Make Sure Your Gown Still Fits!

Weddings and Women's Obesity: MeMe Roth Leads 2nd Annual Wedding Gown Challenge, Friday, August 4

--"Women Should Fit Into Their Wedding Gowns Year After Year," Says Anti-Obesity Advocate MeMe Roth--

New York, NY -- August 4, 2006 -- http://weddinggownchallenge.blogspot.com/ --While most U.S. adults succumb to today's obesity epidemic and brides-to-be across the country starve themselves into unhealthy and unrealistic weights for just one day--their wedding day--The Wedding Gown Challenge marks its second year. The Wedding Gown Challenge encourages women to enter into marriage at a healthy weight and maintain that weight for a lifetime rather than perpetuating the time-honored tradition of starving oneself leading up to the wedding and then packing on the pounds during the honeymoon.

"Most women I know commit fraud on their wedding days--they weigh-in for the walk down the aisle with no expectation of maintaining that weight year after year," said anti-obesity advocate, MeMe Roth. "Instead of starving for weeks on end to look good for the wedding album, women should enter marriage at a healthy weight and with the full commitment to remain fit for life."

Today, there is little expectation that women will hover near their wedding day size. However, the facts according to Yale New Haven Hospital, and others, is that women need only blame five to 10 pounds on pregnancy. Additionally, gaining a modest 10-20 pounds after age 18 materially compromises one's health. According to the New England Journal of Medicine and reported by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), gaining merely 10-20 pounds after age 18 increases your chance of premature death by 15%.

"The only way to combat obesity is to not get fat in the first place--studies show once you're overweight, your body works to maintain the highest weight you reach, making it that much harder to be fit," said Ms. Roth. "The Wedding Gown Challenge gives us a chance to 'check-in' with ourselves atleast once a year and keep an eye on our waistlines."

HOW?
It's time to break the obesity cycle starting with the Wedding Gown Challenge:
· Forget bride-to-be boot camps. Instead, make healthy choices about food and portion size.
· Move it! Sports, walking, playing--do whatever it takes to move your body at least 10,000 steps a day. (That's about five miles.)
· Be healthy on your wedding day, and most importantly, do what it takes to remain healthy.
· Refuse to use your life as an excuse for obesity: stress, pregnancy, depression, genetics, metabolism. There is an infinite list of circumstances that make weight gain easy; however, it is up to only one person to live fit or fat.
· Finally, if you have children, rear the next generation of brides-to-be into ahealthy adulthood by both modeling and providing a healthy lifestyle.

WHEN?
Friday, August 4, women across the country are pulling out and putting on their gowns and taking part in the 2nd Annual Wedding Gown Challenge. Many will gather together with their girlfriends, husbands and children for moral support, and some will face their gowns solo.

The Wedding Gown Challenge is in response to the deluge of data, advice and warnings regarding obesity. "Women are at the center of the obesity epidemic. One in three of us is not just overweight, but obese. Women make more than 90% of food-buying decisions. It's on us to stop the surge in obesity," added Ms. Roth.

ABOUT MEME ROTH
Writer, Speaker and Anti-Obesity Advocate MeMe Roth is host and organizer of the Wedding Gown Challenge, an annual event in support of women entering marriage at a healthy weight--and maintaining it. In addition to convincing the masses that obesity is abuse, Ms. Roth campaigns to eliminate junk food from schools, believing the school environment should not encourage children to consume junk food as a means for fundraising.

Ms. Roth is dedicated to sounding the alarm against obesity and offering advice to break the obesity cycle. Ms. Roth's motivation? Being born into a long lineof obesity, having children of her own and fighting the battle of the bulge like everyone else. Ms. Roth's larger agenda? Brain/Body/Libido. "Let's re-tool the image of 'mom' and live a lifestyle free of excuses."

As an anti-obesity advocate, Ms. Roth's efforts to eliminate junk food from schools, eradicate Secondhand Obesity™ (obesity handed down from one generation to the next, as well as from citizen to citizen), and to celebrate women committed to remaining fit have been featured on FOX's O'Reilly Factor w/ Bill O'Reilly, Your World with Neil Cavuto, CBS's The Early Show,The New York Times, New York Magazine, The New York Post, Playboy Magazine, The New Jersey Star-Ledger, TimeOut New York, Big Apple Parent, WABCRadio, 106.7 LiteFM,Q104.3, Parents Magazine, Vicinity Magazine, Suburban Essex Magazine, School Administrator, American School Board Journal, The Winnipeg Sun, UPN Channel 9 News, News Target, Baristanet.com, WCRN Boston, BigFatBlog, Nippon TV, The Associated Press and Health Magazine.

Mother's Day Doesn't Make You Fat

Mother’s Day and Women’s Obesity

-- Anti-Obesity Advocate MeMe Roth Lists

Top 3 Lies Mothers Tell About Their Weight --

As women across the U.S. celebrate Mothers Day, anti-obesity advocate MeMe Roth draws attention to obesity’s continued threat to women and their families. Today, MeMe Roth announces the Top Three Lies mothers tell about their weight:

1- “Pregnancy Made Me Fat.”

While the effects of a healthy pregnancy may include bulging veins, stretch marks and a host of other physical mementos, it does not leave a woman obese. Yale-New Haven Hospital and other medical professionals advise that a healthy pregnancy, on average, leaves behind five to ten pounds of additional fat. Unfortunately more than half the women of childbearing age in the U.S. are overweight or obese, leading to an increased risk of birth defects as well as pregnancy and delivery complications. If a woman is abusing her body with excessive or poor-quality food and lack of exercise, her child is likely to suffer the consequences of health risks and obesity. Ideally, women should demonstrate a healthy lifestyle well in advance of conceiving, which includes wholesome foods and ample exercise. Additionally, an overweight or obese woman should gain far less weight during pregnancy than a healthy-weight mother-to-be. The most important factor is following guidelines prescribed by an attending OB/GYN.

Anti-obesity advocate, MeMe Roth said, “We should no more glorify getting fat as a rite of passage to ‘Momdom’ than any other self-respecting institution. Women must stop scapegoating their pregnancies as sources of obesity.”

2- “Genetics Made Me Fat.”

Fact: genetics plays a role in the propensity for obesity. However, “propensity” is not an immutable sentence; it’s a gift of advance warning. Having the knowledge that one comes from a legacy of obesity is ample reason to avoid the “obesity axis-of-evil,” which comprises junk food, soda and sitting around.

Roth said, “It’s true there is what I call ‘Second-Hand Obesity.’ If your parents are obese, studies show you’re 15 times more likely to be obese—so work 15 times harder to clear a healthy life path.”

3- “Middle-Age Spread Made Me Fat.”

Time is no friend to metabolism. Each year—life’s cruel joke—metabolism takes another dive. Combine the natural decline of metabolism with the hormonal cocktail of menopause and the result for most women is extra fat, especially around the middle. Nutritionists and personal trainers alike advise a decrease in calories and increase in exercise. Particularly effective is weight-training, which increases muscle mass--which in-turn--increases metabolism. Studies project that in the course of a woman’s life, 70% will become overweight or obese. Post-menopausal weight gain is riskier due to its link to breast cancer and other health complications.

“There’s a popular country song that sings ‘…live like you were dyin’...’ If you’re a woman facing ‘middle age spread’ and you have not been given a terminal diagnosis, it’s more important than ever to live like you are living. That means facing up to a slowing metabolism and eliminating the food choices and sedentary lapses contributing to extra weight gain,” Roth advises.

“One in every three women is obese. Two in every three women is overweight or obese. Women make more than 90% of food-buying decisions in the U.S. Studies show that only a modest weight gain of 10-20 pounds after age 18 materially compromises a woman’s health. If there is to be a resistance to the obesity epidemic, it will come from mothers. So on Mother’s Day, let’s stop telling lies about our weight. Why are these lies so dangerous? Blaming pregnancy, genetics and middle-age spread for obesity only ushers in a new generation of obesity. Lying to our families is one thing, but it’s far more damaging for a woman to lie to herself,” Roth concluded.

About MeMe Roth
MeMe Roth is host and organizer of the Wedding Gown Challenge--Friday, August 4, 2006-- where women enter into marriage at a healthy weight and maintain it for a lifetime. As an anti-obesity advocate, Ms. Roth's efforts to eliminate junk food from schools, eradicate Secondhand Obesity™ (obesity handed down from one generation to the next, as well as from citizen to citizen), and to celebrate women committed to remaining fit have been featured on FOXNews’ The O’Reilly Factor w/ Bill O’Reilly, Your World with Neil Cavuto, CBS’s The Early Show, The New York Times, New York Magazine, The New York Post, Playboy Magazine, The New Jersey Star-Ledger, TimeOut New York, Big Apple Parent, WABCRadio, 106.7 LiteFM, Q104.3, Parents Magazine, Vicinity Magazine, Suburban Essex Magazine, School Administrator, American School Board Journal, The Winnipeg Sun, UPN Channel 9 News, News Target, Baristanet.com, The Item, WCRN Boston, BigFatBlog, Nippon TV, The Associated Press and Health Magazine. Ms. Roth’s agenda: Brain/Body/Libido. “Let’s re-tool the image of ‘mom’ and live a lifestyle free of excuses.”

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