The Wide Angle Volume 2, Issue 2 February/March 1997

In The News

What's a little peach juice between strangers?

No laughing matter apparently.

In fact, juice is the basis of a lawsuit filed against David Letterman last year by Jane Bronstein, from New York. Now Letterman's lawyer has moved to dismiss the whole thing.

The 55-year old Bronstein, it seems was munching on a peach and wiping the juice from her mouth at the 1995 U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York City when she was captured on videotape by a CBS cameraman. Her lawyers contend that Letterman featured the tape on his late night show seven times in September of that year, ridiculing her with his comments.

Bronstein filed suit, claiming violation of her privacy and emotional and physical distress. The suit says she suffers from a thyroid condition and had childhood polio and two spinal fusion. -(AP)

Thin air, thin folks? U.S. study finds Coloradans to be thinnest. According to the Center for Disease Control and prevention and state health departments, only 19.9 percent of Coloradans are over-weight, compared to the median of 26.7 percent for the nation.

The researchers used 1994 data, the latest that was available, from a sample telephone survey and using a measurement known as body mass index or BMI.

BMI is found by dividing weight in kilograms (2.2 pounds) by height in meters. For example, a 5-foot-4-inch woman who weighs 145 pounds has a BMI of 25.

Woman whose BMI was over 27.3 and men over 27.8 are considered overweight in this study.

Fitness experts in the state said that there was no one reason for the leanness of the residents, but that relatively good weather and the abundance of recreational activities surely helped.

Fourteen year old Maximo Banuelos, from central California, was brought to San Diego's Mercy Hospital to undergo weight loss surgery (gastroplasty). The local NBC television station had aired special segments on Maximo and the program at Mercy. The surgeons gave him a 2/3 of an once stomach in an effort to help him reduce from his 500 pound pre-op weight.

SCSAC contacted the station in an attempt to have an opposing view to weight loss surgery aired but our requests were denied. The station representative saw this as a life saving procedure. The Coalition does wish Maximo well and we are going to be requesting NBC to run follow-ups, good or bad, to his progress.

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