ENERGY LITERACY
CONSERVATION
RESILIENCE
RELOCALIZATION
FAMILY PLANNING
BEAUTY
BIODIVERSITY
( the Post Carbon Institute, that isCollapse )

August 1, 2011 — Health care reform requires new insurance plans to fully cover women's preventive care, which now will include free birth control, yearly wellness visits, breastfeeding counseling and equipment, and screening for gestational diabetes, domestic abuse, HPV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and HIV.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced the expanded definition of women's preventive care. The ruling closely follows the advice of an Institute of Medicine expert panel, released July 20.

"Today, as part of the Affordable Care Act, we are announcing historic new guidelines that will help women get the care they need to stay healthy," Sebelius said at a news teleconference. "Today we are accepting the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine, so no woman in America needs to choose between paying a grocery bill and paying for the key care that can save her life."

SOURCE
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/747359?src=mpnews&spon=16

Comment:
Much as I have been against the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") because it seems wrong to force me to pay anybody for a service that I may or may not want, the details that trickle out are good. Sure, the bill hands a great big paycheck to the insurance companies. But it also requires that they cover certain basics, like birth control and STD testing and treatment, completely. It also encourages breast feeding with education and tools. There are lots of smart requirements built in, that make the insurance companies actually DO SOMETHING positive for all that money they're getting. Obama isn't able to get positive headlines or marquees, but the fine print that comes from his administration is good. It's too bad that the vehicle for his work is such a leaky ship.

I was a Campfire Girl, not a Girlscout or Brownie. So I don't know from the inside. But from the outside, having been a river guide and taking many screaming groups of Brownies rafting on whitewater rivers, the organization appears squeaky clean and rather conservative. I never would have guessed that the organization would teach girls about abortion. But who knows? Maybe they are. That's what the teenaged girls from Texas are saying, and they're making news on The Daily Beast. It occurs to me though that the organization will probably have its name cleared. The organization officially does not endorse any political party or birth control method. Meanwhile, the offended girls have started a blog to get their story out. The case they are making is that the official girl scout materials mention websites and people who are "pro-abortion" and so if you follow the links you will discover that these perspectives are ubiquitous. Big surprise. I wonder what fraction of the links in the girl scout material go to sites that hold the opposite viewpoints. It seems to me that the org would serve the girls best by exposing them to many opposing viewpoints so that they could learn to think and decide for themselves. Girls who want to be cloistered would be better served in a nunnery.

UPSHOT
(comparisons to normal-weight people of same gender)
obese women more likely to be celibate
obese men less likely to have more than one partner
obese men more likely to have erectile dysfunction
obese woman had no impairment of sexual function
obese women under 30 less likely to use contraceptives or to go see medical practitioner for them
obese women have 4.3x more unintended pregnancies

Obesity Linked to Lower Number of Sexual Partners and Increased Unwanted Pregnancies
study author: Bajos, N, PhD
medscape reporter: Emma Hitt, PhD
( notes on article from medscapeCollapse )

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/10318410.stm

Add to this info that not everybody can use the form of B6 that is in cheap vitamins. About 1/4 of us have to buy the fancy B6 that is activated by methylation, because for genetic reasons we aren't good at methylating our own. Methylation is one of the main pathways by which your liver makes toxic lipophilic compounds water soluble so they can be excreted. B6 is key for supporting methylation, but if you can't methylate, you can't activate the B6 you get, so you MUST buy the supplement! For example, B6 is depleted in women who take birth control pills, and remains depleted for years after they stop. Just a FYI! I always have wanted to believe that I could get all the nutrition I needed from food, but I'm not so sure anymore. Considering the increasing insults of toxins and hormonally active substances in our environments, we can use all the help we can get. Provided we can figure out what is helpful and what is not. It is not so obvious....