Beware: Your phone can make you fat

IF you are trying to lose weight, and you sincerely wish to succeed in your weight loss plan, you need to ditch your cell phone. Really!?

Short answer: Your cell phone is making you fat.That smart little gadget of yours which has become the centre of your world of late, is slowly but steadily transforming you into a lazy bag of bones and if care is not taken, you’ll end up a fat  slob before you know it.Remember how you woke up this morning, all fired up to go to the gym – for  the first time in ages – and you really meant to go, but then your phone buzzed before you even got out of bed.It turned out to be your colleague at work texting a delicious tidbit of gossip. You had to respond – back and forth for about 10 minutes. And since your phone was in hand, it only made sense to check  Facebook and to see what else was going on in the world, which led you to a friend’s Instagram profile,  then pinterest, twitter, etc.
Suddenly, those 40 minutes you had dedicated to going to the gym had been eaten up by all those little apps on your smartphone.

According to a new study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity,   persons in the habit of staying glued to the cell phone 24/7, are most likely to get less exerciseand  are likely to end up being in worse physical shape than those who use their phones less frequently.Unlike all of the other sedentary devices such as TVs, video games and computers, cell phones, regardless of their portability, tend to discourage  movement and on-the-go activity much more readily.

Researchers studied 300 students at Kent State University involving low-frequency cell phone users (90 mintues a day); moderate users (average of 5 hours a day); and heavy users (up to 14 hours a day).They measured their fitness levels by having them run on a treadmill till exhaustion, as well as measuring their body fat. As expected, those who used their phones the most were in the worst physical shape.Some students even reported that certain phones were more of a time suck than others.

One interview subject said: “Now that I have switched to the iPhone, I would say it definitely decreases my physical activity because before I just had a Blackberry, so I didn’t have much stuff on it. But now, if I’m bored, I can just download whatever I want. I really cannot get bored using it. Before I would always get bored and I would have to find something else to do.

My advise. .. Ditch your cellphone! Is that even remotely possible?

‘Vow to never text and drive’, cellphone users warned

A US family has published the last, cut-off text message written by their 22-year-old son who crashed his car and died while using his cellphone, in the hope of preventing similar tragedies.

Alexander Heit, a 22-year-old student, drifted across the road while exchanging texts with a friend, realized suddenly and over-corrected with the steering wheel, sending his car rolling off the road.

He was pronounced dead at North Colorado Medical Center on April 3 after the late afternoon crash — and his family have agreed with police to issue a photograph of his last text exchange.

Texting and driving: Family’s Warning of Fatal Crash Victim

The text shows two messages from a friend, who says: “Hey man I had to run out for like an hour,” to which Heit was replying: “Sounds good my man, seeya soon, ill tw ..” before abruptly stopping.

“Heit had been traveling eastbound .. Witnesses stated he seemed to have his head down, and began drifting into the oncoming lane of traffic. A westbound vehicle slowed and moved over just before Mr. Heit looked up.

“As he did, he jerked the steering wheel hard, over-correcting, resulting in his leaving the south side of the roadway, rolling and flipping the vehicle,” said a statement by police in Greeley, 55 miles north of Denver.

His mother Sharon Heit said: “I can’t bear the thought of anyone else having to go through something like this.

“Please, vow to never, NEVER text and drive. In a split second you could ruin your future, injure or kill others, and tear a hole in the heart of everyone who loves you,” she added, cited by the police statement.

Police chief Jerry Garner added: “Unfortunately, when we think to ourselves, ‘I’ll just do it this one time,’ we are fooling ourselves.

“This ‘one time’ may be the only time. The Heits are sharing their tragedy and loss, in hope that through Alex’s story, others may realize and recognize just how dangerous texting and driving is.”