerhead Offensive

The White House says the name of a hunting camp once leased by Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s family is “clearly offensive.” But press secretary Jay Carney says Perry evidently thinks so, too, and he passed up a chance to criticize the GOP presidential hopeful over the racial slur.

Carney was asked at the White House press briefing Monday about the controversy over the name, Niggerhead, that was painted on a rock outside the Texas camp. Perry has said it’s an offensive name and that once he saw it, sometime in 1983 or 1984, he raised it with his parents and the word was painted over.

Carney said the name was clearly offensive but that from what he’s seen, Perry shares that opinion, and that’s all he could say about it.

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October 3, 2011October 7, 2011

Republican Frontrunner Rick Pery and the Niggerhead

Republican Rick Perry and the Niggerhead Saga

Republican presidential contender Rick Perry is on the defensive after it emerged a hunting camp used by his family had a racially offensive name.

His campaign said his family had years ago painted over an entrance stone that once displayed the name, Niggerhead, at the rented West Texas camp.

But the Texas governor was heavily criticised by rival Republican nominee Herman Cain, who is African American.

Mr Perry is a leading contender for the Republican nomination for president.

The Perry campaign did not deny that the term was used as a name for the property, but said it was changed soon after Mr Perry’s father joined a lease that gave him hunting rights there in 1983.

‘Vile, negative word’

“The word written by others long ago is insensitive and offensive. That is why the Perrys took quick action to cover and obscure it,” campaign spokesman Ray Sullivan said in a statement.

“How can someone who would seek the highest office in the land be so insensitive ” Al Sharpton Veteran civil rights campaigner

But the Washington Post, which reported the story on Sunday, was told by several people that the name was still visible at points during the 1980s and 90s.

It also reported that as recently as this summer the word was still faintly visible under a coat of white paint.

The land – leased by Mr Perry’s father, and later by Mr Perry – was the site of hunting and fishing getaways where the Texas governor entertained lawmakers and supporters. It is not far from Mr Perry’s boyhood home in the community of Paint Creek.

Herman Cain, the only black Republican in the presidential race, told Fox News Sunday: “[There is] no more vile, negative word than the N-word.

“And for him to leave it there as long as he did, before I hear that they finally painted it over is just plain insensitive to a lot of black people in this country.”

Perry aides sought to defuse the racially charged issue by saying that the Texas governor had a long record of inclusiveness and had appointed the first African-American head of the Texas Supreme Court.

Mr Perry said he had hunted at the property about a dozen times between 1983 and 2006, the Washington Post reported.

But veteran civil rights campaigner Al Sharpton told the Politico news website: “How can someone who would seek the highest office in the land be so insensitive to the implications of that name?”

Mr Perry became the frontrunner in the Republican field after declaring his candidacy in August, but correspondents say his lead is fragile.

He was widely criticised over his suggestion that it would be “treasonous” if Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke printed more money in an effort to boost the struggling US economy.

He then angered many Republicans when he said in a recent TV debate that anyone who opposed his policy as Texas governor of giving in-state tuition to illegal immigrants’ children was heartless.

At the weekend, Mr Perry again raised eyebrows when he said that if elected president, he would consider sending US troops to Mexico to combat drug-related violence.

If you like this article, I’d recommend my book “If I Was Famous, I’d Have a Lot to Say”