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The Age of Good Health? Healthy Lifestyles on Decline in U.S. 

Despite the well-known benefits of physical activity, eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables, maintaining a healthy weight, moderate alcohol use and not smoking, only a small proportion of adults follow this healthy lifestyle pattern, and in fact, the numbers are declining, according to a study by Dana King, M.D., and colleagues at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). The article discussing this research is available in the June 2009 issue of The American Journal of Medicine. Lifestyle choices are associated with the risk of cardiovascular disease as well as diabetes.

King and additional researchers from the MUSC Department of Family Medicine compared the results of two large-scale studies of the US population in 1988-1994 and in 2001-2006. In the intervening 18 years, the number of people adhering to all five healthy habits has decreased from 15 percent to 8 percent. . . .

* smoking rates have not changed (26.9% to 26.1%);

"The potential public health benefits from promoting a healthier lifestyle at all ages, and especially ages 40-74 years, are substantial," King said.

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• Movie Smoking Scorecard 

Have something to say to the studio execs who allow smoking in their movies? Post your video to our wall and be sure to sign our petition.

. . .

2 of 4 videos

Wolverine

1:17 Added on Tuesday

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• Which Movie Studios Will Cause the Most Youth to Start Smoking This Summer? 

How many children will be exposed to smoking in G, PG and PG-13 movies this summer -- and start smoking because of it? Which studios will produce the most youth-rated films with tobacco imagery?

These are questions that will be answered by a campaign this summer from the American Medical Association (AMA) Alliance, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, and the California Youth Advocacy Network. Their Movie Smoking Scorecard campaign, announced today, will include:

-- Mobile billboards that will drive around Los Angeles -- and the major studios -- today and tomorrow. The billboard shows a young girl asking, "Which movie studios will cause me to smoke this summer?" and promotes the campaign's Facebook page.

-- A scorecard that regularly tallies the number of tobacco impressions in this summer's youth-rated blockbusters.

-- Facebook pages that host the scorecard, a petition, Twitter feed and videos of youth commenting on smoking they have personally seen in movies this summer.

-- A letter-writing and petition drive across the country during the blockbuster season.

-- A strategically placed billboard located near -- and naming -- the studio with the worst summer record at the end of September.

The blockbuster season's first example of smoking in a youth-rated film is 20th Century Fox's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," a PG-13 film that has grossed more than $163 million in the U.S. (as of May 24) and has numerous scenes of the main star, actor Hugh Jackman, with a cigar. Another PG-13 blockbuster, "Angels & Demons" by Sony Pictures, includes tobacco imagery and has grossed nearly $82 million in the U.S. as of May 24.

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Health Dept.: No smoking in movies, or kids will pick up the habit  

A mobile billboard is delivering a blockbuster health message for Hollywood. It calls for holding off on smoking scenes in movies so kids don't pick up the habit. . . .

"When you see your idols up there smoking, you say, 'Gee whiz, that's something I want to emulate.' Just like the clothes you want to emulate, or the car that they're in," said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of the Los Angeles Public Health Department. "Unfortunately, between a third and a half of youth smoking is attributed to what they see in feature films."

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MILLS and HERBST: Bring Zimbabwe in From the Cold  

The United Nations calculates that just 6 percent of the work force is formally employed. More than 65 percent of the population urgently needs food assistance. Nearly 100,000 people have been struck by cholera in the last six months. While it used to be called the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe now produces only about one-third of the grain it needs; tobacco, once its main export crop, has fallen to around one-sixth of the 2000 peak, the effect of the seizure of white-owned farms begun in earnest this decade. . ..

The Movement for Democratic Change has also recognized that the only way to deal with the tsunami of advisers and aid agencies that will eventually come is to establish a single entry point into the government for donors, likely in the prime minister's office, instead of allowing aid to go directly to ministries that may be run by Mugabe partisans. Donors should support this effort as a way to strengthen Mr. Tsvangirai.

There will be setbacks in Zimbabwe, but they can be overcome. As Mr. Tsvangirai told us, "Ask any Zimbabwean in the street -- no one wants to reverse the process." Instead of standing back and waiting, donors should do their part to help bring Zimbabwe back from the brink.

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• Cigarettes in Popular Films Are Target of Health Groups  

The advocacy arm of the American Medical Association unveiled a summer-long campaign on Wednesday intended to publicly shame movie studios for depicting images of smoking in their mass-appeal movies.

"Which Movie Studios Will Cause the Most Youth to Start Smoking This Summer?" is the name of the effort. Components include a Facebook scorecard, moviesmokingscorecard.com, tallying the number of tobacco images depicted in movies rated G, PG and PG-13 from May to August. The studio found to be the biggest offender will be named on billboards in September.

The American Medical Association Alliance, working with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and the California Youth Advocacy Network, will also operate the public Facebook page. The site already includes a video from a group of teenagers complaining about images of smoking in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine."

"It's incomprehensible for studios to defend their promotion of tobacco products in youth-rated films when you hear from teenagers directly that they are taking notice -- and offense -- to this on-screen promotion," said Sandi Frost, president of the American Medical Association Alliance.

Visitors to the Facebook page will also be encouraged to sign a petition demanding that "gratuitous images of smoking" earn a film an automatic R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.

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Harold Meyerson - Proposition 13 and the Roots of California's Budgetary Problems  

But the problem with Proposition 13 wasn't merely that it reduced revenue. It also made it very difficult to increase revenue. Raising taxes now requires a two-thirds vote of the legislature, though in 47 other states a simple majority suffices. California has become overwhelmingly Democratic in the past two decades, but Republicans have managed to retain footholds -- representing just over one-third of the districts -- in both houses of the legislature.

The conservative backlash of 1978 also swept into the legislature a new, proto-Reaganistic generation of Republicans, who dubbed themselves "the Neanderthals." Compared to today's GOP state legislators, though, the Neanderthals look like Diderot's Encyclopedists. The current Republican crop has refused in good times as well as bad to raise business or other taxes (increasing the tobacco tax, for instance, has failed each of the past 14 times it has come up for a vote). Abetted by little local Limbaughs who inflame Republican brains, they protest that the state already has the nation's highest taxes. In fact, California ranks 18th among the states in percentage of personal income paid to state government

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Lifestyle program for patients with COPD is health and cost effective 

Patients with moderate COPD were randomized to receive "usual care" or to undergo an interdisciplinary, community-based program (INTERCOM) that offered an intensive lifestyle moderation phase of four months, during which patients were instructed in detail to perform two 15-minute intervals of pleasurable walking or cycling, and offered instruction in other lifestyle changes such as nutrition and smoking cessation. After the four-month introductory period, there was a less intensive 20-month maintenance during which patients were offered guidance but not intensive intervention.

Researcher Carel van Wetering, from the Department of Respiratory Medicine at the Maxima Medical Centre and colleagues randomized patients with mild to moderate COPD to receive "usual care" or undergo an interdisciplinary, community-based program (INTERCOM) that offered an intensive lifestyle moderation phase of four months, during which patients were instructed in detail to perform two 15-minute intervals of pleasurable walking or cycling, and offered instruction in other lifestyle changes such as nutrition and smoking cessation. After the four-month introductory period, there was a less 20-month maintenance period.

The study results will be presented at the 105th international conference of the American Thoracic Society, taking place in San Diego from May 15-20.

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• Belmar tightens beach smoking rules even further 

Cigarette breaks on the beach here are about to get more complicated.

Already known as the first beach in the continental United States to limit smoking to designated areas -- under a law passed in 2001 -- Belmar now plans to limit those areas even further, the Township Council announced today.

Until now, smokers were allowed to light up within 100 feet of smoking signs that stood every 400 feet along the beach. All told, 20 percent of the beach was set aside for smoking, enough to allow smokers to set up their chairs within the designated areas.

But beginning this beach season, each smoking area will shrink significantly, some to as small as 20 by 30 feet. Smokers will need to walk to the designated areas every time they feel an urge to puff.

And, unlike before, the boundaries of the smoking areas will be delineated by a plastic chain or a rope, to make enforcement easier.

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Are tobacco companies going too far? 

As smoking bans become more popular, tobacco companies are developing new products and facing new criticism.

Snus' are tea-bags, filled with mint-flavored tobacco. They fit neatly between your teeth and gum, with no need to spit.

The tobacco stays in the bag.

Tobacco companies say Snus' have become so popular, they're taking the next step, totally dissolvable tobacco.

For traditional smokers it will solve all kinds of problems.

"They don't have second hand smoke," Tommy Payne with R.J. Reynolds said. . . .

R.J. Reynolds will soon test test three new products: Camel sticks: that dissolve as you suck them, minty tobacco strips: that look like breath strips and orbs: flavored dissolvable tablets, that some say look and taste like candy, and there's the thing.

Critics say R.J. Reynolds is doing what it did with Joe Camel, marketing not to adult smokers, but smoker wanna-bees.

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New smoking ban unlikely to create more cigar bars 

It was a narrow loophole, but some local tavern owners thought they could squeeze through it anyway.

When Wisconsin's new smoking ban takes effect in July 2010, indoor smoking will be allowed in only one kind of tavern - cigar bars.

And as soon as the Legislature approved that law, even before Gov. Jim Doyle had signed it, tavern owners started calling Milwaukee's License Division to find out what they needed to do to become cigar bars, city License Manager Rebecca Grill said.

But by then, it was probably already too late to start a cigar bar, and even some taverns that now call themselves cigar bars won't meet the law's standards. Only one Milwaukee tavern, and a handful in the suburbs, expect smoking to continue at their businesses once the law takes effect.

The law bans smoking in nearly all workplaces, including restaurants and most bars. Many tavern owners fought the ban, fearing they would lose business if patrons couldn't smoke.

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• A View to a Kill 

Florida Governor Charlie Crist didn't try to hide his motives when he signed into law a $1-per-pack cigarette tax hike Wednesday, reported The Orlando Sentinel. "I view it more as a health issue than a tax issue," said Crist, a Republican who broke with a career-long opposition to tax increases. "Ronald Reagan used to say if you want to kill something, tax it. It wouldn't be bad if we killed smoking." As of July 1, Florida's new cigarette tax is $1.34 per pack. An equivalent increase applies to smokeless and pipe tobacco, but not cigars.

The extra $1 tax is expected to generate more than $900 million a year, to be used to offset Medicaid costs and fund cancer research, said the report.

With the increase, Florida's cigarette tax goes from sixth-lowest in the nation to slightly above the national average of $1.23 a pack, the report added. Florida's neighbors have some of the lowest levies in the nation: Georgia (37 cents), Alabama (42 cents) and South Carolina (7 cents).

David Sutton, a spokesperson for New York City-based Altria Group Inc., the parent company of Philip Morris, Richmond, Va., told the newspaper that Florida's tax hike would prompt many consumers to seek tax-free ways to buy their smokes, whether on an Indian reservation or the Internet. "Obviously, it's a big hit to our consumers and to retailers as well," he said. "You've got a very difficult economy out there."

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• Gov. Charlie Crist signs cigarette-tax hike, calls it a "health issue"  

Gov. Charlie Crist signed into law a $1-per-pack cigarette tax hike Wednesday - the biggest of its kind in Florida history -- saying he hopes to kill the habit that results in thousands of deaths every year.

"I view it more as a health issue than a tax issue," said Crist, a Republican who broke with a career-long opposition to tax increases. " Ronald Reagan used to say if you want to kill something, tax it. It wouldn't be bad if we killed smoking. It would save a lot of lives."

As of July 1, Florida's new cigarette tax is $1.34 per pack. An equivalent increase applies to smokeless and pipe tobacco, but not cigars.

The extra $1 tax is expected to generate more than $900 million a year, to be used to offset Medicaid costs and fund cancer research.

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Cigarette tax increase could be windfall for Wisconsin's tribes 

If a proposed increase in the cigarette tax passes, Wisconsin's American Indian tribes stand to receive $81.5 million in refunds over the next two years -- triple what the tribes got several years ago.

The tax refunds on cigarettes sold by tribal retailers have shot up in recent years, as has the cigarette tax itself, raising objections from other retailers about unfair competition and from public health advocates who want the tax levied on as many packs as possible to stop smoking.

The tax would increase by 75 cents per pack under a proposal being debated by the Legislature's budget committee, increasing the rebates by $18.8 million over the next two years. The committee could take up the proposal as soon as Wednesday.

"We've felt that this has been extremely unfair," Brandon Scholz, president of the Wisconsin Grocers Association, said of the refunds. The tribes "should remit the tax just like we do."

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No smoking, seriously! 

A man puffs on his cigarette at Gatot Subroto Army Hospital in Central Jakarta, Monday. Amid the lack of officers to enforce the bylaw, many Jakartans still violate the ruling.

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