According to a new UN study, America is no longer the most obese country in the world. The title has gone just south of the border to Mexico, where about 70 percent of people are overweight and one-third are obese. 70,000 Mexicans die each year from weight-related diseases like diabetes; roughly the same number of total casualties from the country’s gangland wars in over six years. [Gawker]
A recent article from the Center for Investigative Reporting shows that 148 female California prisoners were sterilized from 2006-2010 without having undergone the proper state procedures. Allegedly, the doctors at the jails did not explain the procedure to the women and did not really give them a choice. Most of the targets were women who already had many children. [Gawker]
In 35 prisons, 33 of which are in California, 33,000 prisoners are refusing to eat. Though authorities can’t call it a hunger strike until 9 meals in a row are skipped, this is the largest population of inmates to strike since 11,600 two years ago. The strike was organized by a small group of prisoners held in solitary confinement near the Oregon border. They are advocating for the right to education, rehabilitation, monthly phone calls, and a 5-year limit on solitary confinement. [LATimes]
Christina Stephens, an occupational therapist and amputee, has managed to build herself a prosthetic leg entirely out of LEGO. [Jezebel/YouTube]
