Weight and Health

Wendy Murphy

Jan 2008 · Twenty-First Century Books

About this eBook

By some estimates, 25 percent of young people in the United States are either overweight or obese, a figure that has doubled in the last 30 years. In that time, the physical activities in our lives have gone down while our caloric intake has gone up. The U.S. Surgeon General has called the incidence of excessive weight—which unfortunately extends to all age groups including the elderly—a public health crisis. By presenting both real-life case studies and the most current scientific research, this book provides the information young people need to understand the indivisible connection between weight and health.

About the author

Wendy Murphy has been writing on medical topics for more than two decades, beginning with several books written under her name for Time, Inc. in their Library of Health series and later for Readers Digest Books as part of a collaborative team. Before that, Wendy wrote on gardening, archaeology, American history (39 short Presidential biographies), architecture, and the history of inventions. She is currently Executive Editor of Onward Publishing, a custom publishing house that specializes in medical topics. In this role she writes for a professional readership of physicians and other medical care givers on the latest innovations in treating everything from heart disease to neurological disorders, orthopedics, pediatrics, and immunological disorders. Wendy is also active in her local volunteer fire department as a certified Emergency Medical Technician, serving the local community when people need to be treated and taken by ambulance to the hospital. She lives in South Kent, Connecticut, except when she vacations for six weeks every summer with her family on our tiny one-family island off the coast of Maine where they have no electricity and their water supply is strictly rainwater. Wendy's interests outside of work also include being on the board of directors for the Kent Land Trust, being a member of the Kent Conservation Commission, and the Kent Alternative Energy Task Force. Wendy and her husband, who is also a writer, have two grown sons and five grandchildren.