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ALBANY, New York (CNN) — Like many New Yorkers, I remember a time when nearly everyone smoked. In 1950, Collier’s reported that more than three-quarters of adult men smoked. This epidemic had a devastating and long-lasting impact on public health.

Today, we find ourselves in the midst of a new public health epidemic: childhood obesity.

What smoking was to my parents’ generation, obesity is to my children’s generation. Nearly one out of every four New Yorkers under the age of 18 is obese. In many high-poverty areas, the rate is closer to one out of three.

That is why, in the state budget I presented last Tuesday, I proposed a tax on sugared beverages like soda. Research has demonstrated that soft-drink consumption is one of the main drivers of childhood obesity.

For example, a study by Harvard researchers found that each additional 12-ounce soft drink consumed per day increases the risk of a child becoming obese by 60 percent. For adults, the association is similar.

If we are to succeed in reducing childhood obesity, we must reduce consumption of sugared beverages. That is the purpose of our proposed tax. We estimate that an 18 percent tax will reduce consumption by five percent.

Our tax would apply only to sugared drinks — including fruit drinks that are less than 70 percent juice — that are non diet. The $404 million this tax would raise next year will go toward funding public health programs, including obesity prevention programs, across New York state.

The surgeon general estimates that obesity was associated with 112,000 deaths in the United States every year. Here in New York state, we spend almost $6.1 billion on health care related to adult obesity — the second-highest level of spending in the nation.

Last year, legitimate concerns about links between consumption of fast food and the prevalence of heart disease prompted New York City to ban the use of trans fats in restaurant food.

No one can deny the urgency of reducing the rate of obesity, including childhood obesity. Obesity causes serious health problems like type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. It puts children at much greater risk for life-threatening conditions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

We must never stigmatize children who are overweight or obese. Yet, for the sake of our children’s health, we have an obligation to address this crisis. I believe we can ultimately curb the obesity epidemic the same way we curbed smoking: through smart public policy.

In recent decades, anti-smoking campaigns have raised awareness. Smoking bans have been enacted and enforced. And, perhaps most importantly, we have raised the price of cigarettes.

In June, New York state raised the state cigarette tax an additional $1.25. According to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, this increase alone will prevent more than 243,000 kids from smoking, save more than 37,000 lives and produce more than $5 billion in health care savings.

These taxes may be unpopular, but their benefits are undeniable. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that, for the first time in generations, fewer than 20 percent of Americans smoked. Lung cancer rates have finally begun to decline. As a result, we are all healthier.

Just as the cigarette tax has helped reduce the number of smokers and smoking-related deaths, a tax on highly caloric, non-nutritional beverages can help reduce the prevalence of obesity.

To address the obesity crisis, we need more than just a surcharge on soda. We need to take junk food out of our schools. We need to encourage our children to exercise more. And we need to increase the availability of healthy food in underserved communities.

But to make serious progress in this effort, we need to reduce the consumption of high-calorie drinks like nondiet soda among children and adults.

I understand that New Yorkers may not like paying a surcharge for their favorite drinks. But surely it’s a small price to pay for our children’s health.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Paterson.

Personal Trainer in Charlotte, NC

A couple of days ago, I wrote about the tragic incidences that have been occurring in the world of sport as it relates to youth athletics. The past couple of years, numerous athletes have been cleared by the physician to participate in their sport later to collapse and die while participating. This post is a follow up and is taken from News 14 about the latest case, a 15 year old basketball player that died during the team’s first game. Our heart goes out to his family, friends, teammates and coaches, and all that knew him.

WINSTON-SALEM – The state medical examiner has determined that the high school basketball player who died after collapsing during his team’s first game died from an uncommon heart condition.

The autopsy showed 15-year-old Khalid Prince, died Saturday from myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that weakens the heart.

“It is the result of viruses that are directed at the heart,” Dr. Vinay Thohan, Wake Forest University associate professor of cardiology, said. “In the process of the body healing, or killing off the viruses, it starts to attack the heart also, and when it attacks the heart, it makes the heart weak.”

Thohan, who did not treat Prince, said the condition is seen in young athletes but is not common. About 5 to 9 percent of young athletes who die suddenly suffer from myocarditis, he said.

And it can develop at any time.”The challenge is this can occur after a routine physical,” Thohan said. “So an individual may have had a perfectly normal, routine physical, develop myocarditis two months into their season and have an unusual course.”

And since it can develop even after a physical, he said people should know the symptoms.

“If two weeks ago you were able to run five miles without getting short of breath and now you can’t run a mile without feeling short of breath or having palpatations or feeling like you’re going to pass out, that is a clear change in the way you are feeling,” he said. “And that should be evaluated by a physician.”

Students and staff at Parkland High School are mourning the loss of the freshman starting point guard, who collapsed after a basketball game Dec. 2. He passed away at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.

Parkland Principal Tim Lee said Monday that Prince was cleared to play both basketball and football for the school.

So what causes myocarditis and what are the symptoms?

Myocarditis is an uncommon disorder. In children it is usually caused by viral infections that reach the heart, such as the influenza (flu) virus, Coxsackie virus, and adenovirus. However, it may also occur during or after other viral or bacterial infections such as polio, rubella, Lyme disease, and others.

When you have an infection, your body’s immune system produces special cells that release certain chemicals to fight off disease. If the infection affects your heart, the disease-fighting cells enter the heart. However, the chemicals they produce can damage the heart muscle, causing it to become thick and swollen. This leads to symptoms of heart failure. In addition, the virus or bacteria damage the heart muscle.Symptoms may be mild at first and difficult to detect.

Possible symptoms include palpitations (heart racing or “skipping” heart beats), low energy levels, and low exercise tolerance. Symptoms of congestive heart failure also include rapid breathing, clammy sweating, poor appetite, poor weight gain in young children, and swelling around the eyes, hand, and feet (more common in older children and young adults).

Symptoms in children over age 2 may also include:

* Belly area pain and nausea
* Chest pain
* Cough
* Fatigue
* Swelling (edema) in the legs, feet, and face

How can one be treated with myocarditis?

There is no cure for myocarditis, although the heart muscle inflammation usually goes away on its own in time.

The goal of treatment is to support heart function and treat the underlying cause of the myocarditis. Most children with this condition are admitted to a hospital. Activity can strain the heart and therefore is often limited.

Treatment may include:

* Antibiotics to fight infection
* Anti-inflammatory medicines called steroids to control inflammation
* Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), a medicine made of the substances that your body produces to fight infection, to control the inflammatory process
* Medicines called diuretics to remove excess water from the body
* Medicines to treat heart failure and abnormal heart rhythms

Personal Trainer and Sports Psychologist Consultant in Charlotte, NC
Taken from news14.com and www.drugs.com/enc/myocarditis-pediatric and www.med.umich.edu/mott/chc/patient_acq_myo.html

I was talking with someone the other day about where they were in life. This person really was down on themselves because they were at a crossroad with making some challenging decisions about where they wanted to be in life as it pertain to their career, personal, and spiritual life. We got on the subject of the word and definition of process. The dictionary defines process as:

1. A series of actions, changes, or functions bringing about a result: the process of digestion; the process of obtaining a driver’s license.
2. A series of operations performed in the making or treatment of a product: a manufacturing process; leather dyed during the tanning process.
3. Progress; passage: the process of time; events now in process.

In the Greek alphabet the first letter is alpha and the last letter is omega. Which in essence is what a process is. A beginning and a end.

What is a process?

Isn’t it just a series of things that have a beginning, a middle, and an end (in its simplistic form)? A process. Everything in life is a process. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end to everything. Let’s look at a few examples to see if this is true!

For example movies and books have the plot, the climax, and then the end of the storyline. Likewise, songs follow the same format as a story unfolds through melody and rhythm. Even life is a process, we are born into this world. We grow and develop, and then return to the earth through death. Everything is based off of the alpha to omega principle.

With that said, in the process there are usually ups and downs, pitfalls and advantages, triumphs and disappointments, wins and loses, and even sometimes plateau moments as well. We go through a bunch of tests that are graded upon rather we grasp a concept. The downside of it is if we fail, we have to repeat it until we grasp it. Most of the times the mistakes that are made are looked upon in a negative manner; however, its the mistakes that helps us learn what or how we should be doing to move through to the next level in order to obtain whatever desire or goal that we have set forth. Life is set up so that we have to accomplish one level before we move on to the next. Even if you a person cheats or tries to cut corners in the process, somehow they are forced to either have to start from the beginning and do whatever it was correctly, or they may get lucky and have to just repeat the missing step that was overlooked or taken out. Regardless, there are no shortcuts to this principle.

If one is trying to make a cake. There are certain steps that must be adhered to in order for the cake to come out successfully. However, there are some steps that could be replaced or substituted which would not be detrimental to the outcome, i.e. adding less sugar. Yet if a person was to overlook or omit the main ingredients flour, milk, eggs, and (the most important) the oven- the whole process won’t work.

If we agree that life is a journey- a process, that requires us to follow steps to our endpoint, then why is it that when we approach weight loss or our health we view it in a different manner? We try to cheat our way through by thinking that weight loss or even muscle gain is a smorgasbord full of ideas and concepts that we can pick and choose leaving some by the wayside. Yet that is not the case. What we do find is that we leave those by the wayside only to find out that we have to make a U turn to come back and get them after being frustrated time and time again with the same results. Now there are some leeway when it comes to the choice of modalities such as running on the treadmill vs taking a aerobic class, or using body weight exercise/ calisthenics vs machines and free weights, or picking up a sport vs just going for a walk or eating an apple vs eating a banana. All these examples follow under a specific category:

Treadmill and aerobic classes represent cardio exercises
Body weight and free weights represent strength exercises
The apple and the banana represent nutrition

Just like the cake analogy there are things that you have a choice on rather you want to do them or not; however, there are others that are imperative that must take place in order to have a successful outcome. With weight loss and weight management everyone knows that the three concepts listed above (cardio, strength training, and nutrition) must be in place in order for you to get the desired outcome that a person is looking for. Yet, majority of the times, individuals try to cheat the system by picking some of the equation without the other parts (in order to achieve addition you have to have all the parts added up to make the sum correct). Society, especially America, has sold its people a false sense of security when it comes to the concept of weight loss and management. That’s why the fitness industry will be a multi-billion dollar industry in the next couple of years due to this concept. They have told us that we can take pills that will make us lose the weight without having to workout, or use some type of equipment for a couple of weeks to make our stomach look a certain way without having to go through the painstaking process. And again, that could be true for a while, but remember in a process if one important step or steps are overlooked usually you have to go back and repeat that step or you have to start from scratch and repeat the whole process. This leads to frustration and the possibility of burn out which results in the individual quitting.

If we were to, in the beginning, accept the fact that the journey to weight loss will be a long journey then I think that more people would succeed with obtaining their goals because they have the right mind frame going in! Here is the foundation for success in obtaining your desired weight loss:

1. You have to have a passion for what you want to accomplish
2. Must be willing to work your butt off
3. Learn from all failures no matter how painstaking they may be

If a person takes these steps and apply them to their weight loss journey, there is no way why they shouldn’t be able to succeed and accomplish their goals. Also there are 3 more steps that I forgot to mention:

4. Stop putting strict time lines on obtaining the weight goal
5. Make the goals realistic and obtainable
6. Quit keeping up with the Joneses

The last 3 are very important. As a personal trainer, what I have found is that the majority of people I train or give advice fail to adhere or omit these principles because they feel the need to rush through the process. You should never try to rush through anything. When you rush through you miss out on so many levels. The process only when finished and done right is cherished because you are able to look back and enjoy the accomplishment of it all in its totality (with both the setbacks and lessons learned). Some cases the process itself and the things learned are taken and used in other areas of a person life.

My final thought is this. Look at the metamorphose of the caterpillar. Scientist say that caterpillars have to go through a lot in order to become a butterfly. They say that caterpillars have a long struggle within the cocoon and breaking from it in order to become that beautiful creature that we appreciate and are in awe over. If we take that story and remember it when we are going through the process of weight loss or management then we would approach the whole process differently. We must understand that weight loss is Alpha To Omega-beginning to end. It is a process. We must embrace the fact that during this process there will be a lot of mistakes made, but there also will be a lot of lessons learned. And when its over, when its over you will be just as beautiful as that butterfly.

Personal Trainer and Sports Psychologist Consultant in Charlotte, NC