Thursday's Afternoon Update

Will Short Gorham | 7/7/2011

F as in Florida? F as in Fat.

Florida got fatter for the third year in a row, joining 15 other states that saw a rise in adult obesity over last year. In Florida, 26.1 percent of the population weighs in as obese, placing it among two-thirds of states where at least one in four adults is obese, according to the eighth annual F as in Fat Report, by the Trust for America's Health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Overall, Florida ranked 29th, about midway between the nation's fattest state, Mississippi, and the thinnest state, Colorado. If you add in those who are also overweight, Florida's combined score soars to 62.6 percent. That mean about two out of every three adults is overweight or obese. Read more from the Orlando Sentinel and see the full report and the Florida-specific stats.

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CEO Sounding Board What one fix would you make to Florida's homeowner's insurance market? William C. Ballard, President of the Hurricane Insurance Coalition says: "Florida residents must rely on the private market to provide hurricane coverage, and if Florida's leaders really expect hurricane claims to be paid, our leaders must do more than deregulate rates. Our leaders must require the office of insurance regulation to require property insurers to have 1 in 100 year event claims-paying capacity, primarily in the form of high-quality, highly liquid reserves." Read more from Ballard and others in our CEO Sounding Board.

Florida groups can compete for CDC grants

While it still isn't clear whether Gov. Rick Scott will let Florida groups accept federal disease-prevention grants if they win one, at least they can compete. Scott's Health Department chief, Surgeon General Frank Farmer, e-mailed "letters of support" to at least four groups late last week after Health News Florida asked why there was a hold-up on them. Competitors for the Community Transformation Grants, sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, need the letters as part of their application, due July 15. More than 50 groups in Florida had indicated they would enter the competition. [Source: Health News Florida]

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Reverse mortgage scam targeted seniors

Three South Florida mortgage professionals conspired with a Pittsburgh title agent to defraud senior citizens through a reverse mortgage scam, according to allegations unveiled Wednesday by U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer. Through 1st Continental Mortgage Company, which has offices in Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, the group processed 14 reverse mortgages across the country and did not use the mortgage money to pay off the existing loans, the U.S. attorney charges. Louis Gendason, John Incadela, Marcos Echevarria of 1st Continental, and Kimberly Mackey, a title agent in Pittsburgh, obtained $2.5 million in reverse mortgage loans from Genworth Financial between 2009 and 2010. They are charged with pocketing nearly $1 million in illegal loan proceeds, and each faces one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The reverse mortgage loans are insured by the Federal Housing Administration. [Source: Miami Herald]

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Busch Gardens' Kasi the cheetah voted nation's cutest zoo baby

The votes are in and Kasi, Busch Gardens' young cheetah, has been declared the country's cutest zoo baby by website BudgetTravel.com. He was one of three finalists competing in the contest on the site, which is affiliated with Arthur Frommer's travel guides. The others were Caspian the Eurasian Eagle Owl from the Cincinnati Zoo and Aurora the Bornean Orangutan from the Houston Zoo. Caspian had surged to a lead a month ago, but thanks to some media mentions and a push by Busch, Kasi surged ahead and edged her out with more than 40 percent of the vote. [Source: Tampabay.com]

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Jerry Osteryoung's small biz advice
The importance of eye contact

Making eye contact with the person you are talking to is so important. It does not matter if the person is an employee, a customer or some other acquaintance. You are constantly being evaluated by your sincere eye contact. I was at a seminar recently where the speaker, who conducts customer surveys, shared that people's evaluations of salesmen were greatly enhanced when the salesmen made eye contact. The more eye contact they made, the more professional they were perceived. Being interested in empirical analysis, I decided to run my own test and went out of my way to make sincere eye contact with the next 10 people I talked to. I quickly learned that, while eye contact is so important, it can easily be overdone. Read more from Dr. Osteryoung in Florida Small Business.

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Out of the Box Scrap gold by any other name... Frank Bishop knew the name was a little provocative, but it stuck. Friends ragged on him. Customers chuckled as they walked in his pawnshop. When the show came on with an almost identical name, Bishop felt vindicated. Now that the name was on TV, friends thought it was cool. But one recent morning, as Bishop was setting out jewelry and finishing his coffee, the sight of a FedEx carrier caught him by surprise. Bishop said he's only used to getting packages twice a year: Christmas and in March, when he orders 5,000 strings of beads for the Chasco Fiesta. He took the overnight envelope, opened it and scanned the page. "Notice of Infringement" Uh-oh. The cease and desist letter came from a New York law firm representing A&E Television Networks' "Pawn Stars," which features the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop on the Las Vegas outskirts. Full story from the Tampa Tribune. [Photo: ALEX ORLANDO/TAMPA TRIBUNE]

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