The Dutch are getting taller, and heavier, but Frisians top the list

DutchNews, November 27, 2019 

Photo: Alenmax via Depositphotos.com

The average Dutchman and woman are getting both taller and heavier, the national statistics agency CBS said on Wednesday. 

The average man is now 1.81 metres tall, up 3.8 centimetres on 1981, and weighs 85 kilos, a rise of 2.3 kilos on 40 years ago. 

Women are 1.5 centimetres taller, with an average height of 1.67 metres, and weigh 72 kilos. Their weight has gone up by 4.7 kilos over the period, a far higher proportion than among men. 

The figures come from the latest CBS health survey and are based on self-assessment. 

The CBS researchers found strong regional differences. The smallest people were in Limburg and Brabant, who were on average three centimetres shorter than the tallest at the other end of the country in Friesland and Groningen. 

People in Drenthe and Flevoland are the most likely to be overweight and in both provinces, over half the population are too heavy, the CBS said. 

Junk food 

The CBS said in April that a diet of junk food and calorific drinks is driving up the weight of young Dutch adults, and one in four are officially classified as too heavy. 

While there is little difference between men and women, youngsters with a non-western background are more likely to be seriously overweight than the native Dutch. 

The new figures show that people with a non-western background are also likely to be shorter than the native Dutch, the CBS said.

Low-skilled worker life expectancy is five years less than for graduates

DutchNews, August 16, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Today’s new pensioners with a college or university degree will live an average of four to five years longer than those with vocational qualifications, the national statistics agency CBS said on Friday. 

Men with a degree are now expected to enjoy 22 years of retirement, while men with few qualifications will live a further 17 years, the CBS said. In addition, the life expectancy gap for men has grown a full year since the period 2011 to 2014. For women, the gap remains four years. 

Lifestyle is likely to be behind the difference, the CBS said. ‘People with a lower level of education are more likely to be overweight and to smoke,’ a spokesman told news agency ANP. They are also more likely to have hearing, eyesight and muscle problems. 

In addition, people with degrees retire, on average, eight months before the low-skilled – meaning they enjoy both a corporate and state pension for longer. 

The FNV trade union federation, which is campaigning for early retirement to be incorporated in the current proposals to reform the pension system, said the new figures demonstrate the real need for change. 

‘The growing difference in life expectancy shows that the union is right to call for the state pension age to be frozen and to scrap the fines for early retirement,’ a spokesman told ANP.

‘Westernised Afghan women can claim asylum on certain grounds’

DutchNews, November 21, 2018

The Council of State offices in The Hague. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The Council of State has told junior justice minister Mark Harbers to rethink his decision not to give asylum to two women from Afghanistan and one from Somalia who say they are too westernised to be sent back. 

A western lifestyle is not enough by definition to merit the right to asylum but it is, if this is the result of a religious or political conviction, the Council of State said in its ruling. 

‘If a woman has become less or not at all religious in the Netherlands, or has come to act in a more western way out of political conviction, then they could face persecution and so have the right to asylum,’ press spokeswoman Hanna Sevenster said. 

In addition, women who can no longer adapt to the way of behaving in their country of origin can also qualify for asylum, she said. 

‘This could be behaviour which is totally normal in the Netherlands … such as looking straight back at men or having conversations with them – things which can get you into trouble in your country of origin.’ 

The council said the minister must assess each case individually on its merits. This should include evidence about how the woman behaved when she came to the Netherlands and how she has developed since then. In none of the three cases had this been done, the council said. 

One woman, a 21-year-old Afghan woman who has been in the Netherlands for seven years, told broadcaster NOS earlier this year she has made her life in the Netherlands. 

‘Here I can chose what I wear, what I do and who I am,’ Mohadese Moradi said. ‘I cannot do that in Afghanistan.’

Dutchman, 69, in legal bid to cut 20 years off his age

Yahoo – AFP, 8 November 2018

The life coach, who specialises in "self awareness" training, said he felt
discriminated against because of his advanced years

A Dutch "young god" just months shy of his 70th birthday has launched a legal bid to slash 20 years off his age as he looks to enhance his prospects at work and in love.

In an unprecedented case in the Netherlands, Emile Ratelband told a tribunal that he wants to shift his birth date two decades later to March 11, 1969.

The life coach, who specialises in "self awareness" training, said he felt discriminated against because of his advanced years, adding that while he does not need dating apps, the custom of giving his age to a prospective lover was cramping his style.

"I feel much younger than my age, I am a young god, I can have all the girls I want but not after I tell them that I am 69," Ratelband told AFP on Thursday.

"I feel young, I am in great shape and I want this to be legally recognised because I feel abused, aggrieved and discriminated against because of my age."

The single father, who said he has tried in vain to stop his basic pension, told the tribunal on Monday that his petition was "legitimate", likening his bid for a legal remedy to people who register a change of official gender.

"Today we can choose our work, gender, political and sexual orientation. We even have the right to change our name. So why do we not have the right to change our age?" he said.

According to his doctor, his biological age is between 40 and 45, he said.

Ratelband said while he was initially greeted by "jeers" from magistrates, he now believes his lawyer -- famous criminal lawyer Jan-Hein Kuijpers had "unsettled" the judge.

"This case is unprecedented, there is no jurisprudence. The chances of success are minimal but we believe that the legislation must evolve with the times," Kuijpers told AFP.

The court must decide within four weeks.

Related Articles:

Dutch showman loses case to become officially 20 years younger - New


"The Innate Revealed" - Nov 22/23, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

"... Innate's Old Program

Here is what Innate has learned to do, which the old system required. Are you ready? Death. In order for you to graduate, pick up the wisdom, and move forward into a higher spiritual consciousness in the next life, you need a short and productive life. Then you reincarnate with that wisdom. The faster the learning cycles are, the higher potential there is for the planet to awaken into a higher vibration - spiritual evolution. Are you starting to see where this is going? Innate, by design, will give you short lifetimes! What a system! It's important that you see the sense in this. In an older consciousness, this became the "engine of enlightenment." The recycling of old souls was the key. Let them have experience and wisdom. Then recycle them back into the planet so that the wisdom could be used.

It's important to remember that the old energy didn't really allow for present-life wisdom to be realized [used] by the grid of the planet. This was only accomplished through rebirth, and from DNA only working at about one-third its potential.

Suddenly in 2012, you passed the marker [as measured by the precession of the equinoxes], and you've come to a place in consciousness that the ancient prophecies all told you about. Dear ones, that's why I'm here! You have the ability, for the first time, to do what we saw was possible 25 years ago when I arrived. Your DNA is starting to evolve.

I want all of you to start telling Innate that you don't need to go through the transition of death to pass on the wisdom you have. There is a new process now, and it's different than any you have had in the past. Not only can your present wisdom to pass into the grids of the planet today, but everything you have learned from the beginning can be applied, too. Your full Akashic wisdom and learning is suddenly accessible in real time to the energy of Earth.

You don't need to reincarnate quickly anymore. Instead, you can do it by remaining here as your DNA starts to increase in efficiency. By the time you get to 36 percent (do the numerology), the process is complete. You will then have the ability to stay - a very long time! Dear ones, Innate doesn't know that. For thousands of years, it has been progressing this planet's potential spiritual growth by giving short lifetimes. Innate needs to know this, and you are the ones to tell it. Longer lifetimes are the key to the planet's evolution!

Doesn't it make logical sense, dear ones, that you could accomplish more on this planet if you don't have to be reborn and have to grow up all over again? Stay!

There are many on this earth who will say, "This is silly. You are born one way and stay that way." But this is simply old traditional thinking. You can reprogram almost everything in your body! Many of you know that you've changed your entire personality, perhaps even your Human nature! You've even changed your corporeal structure. There are those reading this who have stopped aging, and that's what this is about - proof that these things are real.

The key to stopping the aging process as you know it today is reprogramming the Innate. Your body is designed to age you, even against common sense! Your cellular body was designed to rejuvenate, and it isn't doing it well. Do you understand? It is the job of Innate to change this, but it needs the signal to do that. This is free choice, and you are the only one who can do it - not a facilitator or a healer, not a channeller. YOU need to learn how to communicate with Innate.

Tell Innate: "I no longer have to die to create spiritual growth." You can do this almost any way you want. Learn how to build affirmations that are positive. Get in touch with the body through whatever process that comes your way. You are ready to communicate to the smart body.

Now, the beauty of this is the following: You don't have to convince Innate of anything. It knows! It has been waiting for the call! As soon as it sees the progress that you have made in your consciousness, it's a done deal. Did you hear that? Innate knows who you are! After all, it's the smart body. But it doesn't know until you make the call.

Innate is ready to cooperate as soon as it sees the new and evolved avenue of spiritual evolution. The result of this is that you may live a lot longer. Some say, "I'm not certain I want that!" If you say that, then you are buying into an old paradigm that age equals health problems. It doesn't have to! So that's the next thing: Stay healthy as you don't age. [Kryon smile] Youthing is not complicated! Is it possible it's filled with love? Yes. Is it new? Yes. It's also smart enough to work well.

Dear ones, I just gave you an attribute that I have never been able to give humanity, and you heard it for the first time tonight. For this information to be given, you had to cross the 2012 energy, past 2013, into 2014. It's time you knew the truth. You are in control of so much more than you have been taught. That's how powerful you are. You're going to see it, and then you're going to believe it. Indeed, you are all unique, and not all of you are going to be able to awaken Innate with the same strength. That's because each of you are individuals on a unique spiritual path. Dear ones, I know who you are!

Old souls of this planet, awaken! Awaken to a new process, and a new kind of life. You can double your lifespan and more! Don't be afraid of what you see around you. There will be those who don't agree with any of this, and the result will be that they can't do it. They don't understand it. Slowly, as you don't age as much, the differences between you and them may actually frighten them. It won't be forever, because there will come a time when all humanity will know what I'm teaching tonight is true.

And so it is.

KRYON

"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…  3 - Longer Life is Going to Happen, But…

Here is one that is a review. We keep bringing it up because Humans don't believe it. If you're going to start living longer, there are those who are frightened that there will be overpopulation. You've seen the way it is so far, and the geometric progression of mathematics is absolute and you cannot change it. So if you look at the population of the earth and how much it has shifted in the last two decades, it's frightening to you. What would change that progression?

The answer is simple, but requires a change in thinking. The answer is a civilization on the planet who understands a new survival scenario. Instead of a basic population who has been told to have a lot of children to enhance the race [old survival], they begin to understand the logic of a new scenario. The Akashic wisdom of the ages will start to creep in with a basic survival scenario shift. Not every single woman will look at herself and say, "The clock is ticking," but instead can say, "I have been a mother 14 times in a row. I'm going to sit this one out." It's a woman who understands that there is no loss or guilt in this, and actually feels that the new survival attribute is to keep the family small or not at all! Also, as we have said before, even those who are currently ignorant of population control will figure out what is causing babies to be born [Kryon joke].

Part of the new Africa will be education and healing, and eventually a zero population growth, just like some of the first-world nations currently have. Those who are currently tied to a spiritual doctrine will actually have that doctrine changed (watch for it) regarding Human birth. Then they will be able to make free choice that is appropriate even within the establishment of organized religion. You see, things are going to change where common sense will say, "Perhaps it would help the planet if I didn't have children or perhaps just one child." Then the obvious, "Perhaps I can exist economically better and be wiser with just one. It will help the one!" Watch for these changes. For those of you who are steeped in the tradition of the doctrines and would say that sounds outrageously impossible, I give you the new coming pope [Kryon smile]. For those of you who feel that uncontrolled procreation is inevitable, I encourage you to see statistics you haven't seen or didn't care to look at yet about what first-world countries have already accomplished on their own, without any mandates. It's already happening. That was number three.….”

Nine in 10 Dutch youngsters are happy with their lives

DutchNews, August 12, 2016

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Nine out of 10 Dutch youngsters are happy with their lives, according to research by national statistics office CBS. 

The CBS asked over 4,000 12 to 25-year-olds about how happy they were with life in general and about specific aspects such as their work, where they lived and their health. 

It found youngsters are most positive about their friends, their mental health and where they live. They were least happy about their finances and how much free time they had. 

Teenagers are happier than young adults – 94% compared with 87%. Girls are slightly less happy than boys about their appearance, but 78% are still content with the way they look. 

CBS researcher Maarten Bloem told broadcaster NOS there is a high level of life satisfaction in the Netherlands. 

Earlier studies have show Dutch children are among the happiest in the world but a research project by the CBS last year showed 25% of Dutch adults are not happy with their lives.

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Why Dutch Children Are the Happiest in the World (And What We Can Learn From It)

Many Dutch people are feeling happier in 2014

Many Dutch people are feeling happier in 2014

"Effect of the New Energy on DNA" + "One Foot in Each Energy" (3) - Aug 1-2, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“.…  Changes in the Kids are First

A Human baby comes into the planet today, but what is going on today is different from when you were born. You're in a new place in space, the Sun is quiet, you have the nodes and the nulls feeding new information into the grids, and the paradigm of consciousness is different for them than it was for you. Their Genesis cells, the "how a Human works" cells, are changing.

Things will start working that are unusually different for standard Human nature. The intuitive self, the barrier between innate and consciousness, will start to improve. The barrier starts to become less. Be ready for children who have very accurate intuition about what's wrong with them. If they tell you something's wrong, take them to the doctor! Immediately. Don't tell them, "It's your imagination, honey", or, "It will be okay later; it's growing pains." Do you hear that? There are those listening to this right now who need to hear that, because their children are saying, "I feel funny; something’s wrong." Mothers who are used to raising children are also used to an old energy paradigm that has a certain health template. This is changing. The kids are starting to awaken to being intuitive about their own health. The bridge isn't built yet to innate, but it is closer with them and they're feeling something. Innate is talking to them for the first time. Listen: You didn't have it, but they do. Listen to them.

The Akash of the child is starting to become clearer. These children are going to tell you many things about who they've been and what they've done. If you're a parent and you are listening to this now, the worst thing you can do is suppress it. The best thing you can do is to tell the child the absolute truth, the absolute truth: "I believe you." When you say things out loud, it helps the child. That's truthful and the child will get it. Listen, parent: In these things, be an ally to your child, and it will change your relationship with your children. Be honest with them about it all. Tell them not everyone will understand, so there are times to be quiet about it. These are instructions for kids in the New Age. These attributes are going to get even stronger, and your instructions will make sense.

Instinct is going to work better than it ever has. Instinct is not something that you are used to seeing much in Humans. You see it in animals mostly, because the offspring of animals have a very strong survival instinct. It is passed to them so well that they can actually walk within hours of birth! You don't have that. However, this same mechanical passing of instinct is starting to become stronger in Humans, and especially that which will come from the Akash. It is chemical as well as being esoteric (genetic and Akashic). As it is in animals, you should have it also and you will. You're going to see children remembering how to walk and how to eat much earlier, without training. It will be faster than the older paradigm, and faster than the doctors who know about child development will have seen. It will be "off the scale". Get ready for it; it's instinct. It's simple chemistry. It's the DNA working better.

If you look at the DNA cell itself, you might ask, what is happening? The truth is that DNA is becoming more informed, some say "enabled". Now, there is a buzzword in esoteric belief called activation. Please don't change it, but know that it's not accurate. You are not activating anything. Instead, you are releasing DNA from a prison. If you have somebody who is crippled in a chair, shriveled and not able to move, yet suddenly they are released from this bondage, and the fingers untangle and the hand starts to become whole again, it's because something that has happened to the DNA. It hasn't happened to the hand, or to the muscle, or to the fingers, not even to the arm, but to the DNA. It's a release. I want you to hold this vision. All the changes I have talked about are about being released from  a prison of crippled DNA! And (get ready), it happens to ALL DNA in the body at once. It's a "whole body experience", not a local "hand/arm" one.

Your DNA is crippled in this old energy, and it's your own free choice that created this. Your DNA, your lifespan (aging), your diseases are all where you wanted to take the energy of this planet, and your DNA cooperated. This is what you've lived with, and what is now changing. It's not DNA activation, it's DNA release. Release!

The profundity of it all: Do you realize the help that you have? Did you think for a moment that all of this was going to be you just doing these things? It involves the galaxy, the part of space you're in, the nodes and the nulls, and the creator of the Universe. It involves the Pleiadians, it involves your timeline, and it involves love. All of this is for you to sit in a new energy and release the bonds of your DNA. Now, dear ones, old souls, there is something you ought to know. You don't have to wait to be reborn for this. The old soul has the equipment inside right now, just like the newborn.  ….”

"Not Your Father's New Age" / "Paradign Shift" (3) - Feb 14/15, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“… The New "Listening" Body

Number three: There'll never be a time in Human history that is more profound than this one, when it comes to how the body is listening to what you are saying. There is a process, and always has been, where the cells of the body are on alert to what the boss - you - wants. For years, we have been asking you to talk to your body, talk to your cellular structure. Now we're going to tell you that it's listening, even when you don't realize what you're automatically saying! It's now listening 24-7. So what are you saying to it?

This is now a time where negative dialogue will have more personal influence on you than ever before. Think about what you are saying in life as you move around socially. What is your attitude when you say it, and how often do you say it? Your body is listening. Dear Lightworker, part of your spiritual evolution is that the body, the innate, is now aware of everything. Now, you may say, “Well, that's nice.” It's more than nice; it's profound! If you don't listen to this and understand it, you will keep you aging in the same old way you have. This is why we have spoken of affirmations more than ever before. This is far more than just positive thinking. Every time you open your mouth, you have the potential to give instructions to your body, and it listens to you when you talk to it. Unfortunately, your habits are to tell your body that you are unworthy!

I want you to think about what you're saying. When somebody asks you about your health, about your spirituality, about your intent, or about your aging, do you say the words, “I am working on it. I am trying”? The result is the cells of your body say, "Well, she's working on it - she is trying," but (implied), "She doesn't have it yet." I want you to listen to yourself when you talk. Are you giving "less than" messages to your own body?

Perhaps I've said enough, but almost every single one of you comes from a culture that is proud of demeaning itself in some way. It's an old habit from old ways that are supposed to represent a gracious countenance. Someone wants to give you a gift or celebrate your birthday. How many of you automatically say, "You shouldn't have"? Do you realize that your actions and words are saying, “I don't deserve it" to your own innate? Your actions say, “I am unworthy.” Don't you think your body hears this or sees it? It does. It is time to get out of the unworthy closet, Lightworker! You are alive with God inside! Don't be afraid or ashamed to proclaim, “I am healthy, I am healed, I am youthing, I am in charge of the situation.” Not, “I'm working on it” or, “I'm trying.” That tells your body that it may happen someday, but not today. That's the difference. “I am worthy of happiness. I am worthy of a peaceful situation in my life. I am worthy of a solution in my life.”

When someone wants to give you a gift or celebrate your birthday, automatically say, "Thank you for this wonderful gift!" Your innate will hear, "I am worthy of this gift of appreciation from others." Then love them for it. ….”

Doctors launch online personal health check

DutchNews.nl, February 24, 2015

A number of healthcare organisations on Tuesday launched an online personal health check (PGC) aimed at prevention and an improvement in lifestyle. 

The organisations, which include doctors’ associations NHG and LHV, council health service GGD and the diabetes, lung, kidney and heart foundations, say the personal health check is a scientific answer to the many health checks already available, which they consider to be unreliable. 

The existing commercially run health checks, such as total body scans, often lead to unnecessary follow-up checks, the organisations say. 

Rob Dijkstra of family doctors’ association NHG says body scans are nothing more than a snapshot. ‘Around one-third of the CT scans come up with false positives,’ he told broadcaster Nos. ‘People appear to be healthy and do not get the treatment they need, or they are given unnecessary treatment.’ 

Prevention

 The new PGC is aimed at prevention. The organisations behind the check think people should be responsible for their own health and only make use of professional help when it is necessary. 

A pilot PGC in the Utrecht neighbourhood of Leidsche Rijn was a success, local family doctor Karolien van den Brekel said. People who did the check became aware of the influence of their lifestyle on their health, she told the Nos. 

The PGC, which is free, is at www.persoonlijkegezondheidscheck.nl, and provides a personalised report with lifestyle advice. Where necessary, the advice may be to make a doctor’s appointment.

Related Article:

First online hospital in China starts services in Guangdong

The slow decline of fast food in America

Yahoo – AFP, Luc Olinga, 9 Nov 2014

The hospitals of the Truman Medical Centers in Kansas City, Missouri no longer

 serve fast food in their cafeterias, after ending a contract with McDonald's in 2012

-- two years ahead of schedule (AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)

New York (AFP) - The hospitals of the Truman Medical Centers in Kansas City, Missouri no longer serve fast food in their cafeterias, after ending a contract with McDonald's in 2012 -- two years ahead of schedule.

In Kentucky, Kosair Children's Hospital signed up to serve Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets to its patients when it opened in 1986. But it has now followed in TMC's footsteps.

The reversals by hospital chains that once embraced McDonald's reflect a waning love affair with fast food in the United States, as consumers become increasingly aware of the benefits of eating better.

The reversals by hospital chains reflect a 

waning love affair with fast food in the 

United States, as consumers become 

increasingly aware of the benefits of 

eating better (AFP Photo/Spencer Platt)

"Fast foods have their place, but I am not so sure their place is inside the hospital," recalled John Bluford, the former TMC chief executive.

"We thought that we needed to change the game a little bit and start creating a culture of health," Bluford told AFP.

"It was a health-concerned decision and a mission-driven decision, given our mission to improve the health of our community."

Shifting tastes

Sales of McDonald's in the United States fell 3.3 percent in the last quarter. The consumption of sodas fell last year to 1995 levels, according to the industry specialist Beverage Digest.

Americans drank on the average 51 gallons (nearly 200 liters) of soda per person in 1998; last year, it was 44 gallons.

The fall is more marked for light sodas, which fell six percent amid concerns sparked by studies suggesting some synthetic sweeteners were carcinogenic.

"There's a shift away from the perception of food that is mass-produced towards food that is perceived to be more homemade or artisanal or sustainably produced," said Keith-Thomas Ayoob, associate clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

"Consumers want to feel that they're doing healthier things and eating a healthier diet."

More and more Americans are making the link between fast food and sodas, and life-long health problems like obesity and diabetes, said Sriram Madhusoodanan, an organizer of the anti-fast-food campaign "Value [the] Meal" at Corporate Accountability International.

Campaigns like theirs are scoring gains against the powerful industry.

In December 2011, San Francisco required fast food chains to add more low-sugar, low-salt foods like fruit and vegetables for children.

And those campaigns are also showing results.

The US Centers for Disease Control said in February that there had been a 43 percent fall in obesity among two- to five-year-olds over the previous decade.

Much more needs to be done, according to the organization Trust for America's Health. More than two-thirds of adult Americans remain overweight, it says.

Christopher Gindlesperger, spokesman for the American Beverage Association, downplayed the role sodas play in the health problem.

Because of the greater popularity of low-sugar sodas, he said, the amount of sugar consumed from sodas has fallen 40 percent in the last 10 years.

Sugar-related diseases "are very serious and very complex," he said.

"If you look at the government data, you see that calories in the American diet from sodas are just a small piece of the overall (total)... We empower our customers to make the choices that are right for them."

New options

The success of the restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill symbolizes the new face of the American diet.

Launched in 1993, Chipotle advertises that it uses hormone-free meat and locally-raised organic vegetables.

More and more Americans are making the

link between fast food and sodas, and

life-long health problems like obesity and

diabetes (AFP Photo/Spencer Platt)

"From the very beginning, Chipotle has used really high-quality fresh ingredients, and prepares all the foods we serve," company spokesman Chris Arnold told AFP.

"So from the beginning, we were doing something which is pretty different than what was happening in traditional American fast food."

Fast food chains are reacting to the new social and market pressure. McDonald's has eliminated some of its controls on franchises to allow them to adapt menus to customers' tastes.

Last year, Taco Bell phased out its children's menu. And drink companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi are expanding their beverage lines with lower-sugar options.

McDonald's, Coca-Cola and Pepsi did not respond to requests for comment from AFP.

For Madhusoodanan, the real change will come when McDonald's stops tempting children with toys to sell its "Happy Meals".

"They are changing, they're coming around because the public is now demanding it. They have to change," said Bluford.

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Kryon Q&A

(13) Question: Dear Kryon, I’m very concerned about the obesity epidemic, particularly in the U.S. Around me I see people getting bigger and more unhealthy, all for the sake of convenience and saving time. You mentioned at one point a famine, and I suspect the famine won’t be from a lack of food, but from an abundance of food that has no nutritional value.

I wonder how we can honor the Earth by eating nothing that comes straight from it? Of course this involves caring for the lands and oceans as part of a bigger issue and making that connection, too. Is this what it will finally take for people to switch to a healthier way of living?

Its amazing how detached people are from the food they eat. We don’t even honor our digestive processes, the way we combine foods. Whatever happened to nutrition? Atkins is no solution; there is no balance in it. Gastric bypass is all about quantity reduction, not quality increase. When will people make the direct connection between what/how they eat and their health? Is a change in diet and lifestyle part of the upcoming shift?

Answer: The shift has little to do with it. It’s a culture-specific problem and has to do with consciousness of health. Go study the cultures on your planet that have very few overweight Humans. Start with the Japanese. They have some of the same western work ethics and live in very sophisticated industrial-based environments. Yet they aren’t overweight. It’s about the core food groups and the combination of them.

(39) Question: Dear Kryon: I've noticed how many children are developing severe allergies to foods (my daughter included). When I've researched this, it seems that most of the allergies are essentially to seeds, grains, legumes, eggs, and dairy. I've noticed that these foods all hold the potential for life, or in the case of dairy, are essentially used to sustain the first stages of life in an animal's baby. My feeling is that because we're not releasing the life force within these foods (that is, sprouting, etc.), they're becoming harmful to us. I would like your impressions of this.

Answer: For thousands of years, these foods have worked for humanity. In these cases you speak about, the main culprit continues to be the way in which these foods are collected and processed. You won't find these allergies in third-world countries, and you won't find them within the children who work on farms, where they eat the foods directly. There will eventually have to come a day when you relax some of your efficiency attributes and go back to the way food was meant to be collected and eaten. And yes... there are effects from how the dairy animals are treated, too. Going back to some basics will help, and so will eliminating some of the procedures that supposedly create a "safer food." These procedures have instead made them begin to look like foreign food to the Human body.

(15) Question: Dear Kryon, please help us understand the increase of allergies. What can we do to heal this phenomenon?

Answer: Reduce the steps in your food chain, which are adding chemistry to fresh food.

US bishop dresses up as homeless man to expose congregation's lack of compassion

An American bishop has taken on the prejudices of his church congregation by dressing up as a homeless man

The Telegraph, Jon Swaine, New York, 29 Nov 2013

David Musselman disguised himself as a homeless man Photo: FACEBOOK

An American bishop who disguised himself as a homeless man to give a sermon about compassion was asked to leave his church by unknowing congregants.

David Musselman, a Mormon cleric near Salt Lake City, Utah, said he wanted to teach members of his church to be kind to all people. “To be Christ-like, just acknowledge them,” he said.

Mr Musselman recruited a professional makeup artist to transform his face and wore a wooly hat, thick spectacles, a false beard and a fake scar. Even his own family did not recognise him.

“The main thing I was trying to get across was we don't need to be so quick to judge,” Mr Musselman told his local television news station.

“Many actually went out of their way to purposefully ignore me, and they wouldn't even make eye contact,” he said. “I'd approach them and say, 'Happy Thanksgiving'.”

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After being asked to leave by five people, Mr Musselman walked to the pulpit during a service and disclosed his true identity by taking off his wig, fake beard and glasses.

“It had a shock value that I did not anticipate,” he said. “I really did not have any idea that the members of my ward would gasp as big as they did.”

Jaimi Larsen, one of the congregants, said she was surprised. “I started feeling ashamed because I didn't say hello to this man,” said Ms Larsen. “He was dirty. He was crippled. He was old. He was mumbling to himself”.

Mr Musselman said he was touched by the reaction of younger members of the church. “I was impressed by the children,” he said. “I could see in their eyes they wanted to do more”.

Tara Starling, the makeup artist who transformed Mr Musselman's appearance, said it was the most rewarding job she had done.

“I used to dream that the pinnacle of my career would be to work on a film and the film would get nominated for an Academy Award of makeup,” she told The Deseret News.

“But I would have to say that somebody writing a Facebook comment saying, ‘Thank you for sharing this. It’s changed my mind. It’s changed my heart, and it’s changed the way that I’m living,’ that’s worth more than all of the Academy Awards in the world to me.”

Mr Musselman, whose stunt came just before the Thanksgiving holiday, said that he did not intend to embarrass the members of his church or make them feel ashamed.

Instead, he said, he wanted them to remember to be kind all year long to people from all walks of life.

The Dutch Don’t Care About Marriage

Americans can learn a lot from their indifference.  

Slate, Katie Roiphe, October 30, 2013

Being single in the Netherlands is pretty great. (Photo by Ferdy Damman/AFP/
Getty Images)

I was in Amsterdam for probably three hours when I began to see that having children and not being married was not a big deal there. In fact, marriage itself is not a big deal there. I was there to talk about my book In Praise of Messy Lives, which was coming out in Dutch, but what passes in America for a messy life is in Amsterdam just, well, how things go.

The Dutch attitude, which I like, is that marriage is not for everyone; it is a personal choice, an option, a pleasant possibility, but not marrying is not a failure, a great blot on your achievements in life, a critical rite of passage you have missed. Sometimes people get around to getting married, and sometimes they don’t. Several Dutch women in their 40s, with children and rich romantic histories, tell me about marriage, “It just wasn’t something that mattered to me.”

Katie Roiphe, professor

at the Arthur L. Carter

Journalism Institute at 

New York University

As a popular view, this laissez faire approach accommodates the vicissitudes of the heart, the changing nature of love, the great variety of forms attachments take in real life. It acknowledges that things change, and to exit a relationship with kids is less violent somehow, less publically absolute, than to exit a marriage. A bit of tolerance, of bemusement, of compassion or imagination is built into the system.

I try to describe to a couple of audiences in Amsterdam the against-the-grainness of someone, especially a woman, who has not married in America. I try to explain how having children outside of marriage is still considered an alternative, and essentially inferior life choice. I mention that an American writer wrote a coverstory in the Atlantic on the remarkable and exotic fact that she was in her late 30s and had never married. This sort of blew their minds. Who could possibly care? It seemed like a crazy American thing for marriage to matter so much. To them this obsession, this nagging necessity for weddings, the lack of general acceptance toward other pretty common ways of living, is so foreign, so uniquely American, such a quaint narrowness, that it’s incomprehensible as an actual mode of modern life.

At first I started fantasizing about whether I could move to a steep little Dutch house, and if I could balance a child on a bicycle. But it also seems to me it would be a great thing if we could absorb some of the Dutch attitude toward conjugal life. I am not here arguing against marriage, but against marriage as a rite of passage, against the assumption of all little girls that they will one day be married in a white dress on a green lawn, against the socially engraved absolute of it, the impossible-to-evade shining ideal.

What would it mean to end the centuries-long American fixation on traditional family structures? Would we be able to look at families living outside of convention without as much judgment, as much toxic condescension? Would the “smug marrieds” Helen Fielding wrote about in Bridget Jones’ Diary be less smug and just married?

If we woke up one morning and discovered that in America marriage was suddenly regarded as a choice, a way, a possibility, but not a definite and essential phase of life, think how many people would suddenly be living above board, think of the stress removed, the pressures lifted, the stigmas dissolving. Think how many people living unhappily would see their way to living less unhappily. In Edwardian England, the cultural critic Rebecca West wrote about the “dinginess that come between us and the reality of love” and the “gross, destructive mutual raids on personality that often form marriages.”

Whatever one thinks about the institution, the truth is that marriage is increasingly not the way Americans are living. If one goes strictly by the facts—that the majority of babies born to women under 30 are born to single mothers, or that about 51 percent of American adults are married—one has to admit that marriage can’t be taken for granted, assumed as a rite of passage, a towering symbol of our way of life. But somehow this hasn’t dimmed our solid sense of marriage as the American normal.

If we suddenly stopped being in thrall to the rigid, old-fashioned ideal of marriage, we could stop worrying about low marriage rates and high divorce rates. We could stop worrying about single mothers and the decline of marriage as an institution, especially in the lower middle class, and the wasteful industry of wedding planning. We could instead focus on actual relationships, on intimacies, on substance over form; we could focus on love in its myriad, unpredictable varieties. We could see life here in the amber waves of grain not for what it should be, but for what it is.

Katie Roiphe, professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, is the author most recently of Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Marriages, and In Praise of Messy Lives.

Related Article:

Kryon Q&A

Question: Dear Kryon, how do we know when a divorce is appropriate or not?

Answer: It’s appropriate when the energy and consciousness of the one is on a different reality from the other, and it’s obvious that it will never change.

This isn’t about enlightenment, either. It’s about your individual paths. Although contrary to your society, the rules of the church, and what your family wishes for you, sometimes you go through "partnership stages" that are appropriate but temporary. It can also be between two enlightened souls who simply needed to be together for a while.

So if you’re going to separate a partnership, do it with integrity. Do it in a way where you offer friendship. Do it with wisdom and maturity. Never slam the door. Offer the other person your maturity all your life, and always give them the opportunity for forgiveness and discussion.

As you grow older, you’ll eventually see the dynamics of growth, and why a temporary partnership might have been needed in your own personal path, or in theirs. Sometimes it’s only about being a time placeholder, keeping each other in a place so that something else could happen. Each path is different, and there are as many who will stay together until they stand and hold hands on the other side of the veil. Then they’ll do it again the next time around! Don’t pass judgment either way. There is appropriateness in many things that result in growth and maturity for either or both of those involved.

As I discussed before, your cultural rules are often designed to look like they’re also the "rules of God," but often they’re just the rules of Humans who are doing their best, without full understanding of how big God really is.