OCR Text |
Show DAILY HERALD 12 Monday. May up? i --A y " : 4- H 2007 - ;I i ) '-- Za RICK RYCROFT Associated Press People wait for hndi orders at a fast food outlet. Doctors worry that thin people may be lulled into falsely assuming that because they're not overweight, they're healthy. Fat Continued from B 1 y V - I .. a , funded by Britain's Medical Research CounciL Without a clear warnlike a rounder ing signal middle doctors worry that thin people may be lulled into falsely assuming that because they're not overweight, they're healthy. K ROSS HAILEYFort Worth ' Above: Victoria Briton, left and sister, Katherine model clothes made by their mother. Left Fabric stores say they are selling and stocking more and more cloth and patterns for children as more moms are making kids' clothes. www.sewttup.com This store offers a range of interesting fabrics and also sells kits for kids' clothes with patterns and cloth that's already measured out for between $19 and $50. ing a comeback." Mary Anne Britton loves the hand-smocki- Sew 19th-centur- Billy Davis's 100 hives. Davis notes that beekeepers two centuries ago reported mysterious "They called them dwindling disease," he said. But CCD "for the first time has affected a massive number of die-off- s. bees." The syndrome has most affected hives trucked from crop to crop by beekeepers, who make a living renting the bees to fruit and nut growers across the United States. Beekeepers I talk to believe this existence creates stresses that weaken a colony's resistance to pests and diseases, especially when you mass them all together. "When you put everyone in a room they all come down with the same flu, said Pat Haskell a beekeeper in ever-shiftin- g Va. But the actual cause the subject of congressional inquiry and intense scientific detec- - re sparkers. k r, ping. "I don't even want to deal with it yet," Britton says. "She can't understand that just because the clothes are in the stores doesnt mean it's OK for her to wear them." And the boost that Britton says her daughter gets from custom-mad- e attire motivates her, she says. "When I sec how it makes her feel, it makes me feel like my time was worth it," Britton says. an enDiana tomologist testifying before the House subcommittee on horticulture and organic agriculture, raised concerns about a class of pesticide now in broad use and known to be highly toxic to bees. Synthetic versions of nicotine poisons, they include the popular used extensively as a systemic pesticide on sucking insects. It was banned in France after authorities there claimed a link between its use and honeybee disorientation. Is there a silver lining in all this? Bees have been under dire pressure for years from the mites, but the new syndrome is raising awareness of the insect's plight. Haskell reported heahhy enrollment in beekeeping classes this year in Northern Virginia and Montgomery County as beginners see the hobby as a way of personally taking action in the face of worrying global environmental issues such as climate change and, now, colony collapse disorder. There is also an underlying hysteria about bees because of the spread of aggressive Africanized honeybees into the Gulf States from Mexico over-thpast 10 years or so. "Farmland gets developed and homeowner associations get the idea they should restrict beekeeping," Hoffman said, "so it's very important that people understand how important bees are." Meanwhile, beekeepers whose hives have so far escaped the syndrome count their blessings, seek to coddle their charges and try to hide their fears. The other day, I came across one of my bees stopped in her tracks by a cold rain. I picked her up, dried her in my hands, and offered some honey. After a few minutes, she was buzzing again and ready to return to the hive. I tive work - has yet to be determined Many theories have been floated, including one that cellphone microwaves were wrecking the bees' radar. Davis wonders whether it is some fungus. One notion with currency in the blogo-spheis that the bees are making their rapturous ascent into heaven in advance of Judgment Day, hope. The European designs on this site are great idea ready-to-wea- full-skirt- then just to the queen and her attendants. A beekeeper will crack open the lid of a hive and peer into honeycombed frames full of stored pollen and honey and with cells brimming with ghostly white bee larvae, abandoned and doomed, and see none of the quivering mass of honeybees , needed for the queen and her offspring to survive. It is the equivalent of encountering y that ghost ship, the Mary Celeste, except we are talking whole armadas of empty hives. Beekeepers and entomologists are alarmed by the speed and scale of the losses. The Apiary Inspectors of America estimate that CCD has claimed a quarter of the estimated 2.4 million hives nationwide just since last fall In Pennsylvania, beekeepers who reported CCD symptoms lost an average 73 percent of their hives. In Virginia, winter losses averaged approximately 40 percent, about 10 percent higher than normal, though the state doesnt ask beekeepers to assign cause, said Keith Tignor, the state apiarist. Maryland's apiarist, Jerry Fischer, said only half the state's 9,000 bee colonies survived the winter, but the high losses are attributed to wild swings in winter weather rather than CCD. Winter hfve losses are a common part of beekeeping, and the rate became much higher after colonies became infested with two species of parasitic mite. One of the three hives in my back yard died off in late winter. Marc Hoffman, a beekeeper in Montgomery County, Md., said four of bis 18 hives died. Our losses were not from CCD. Hoffman said in his case, January's warmth spurred the queen to start www.tuesdayschild.com brother and sister, those are the kind of things that sell really well," she says. "It's really hard to find those things in no matter what you're willing to pay." And when Britton makes the clothes herself, she says, she doesn't have to deal with her daughters wanting to choose some of the racier options offered in stores. Britton says, for that reason, she rarely takes Kathryn shop- d Continued from Bl sewitup.com. Gail T. Hamilton, vice president of promotions and advertising for McCalL Butter-icand Vogue Patterns. "Big sisterlittle sister or details like technique to insert lace into the found in boutiques. "But I would never pay those dress' skirt. "This dress was expensive to prices for an outfit," she says. Continued from Bl So Britton, who teaches make," the Colleyville resident two or three classes in finance jumper or sundress associated says, "but it would have cost with homemade threads. more than $1,000 to buy it." each semester at Dallas Baptist She draws her inspiration, HIGH QUALITY, LOW University, purchases cheap PRICES she says, from French and sportswear for her kids to Italian designers who charge Sharon Chan and mothers dirty up in the front yard and like her covet the high-enupwards of $600 for the types then spends hours putting her look found at children's speconsiderable skill to use craftof outfits she makes. Chan cialty stores but shudder at the subscribes to French sewing clothing ing heirloom-qualitfor her three children. magazines, studying the picprices. So instead Chan spends tures for instructions on how Last year, she used green to reproduce challenging tech- flowered fabric to make a painstaking hours producing embellished pants and lined Cinderella-styl- e dress niques. for her Ashley Starnes, manager jackets with daughter, at the Grapevine Collection, topstitching for her Kathrya Gabriella. a store that offers specialized "It would cost me $ 150, at The clothes aren't cheap, but fabrics for children and kits least, to buy this dress, but I outfits made it for about $50," she they're less expensive to make for than purchase. for boys and girls, says techsays. nical finishing skills like For Gabriella's First CommuPlus, she says, when she the topstitching and beading makes the outfits herself, she's nion, Chan spent four months Chan adds to Gabriella's outfits able to coordinate a look for making an ethereal white are making a comeback her two daughters, ages 7 and gown and matching bolero. She added pearlescent glass beads with the push for extra-speci5, and her son, age 2, without to the top, sewed together hun- clothing. dressing them like matched "Our smocking classes fill up Stepf ord children. dreds of pieces of lace to create more quickly all the time," she the bolero and used a complCoordinating options are luicated French heirloom sewing says. It's a tost art that's mak crative for pattern companies, laying eggs early, and when the freezing weather arrived in February, the colony of worker bees wouldn't leave the brood to tap into their food reserves elsewhere in the hive. Such a natural loss would be marked by the bodies of the dead bees on the bottom board, and soon other bees might move in for the free digs and provisions, as might a couple of pests, the wax moth or small hive beetle. Hives afflicted with CCD, however, remain eerily quiet. Even the freeloaders stay away. This spooky silence descended this spring on two of also provides smocking and pleating services. See the store online at www. says expensive dresses with French Bees search. It WHERE TO GO "Just because someone is lean doesn't make them immune to diabetes or other risk factors for heart disease," said Dr. Louis Teichholz, chief of cardiology at Hackensack Hospital in New Jersey, who was not involved in Bell's reEven people with normal a Body Mass Index scores standard obesity measure that divides your weight by the can square of your height have surprising levels of fat deposits inside. Of the women scanned by Bell and his colleagues, as many as 45 percent of those with normal BMI scores (20 to 25) actually had excessive levels of internal fat. Among men, the percentage was nearly 60 percent. Relating the news to what Bell calls "TOFIs" people who are "thin outside, fat inis rarely uneventf uL side" "The thinner people are, the bigger the surprise," he said, adding the researchers even found TOFIs among people who are professional models. According to Bell, people who are fat on the inside are essentially on the threshold of being obese. They eat too many fatty, sugary foods and exercise too little to work it off but they are not eating enough to actually be fat. Scientists believe we naturally accumulate fat around the belly first, but at some point, the body may start storing it elsewhere. Still, most experts believe that being of normal weight is an indicator of good health, and that BMI is a reliable mea- surement. "BMI won't give you the exact indication of where fat is, but it's a useful clinical tool," said Dr. Toni Steer, a nutritionist at Britain's Medical Research CounciL Doctors are unsure about the exact dangers of internal fat, but some suspect it contributes to the risk of heart disease and diabetes. They theorize that internal fat disrupts the body's communication systems. The fat enveloping internal organs might be sending the body mistaken chemical signals to store fat inside organs like the liver or pancreas. This could ultimately lead to insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, or heart disease. Experts have long known that fat, active people can be healthier than their skinny, inactive counterparts. "Normal-- persons who are weight sedentary and unfit are at much higher risk for mortality than obese persons who are active and fit," said Dr. Steven Blair, an obesity expert at the University of South Carolina. For example, despite their ripples of fat, super-size- d Sumo wrestlers probably have a better metabolic profile than some of their slim, sedentary spectators, Bell said. That's because the wrestlers' fat is primarily stored under the skin, not streaking throughout their vital organs and muscles. The good news is that internal fat can be easily burned off through exercise or even by improving your diet. "Even if you don't see it on your bathroom scale, caloric restriction and physical exercise have an aggressive effect on visceral fat," said Dr. Bob Ross, an obesity expert at Queen's University in Canada. Because many factors contribute to heart disease, Teichholz says it's difficult to determine the precise danger of internal fat though it certainly doesn't help. "Obesity is a risk factor, but it's lower down on the totem pole of risk factors," he said, explaining that whether or not people smoke, their family histories and blood pressure and cholesterol rates are more important determinants than both external and internal fat. When it comes to being fit, experts say there is no shortcut. "If you just want to look thin, then maybe dieting is enough," Bell said. "But if you want to actually be healthy, then exercise has to be an important component of your lifestyle." Cox-Foste- r, ,5- - a V "r- - e - A JEFFHY SCOTTTTH Aruoru Duly Star Beekeepers and entomologists are alarmed by the speed and scale of the losses of beet. |