The 440-pound body of a man was rejected from a morgue at an Australian hospital for being “too fat” after a funeral director had driven more than two hours with the deceased in her hearse.

Joanne Cummings drove the body to the Hedland Health Campus in Port Hedland while blasting her air conditioning to keep the corpse cool and then had to go right back.

“I actually had to turn around and drive two hours home to Roebourne and keep him in my car overnight,” Cummings told Australia’s ABC.

According to Cummings, Hedland Health Campus rejected a 550-pound body last year. HHC staff apparently don’t mince their words.

“(A member of staff) walked out and looked at this gentleman in the back of the car and said: ‘He’s too fat, he can’t go in the fridge’,” Cummings told the North West Telegraph.

“I could probably put a baby elephant in one of those fridges and it’d fit through the door, and they’re refusing entry for a human being. My issue is if that was your father, mother, partner… you wouldn’t want them refused entry into the mortuary.”

WA Country Health Service regional director Ron Wynn said the hospital may look into installing equipment that can store larger bodies.

“It is imperative that at all times a deceased person is treated with the utmost care and respect and viewings are arranged so as not to cause distress and inconvenience to grieving families,” Wynn said in a statement.

via 440-pound body rejected from Hedland Health Campus morgue for being ‘too fat’ – Breitbart.

Luckily, the Government has come up with a new plan to tackle child obesity. Under a deal with Disney, characters such as Mickey and Minnie Mouse – along with the clan from Monsters, Inc. – will lead their own exercise videos, designed to get children moving for an hour a day. They don’t call those public health officials mad geniuses for no reason, do they?

Actually, I’m pretty sure they don’t call them geniuses at all. Which is unfair, because this new incentive is nothing short of it. Forget the nation’s obese children: I’ll be the first to hunker down with Monsters, Inc.’s Sulley as he deadlifts his way – in thonged Spandex – to the blue furry body of his dreams. I’ll be there on the mat with Goofy – who with his long, lean physique has always struck me as the ultimate yoga buff – attempting a perfect downward dog, and lunging along with the snowman from Frozen as he sweats it out to Let It Go.

Of course, the slight anatomical discrepancies between your average primary-schooler and, say, Mickey Mouse, could be an issue, but they’re probably no less disparate in body shape than Cindy and her aspirational female devotees. And with our biology results slipping down the world’s league tables, who’s going to tell the difference between their own physique and that of a lederhosen-wearing cartoon mouse anyway?

With one in three of Britain’s children overweight by the end of primary school, child obesity is – I realise – no laughing matter. Which is why it seems rather odd to make it one.

“Imaginative solutions” is what the government’s Change4Life campaign likes to call it. But it’s when people start getting imaginative – food manufacturers with their ingredients, parents with their children’s physical activities – that the problems start. There’s nothing imaginative about broccoli or kicking a ball around a park. But lace your child’s broccoli with Coca-Cola and settle him in front of a TV set on which a Disney character can be seen kicking a ball around a park, and it’s full marks for creative thinking – no matter what the outcome.

Thanks to the creative thinking from Change4Life, we may well suddenly be seeing fleets of overweight British children bending it like Baloo all over the country – but there are other concerns. For one thing, the endorsement conflicts. Will Mickey have to resign as the face of Pez Candy, and will Disney Junior’s Doc McStuffins relinquish her lucrative ice-cream cake sideline? More importantly: will the disclaimers at the start of these exercise videos be clear enough? Because Cindy’s side crunches didn’t half mess up my left hip.

Obese children can now get fit by watching cartoons – genius! – Telegraph

Soaring obesity levels mean one in 10 deaths in England and Wales is now caused by excess weight, the chief medical officer has warned.

Prof Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer for England, said that a “normalisation” of being overweight meant many people did not recognise that they weighed too much, and that the extra pounds could shorten their life.

Writing for The Sunday Telegraph, she highlighted research which shows that about 10 per cent of deaths in England and Wales are the result of excess weight.

The study, by the University of Cambridge, suggests that next year, between 40,000 and 53,000 deaths in England and Wales will be attributable to extra pounds, including more than three quarters of diabetic deaths and one quarter of deaths from heart disease.

Dame Sally said she was concerned that spiralling obesity levels, with two thirds of the population now categorised as overweight or obese, meant that many such people were blind to it, and to the associated risks.

She said she was particularly concerned by studies showing that most parents of overweight children did not believe their offspring weighed too much.

via Excess weight causing 1 in 10 deaths, top doctor warns – Telegraph.

But, as a cardiologist who has been in practice for nearly three decades and written more than 800 medical publications, including two text books, I am here to tell you that fatness has been sorely misunderstood.

Indeed, there is much evidence to suggest that, just as a glass of wine a day has been proven to impart health benefits, so body fat in the right amount can be exactly what we need to live long and healthy lives.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting that people of ‘normal’ weight start embracing cream buns and piling on the pounds.

But if you are already carrying extra fat, it’s not the end of the world, especially if you maintain a certain level of fitness (and I don’t mean being able to run a six-minute mile or committing to an exercise regimen on a par with an Olympic athlete’s).

For the millions of people categorised as overweight or mildly obese by the most commonly used standard today — the body mass index, or BMI — the good news is that achieving optimal health may mean staying exactly where you are in terms of weight.

That’s right: you don’t have to set your sights on getting your BMI down to ‘normal’, defined by the World Health Organisation as between 18.5 and 25.

You may, in fact, be much better off sustaining a BMI of between 25 and 30 — ‘overweight’ in WHO terms — or even slightly above, venturing into the realm of the mildly ‘obese’ (BMI above 30).

This advice holds true for people who want to prevent chronic illness and those already living with it, but it was those in the latter category who first inspired my research into this subject more than a decade ago.

Day in, day out I care for heart patients in Louisiana, the most obese state in the U.S.. And, like other colleagues in the cardiology profession, I began noticing that patients who are on the chubby side often live longer after diagnosis with heart disease than do their thinner counterparts.

We call this idea that fat can protect you from an early death the ‘obesity paradox’ and to say that it has ruffled a few feathers in my field is an understatement.

As I began to publish research papers on this phenomenon, I faced a tidal wave of ingrained ideology. Even veteran scientists and respected journal reviewers were reluctant to entertain new thinking about fat, but the science has since spoken for itself.

Over the past few years, a multitude of studies around the globe have not only confirmed the existence of the obesity paradox but demonstrated that it also applies to a host of chronic ailments in addition to those related to the heart, including diabetes, cancer and kidney disease.

We often attribute excess weight to an increased likelihood that these conditions will be worsened or aggravated as a result, but the evidence proves otherwise: people who have been diagnosed with any of these ailments fare better in the long run if they are overweight or even mildly obese than if they are normal weight.

One explanation is that when the body is bearing the weight of a chronic disease, it requires more energy than usual so it makes sense that extra fuel in the form of body fat is helpful.

via A controversial book by a top doctor claims being overweight can help you fight disease – and even live longer | Daily Mail Online.

A 315-pound man is accused of hiding dozens of bags of heroin in his belly button.

Greenville police arrested Randall Streeter following a traffic stop on May 29 and discovered 150 bags of heroin in his car and $1,200. WNCT-TV reports that police then found an additional 40 bags of heroin hiding in Streeter’s navel, along with crack cocaine and Percocet pills.

The Greenville Regional Drug Task Force seized a total of 340 bags of heroin during its investigation of Streeter.

Authorities say that Streeter was selling large quantities of heroin at a Greenville Econo Lodge, WNCT reports.

A passenger in Streeter’s car, Marshall Wayne Wilson, was also arrested and charged with heroin trafficking and is being held on $75,000 bond at the Pitt County Detention Center.

Streeter has been charged with numerous counts of trafficking heroin. He is being held on a $1,000,000 bond at the Pitt County Detention Center.

via Police: 315-Pound Man Hid 40 Bags Of Heroin In Belly Button « CBS Charlotte.

A woman weighing 900 pounds left her bedroom for the first time in two years on Tuesday, with a large community effort now allowing her to seek physical therapy.

Sharon Hall-Dodson says she can now work on losing weight with the right equipment after a six-month effort by workers from several state agencies, KPTV reports. Health care workers, contractors and firefighters all volunteered time to remove a section of her bedroom wall and move Hall-Dodson to her living room.

Hall-Dodson has not been outside of her home for years, and now she will be able to use appropriate physical therapy equipment in her living room instead of moving to an expensive, skilled nursing facility.

“The crews and everybody have been so wonderful. They have all gone over and above, and it’s made it a lot easier,” Hall-Dobson told KPTV.

Hall-Dodson expressed her commitment to losing weight and improving her health after the sustained effort from the state agencies and local volunteers.

“She wants to stay in a safe living environment and we made her home safe by all coming together in the community as a partnership,” said Sherry Nutter, Trillium Community Health Plan nurse care coordinator, told KEZI-TV.

via 900-Pound Woman Has Wall Removed To Leave Bedroom For First Time In 2 Years « CBS Seattle.