Archive for the ‘Unhealthy eating’ Category

« Older Entries

Heart attacks Part 2: Prevention: risk factors & our kids

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012

Here's a risk factor you can eliminate

This post pings off the April 17, 2012 article in The Wall Street Journal, "The Guide to Beating a Heart Attack." I initially wrote about surviving a heart attack (myocardial infarction {MI} is the medical term). Next I wanted to turn toward the prevention side.

I first found the Interheart study's article from 2004, "Nine modifiable risk factors predict 90% of acute MI." The study followed 29,000 people from 262 sites in 52 countries and concluded that the common belief that half of heart attacks can be predicted was clearly an underestimate.

The research group found the same impact of the nine variables everywhere in the world: abnormal blood lipids (fats, like cholesterol) and smoking were at the top of their list. Then came diabetes, high blood pressure, abdominal obesity, stress & depression, exercise, diet and alcohol intake.

I was used to measuring cholesterol and its HDL (so-called good cholesterol)  and LDL (bad cholesterol) components. This study actually used a more sophisticated lipid approach.

They measured the ratios of  the proteins that bind to and carry fats, apolipoproteins A and B. APOA is associated with HDL lipids while APOB is said to unlock the door to cells and in doing so acts as an unwelcome delivery van for cholesterol. When present in high levels, APOB can lead to plaque formation in blood vessels and an increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD).

They also found some good news: as expected, eating fruits and vegetables daily, exercising and perhaps moderate alcohol intake were associated with lower risks of CHD. Again this was true everywhere in the world.

The WSJ article mentioned that hospital admissions for heart attacks had actually decreased among the elderly; these nine factors were better predictors in younger groups. What can be done to stop the looming specter of CHD among our younger population?

The CDC examined the parameters in a recent online article titled "A Growing Problem." One issue was "screen time." Our kids eight to eighteen average four an a half hours a day watching TV and three more on cell phones, movies, computers and video games. I even read an article about a two-year-old whose parents think learns a lot from their iPad. Maybe so, but how much exercise does that kid (and his older compatriots) get?

The CDC feels there is a dearth of quality physical activity in our schools; as of 2009 only a third of them provided daily PE for our kids. And after they leave school or when they're on vacation, many don't have safe access to biking, hiking, running, playing areas and trails.

Somerville chose healthier food in their schools

One Massachusetts community, Somerville, has gotten attention for their anti-obesity integrated program, "Shape Up Sommerville"  (You can watch the thirteen minute PBS special on their community-wide progress). The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is attempting to help similar programs get started across the country, especially focusing on childhood obesity.

Recently I heard a NPR comment that caught my attention. If we don't do something to stop the epidemic of childhood obesity, we'll soon be seeing CHD rates soar in people in their 20s and 30s and maybe even younger.

A French researcher said, "Mankind is doing a good job of killing himself."

We need to try new approaches to help our kids. The Somerville plan sound like a good place to start.

 

 

 

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in anti-obesity programs, Cardiometabolic Risk factors, cholesterol, coronary heart disease, depression, diabetes type 2, Healthy eating, medical research, medically-oriented background info, mental health issues, Unhealthy eating, Vegetables | 1 Comment »

What sweetener do you use: Part 5; Fructose effects

Saturday, January 28th, 2012

A good place to start researching

I basically knew what happens when we ingest glucose, (eating it or drinking it depending on whether it's in solid or liquid form, e.g frosting versus sweetened tea) : it goes through the liver and heads off to muscle and other body parts where insulin activity is responsible for energy use. But I wanted to compare its effects to those of fructose. First I found an old article (1986 vintage) in the American Journal of Physiology (AJP), hardly a bedside reading item for me these days, but one I used to proofread for as a research fellow. That, once I translated it into English that I could understand, changed my mind a bit.

Glucose does lead to an increase in insulin levels and an increase in carbohydrate breakdown, while lipid (fat) breakdown slows down. The net result is a considerable bump in energy use. 'So far, so good,' I thought. But a comparable amount of fructose resulted in a much smaller increase of insulin, yet considerably more carb breakdown and even less fat breakdown. So even more energy was used. That I hadn't expected, but this study was a one-time experiment with seventeen healthy folk followed for a few hours.

So my next question, and I thought this one was far more important, was what happen longterm?

Let's look at animal research first. A group from Princeton published an article online in a journal called Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior in February 2010. Tha basic conclusion from these scientists contradicted what I had read elsewhere, but made sense. They concluded all sweetener calories are not equal-- after feeding rats standard foods and adding either table sugar-sweetened water or HFCS-sweetened water. Even if the HFCS water was less sweet overall, the rats gained more weight. Long-term feeding experiments showed rats fed HFCS developed many of the signs of the "metabolic syndrome." weight gain, fat deposition in the belly and abnormal blood levels of trigclycerides.

So fructose was being metabolized to form fat, while glucose was being used as it normally is. That brought their thoughts back to why fructose in HFCS is different from that in table sugar. According to this research group, HFCS contains free, unbound fructose while that found in table sugar is always tied to a glucose molecule. Their concept is that table sugar fructose has to go through an additional chemical process, freeing it from glucose, before it can be used by the body.

So why should we care what makes rats fatter?

But here's our real target

I found a long article in The Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI), the other research magazine my boss (and I) reviewed potential articles for in 1970 to 1972. Here people who who overweight or obese to begin with were fed either glucose- or fructose-containing liquids for ten weeks.

And the results were similar. Those getting fructose had more belly fat develop. I think translates to more chance of heart disease  and other long term complications.

The evidence is gradually adding up; I think HFCS is something to be avoided. Let's feed our kids and ourselves more fruits and vegetables and less processed foods.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in blood sugar, chemistry, Food Choices, fructose research, Healthy eating, high-fructose corn syrup, medically-oriented background info, our kids and their weight issues, Publications, scientific controversies, Unhealthy eating | No Comments »

What sweeteners do you use? Part 4: HFCS and mercury

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

A safer place for mercury

In my last post I mentioned that fructose metabolism appears to be more complex than I learned in medical school. Of course that was in 1962-1966 and a lot has changed in medical knowledge in the forty-five plus years since then. We all know that fructose, in the form of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is added to many processed foods and sweetened drinks; the question being debated is, "Is that bad for us?"

I've been reading a variety of articles from the medical literature and some popular websites on the subject and not all scientists, physicians and dietitians agree on the answer. I previously mentioned a Mayo Clinic online article that stresses the need to cut our added-sugar intake, both table sugar and HFCS, and mentions that research on HFCS isn't yet at the point to implicate it as worse for you than other added sweeteners.

There's also an article by Jennifer Goldstein from Prevention magazine that I found on the msnbc website. I'm not sure of her science background (she's now the Beauty Director for the magazine). Nonetheless, her article is reasonably well-balanced, if you read between the lines. The over-all conclusion is that anti-HFCS evidence is slim. She quotes an NYC-based nutritionist as saying the calories in HFCS and table sugar, gram for gram, are equal, but mentions several reports that have shown HFCS samples may contain mercury... in small amounts.

But you don't want it here, or in your food

Mercury is a neurotoxin, a substance which can damage the brain, especially the developing brain of a fetus or infant. Even "small amounts" are considered dangerous for babies in the womb. We have all heard of its presence in fish, but mercury in HFCS was new to me. I'm about three years behind, it appears. I found a Washington Post article from January, 2009 which mentioned two studies examining this issue.

At that time, in spite of industry denials, nearly half of HFCS samples tested contained mercury as did almost a third of processed food and beverage products. The researchers writing on this  enormously significant problem noted that HFCS had been made using chemicals produced in industrial plants clinging to an outmoded, 19th century method

A now-retired FDA scientist, Renee Dufault, headed a study in 2009 showing low levels of mercury in all the processed foods she and colleagues tested (and none in organic foods) and then had their results verified by two independent labs. She then says the FDA's head of their Food Additives section told her to quit her HFCS studies. She quit the FDA instead and published her results. A physician-headed team at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a non-profit watchdog, repeated her studies using commercial beverages and foods. Their twenty-plus-page paper is worth reading.

By the middle of December, 2010, the HFCS industry had gotten the message. But until all HFCS made in the United States is mercury-free I'm going to avoid it.

Tags: ,
Posted in blood sugar, chemistry, Food Additives, Food-related disease, Healthy eating, high-fructose corn syrup, medically-oriented background info, Metabolic Syndrome, Obesity, our kids and their weight issues, scientific controversies, Unhealthy eating, weight gain | 1 Comment »

Vindication? Part 1

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

One way to get lots of protein

Since the late 1990s when I invented a diet, or perhaps I should say an eating pattern, I've relied on one principal concept: Eat Less; Do More. I came upon this simple idea after listening to a group of medical professionals who were discussing which diet they should go on while they were simultaneously consuming huge portions at our hospital cafeteria.

One of them, I recalled, had tried a high-carb, low-protein diet the past year; losing nearly twenty pounds, then regained it all and more in a few months. Now she was going to attempt  to lose twenty-five pounds with a different approach, this one with an emphasis on protein. I had seen weight-loss plans come and go and didn't believe any of them were the answer, at least not for everyone. I remember coming home and saying to my wife, "Lynn, I've invented a new diet"

I explained it was simply, "Never finish anything; No snacks between (meals); Nothing after eight." I added, "Get lots of exercise."

I lost the seven pounds I had gained on a two-week vacation and didn't need my strategy again until early in 2009. Then I weighed 177 one morning, up three pounds from my normal weight since 1991. I attributed that to eating out four times in the prior week. But when I tried on a pair of good suit slacks, I realized the weight hadn't changed much, but the distribution sure had.

I went back to my eating plan, lost five pounds easily, then coasted a while before resuming the diet. Lynn bought me a digital scale and I weighed myself daily. I also started going to our gym six days a week. Eventually I shed thirty pounds and five inches off my waistline. At 147 pounds I was twenty-five under my usual high school weight. This morning, nearly two years later, I weighed 148.

I allow myself a three-pound zone of weight fluctuation, thinking that would account for fluid shifts and the occasional big splurge. Whenever I exceed 150 pounds I go back on my plan.

Then I read a Wall Street Journal article titled "New Ways Calories Can Add Up to Weight Gain: Study Challenges Idea That Varying Amounts Of Fat, Protein and Carbohydrates Are Key to Weight Loss." It quoted the Journal of the American Medical Association, AKA: JAMA. I went online and found the JAMA article and an accompanying editorial.

I read both pieces in detail, even finding a wild typo, "...their diets were returned to baseline energy levels and diet compositions (15% from protein, 35% from fat and 60% from carbohydrate)." I called the AMA and suggested they correct the numbers since they added to 110%.

Is a high-carb, low-protein diet safer?

But the basic premise of the study's data intrigued me. It's something I've believed for years, calories count, as opposed to what form those calories come in. But there's one extra facet: low-protein diets can be dangerous.

I'll analyze that in detail in my next post.

 

 

Tags: , , ,
Posted in balanced diets, dietary protein content, Dieting, Exercise possibilities, Governmental Efforts, Healthy food shopping, medically-oriented background info, physician initiatives, Publications, scientific controversies, Unhealthy eating, Vegetables, Weight Loss | No Comments »

Do our kids have a bleak future?

Saturday, November 19th, 2011

As close to a salad as he'll get

I'm taking a break today from my series of posts on greenhouse gases, alternative energy source, volcanoes and global warming. All of those will affect the generations to come and those now growing up, but I want to re-examine another side of their issues. This morning I read two articles and one newspaper report on the heart health prospects for our American kids (and, by extension, kids elsewhere in the developed/rapidly developing world). The initial article came from a section of the Wall Street Journal I hadn't gotten around to reading yesterday and was about to recycle. Then I saw a title that caught my eye, "Kids' Hearth Health Is Faulted."

I found a CDC website with an explanation of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, NHANES. This is a continuation of a US Public Health Service effort started 40 years ago and is updated annually. Medically-trained interviewers may well come to your town and even to your front door someday. The data they obtain is used in many ways (I'll paste in a website that leads you to some comments on NHANES as well as to a link to a video).

Now a portion of the survey/study looked at 5,450 kids between 12 and 19, finding they were a long ways from matching the American Heart Association's (AHA) seven criteria for idea cardiovascular health (see 2nd link below to Harvard's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's article on the subject). The adult health measures, known as Life's Simple 7, are: 1). Never smoked or quit more than a year ago; 2). Body Mass Index (a measure of height versus weight) <25; 3). Physical activity on a weekly basis for 75 minutes (vigorously) or 150 minutes (moderate intensity).; 4). a healthy diet (four or more components meeting AHA guidelines); 5). total cholesterol <200 mg/dL; 6). blood pressure (BP) <120/80; and fasting blood glucose (AKA blood sugar) <100 mg/dL. The original article was published in the journal Circulation January 20, 2010 and is available free online. The metrics are slightly different for kids.

So where do our kids stack up? If you exclude eating a healthy diet, only 16.4% of boys and 11.3% of girls meet the standards for the other six criteria; if you include diet, none of them do. They don't eat four to five servings of fruits and vegetables a day; they also don't get enough whole-grains or fish and they consume far to much salt and sugar-sweetened drinks. Only one fifth of them even eat "fairly well."

drop that hamburger and run for an hour

Many of then also don't exercise on a daily basis for at least sixty minutes (50% of the boys do and 40% of the girls). More than a third are overweight or obese.

There's some hope: a just-published article in the New England Journal of Medicine, examining the data from four studies following 6328 kids, found that those who do manage to lose weight had lower risk for type 2 diabetes, hypertension, abnormal lipids and carotid artery disease.

So I'm heading to the health club and will read the 2010 Circulation tome on an exercise bike.

Thus far my one biologic grandson, about to be 12,  is physically active and slender. I'll encourage him to stay that way and the non-biologic grandkids to follow his example.

More on this subject to come.

Check out these articles:

Survey Results and Products from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

AHA Defines "Ideal" Cardiovascular Health

 

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Complications of Obesity, diabetes type 2, Exercise possibilities, Food Choices, Food-related disease, Life Expectancy, medically-oriented background info, our kids and their weight issues, physician initiatives, Publications, strategies for healthy aging, Unhealthy eating | 3 Comments »

Early cholesterol testing now recommended

Saturday, November 12th, 2011

We're seeing more obese kids

With our sweeping epidemic of childhood obesity ( current estimates say over one-sixth of American kids are obese, three times the prevalence rate seen thirty years ago), it's time to take some additional steps. On Friday 11, 2011, sweeping new guidelines for childhood lipid testing were espoused by both the NIH's Nation Heart Lung and Blood Institute and The American Academy of Pediatrics. I found these, of all places, not on the websites of the two august bodies, but on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, an NPR article and in the Los Angeles Times.

The actual article in the journal Pediatrics, won't be out for two more days and should find a fair amount of opposition. Previous position papers by the AAP and the US Preventive Services Task Force have either suggested lipid studies be done in focused groups (eg. family history of heart disease or lipid disorders) or, if universally, no earlier than age 20. The CDC (actually the acronym has changed since it's now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), in a 2010 report, commented that a single elevated LDL cholesterol reading in a child may be found to be normal in subsequent testing.

The current recommendation panel, headed by Dr. Stephen R. Daniels, an MD, PhD who is Chairman of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, is quick to avoid any suggestion of widespread statin use for children found to have high levels of "bad cholesterol," LDLs over 190 milligrams per deciliter. Another panel member, Dr. Elaine M. Urbana, director of preventive cardiology at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, was quoted as saying, "This documents on the fact that this generation may be the first to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents."

So go back to the facts: one-third of US kids are overweight and about 12.5 million of them are actually obese. Even here in Colorado, the thinnest state in the nation, I see some of those kids every day. We're not just talking about high schoolers; some of these fat kids are as young as two.

What's missing is a balanced diet with emphasis on fruits and vegetables and a reasonable amount of daily exercise.

earlier blood tests may let them live longer

Daniels comments, "...the atherosclerosis process really begins early in life." he also said, "Heart disease is the number one killer in our society...people who are able to maintain a low risk through childhood and early adulthood have a lower risk (of dying from coronary artery disease)."

From my perspective, it's our responsibility as parents and grandparents, to help prevent childhood obesity, the accompanying risk of later type 2 diabetes and the huge risk of early heart disease. I filled out a health history form yesterday and noted my mother had a heart attack at age 74 (she lived 'till 90), but ignored my father's need for an artery unclogging procedure shortly before his 90th birthday. That may be something I can put off by eating well and exercising, but that's not the focus here.

I never want to see a child or grandchild die of a heart attack in their 50s or 40s or 30s or 20s.

So blood tests between ages 9 and 11 and again between 17 and 21 make sense.

 

 

Tags: , , ,
Posted in diabetes type 2, Governmental Efforts, Healthy eating, Life Expectancy, Obesity, our kids and their weight issues, physician initiatives, Publications, Unhealthy eating, Vegetables | No Comments »

Should the kids be in the middle? It may depend on the kid's middle

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

This is not the example you should set

A Wall Street Journal headline caught my eye, "Obesity Fuels Custody Fights." It noted that childhood obesity is frequently being used by one parent or the other as grounds for custody changes with accusations concerning poor diets and lack of exercise flying back and forth.

That led me to a July 13, 201 article in The Journal of the American Medical Association (henceforth JAMA), "State Intervention in Life-Threatening Childhood Obesity."

We're not talking about mildly overweight kids here; in 2009 a 555-pound fourteen-yer-old boy, living in one of the southeastern states, was taken  by court order from his mother and placed into foster care. She in turn was charged with criminal neglect as the Department of Social Services for that state felt they must intervene or the boy would be at considerable risk for major obesity-related problems, especially diabetes type 2. I found a photo online of the boy and my jaw dropped.

The JAMA article notes "even relatively mild parenting deficiencies" can contribute to a child's weight problems: having junk food in the home, frequently taking the kids to fast food restaurants, failing to model an active lifestyle.The CDC estimates `17% of America's kids and teens are obese (we're not just talking mildly overweight); that's 12.5 million kids at risk. The two Boston authors who wrote in JAMA quote a study showing 2 million of those obese kids are grossly obese with a BMI at or beyond the 99th percentile for their age (a very small percentage of those grossly obese kids, it turns out, may have a genetic abnormality; in those rare cases, the parents aren't to blame).

What can we do about this horrendous problem? Well, there are a variety of "bariatric" operations available in pediatric surgery programs; in dire cases state legal action may be

this makes more sense

necessary. But I liked what I saw the other day walking Yoda, our nine-year-old Tibetan terrier, on his morning constitutional (he gets an evening walk as well, which means either my wife or I or both get some extra exercise).

We came near the elementary school near us and there was a long line of kids, punctuated by an occasional teacher, running past. We stopped to watch, realized these were kindergarden and/or first grade kids, and finally had an opportunity to ask one of the teachers what was going on.

"It's a new program we've started in the Poudre School District," she said. "We keep the kids moving for thirty minutes. They can run and most do, or twirl around and walk the field next to the school, but they've got to keep moving."

The conclusion in the JAMA article was stark, but offered a road to resolution. The authors noted, "An increasing proportion of US children are so severely obese as to be at immediate risk for life-threatening complication including type 2 diabetes." They mentioned the pediatric weight loss surgical programs and state protective services, but finished with our need to decrease the need for those options through beefing up the social infrastructure and policies to improve both kids' diets and guide them toward more physical activity.

Those solutions may work.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Complications of Obesity, diabetes type 2, Governmental Efforts, Life Expectancy, medically-oriented background info, Obesity, our kids and their weight issues, Publications, Unhealthy eating | No Comments »

An Entire Pillar of Salt?

Saturday, July 23rd, 2011

Not a pillar, but too much anyway

I remember a Biblical reference (Genesis 9:26 in my copy) to Lot's wife looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah and turning into a pillar of salt. Today I'd like to talk about much smaller amounts than a whole pillar and salts in the pleural, not just sodium chloride, ordinary table salt, but potassium as well.

I am aware there's been considerable discussion of our dietary salt/sodium intake in the past few years. A July 12, 2011 article in The Wall Street Journal titled "Neutralizing Sodium's Heart Impact" led me back into this literature.

We've been urged time and again to lessen our sodium intake. The 2011 Dietary Guidelines, as I've mentioned before, suggested the average American cut their sodium intake from our average of  3,400 milligrams down to 2,300, roughly a teaspoon a day.

But a large group of us, all at risk for hypertension: everyone over 51, African-Americans, anyone with pre-existing high blood pressure and those with diabetes or chronic kidney disease (i.e., over half our population) were told we should go further, cut to roughly a half teaspoon of salt a day, with various sources suggesting 1,200 to 1,500 milligrams per day total sodium intake.

The most recent study appeared in the Archives of Internal Medicine on July 11th and had a slightly different take on the subject. A prospective cohort study of 12,00+ US adults, followed nearly 15 years, showed that both lower sodium intake and higher potassium intake were associated with a lower risk of death.

The numbers appear significant with the quartile i.e., quarter of the group, ingesting the highest sodium to potassium ratio having almost one and a half times the death risk of those who ate the lowest ratio. That held true for all-cause mortality and the death risk for ischemic heart disease was over two-fold in the group who ate more sodium and less potassium-containing foods.

So how do we get more potassium in our diets and just how much should we be ingesting? I found a lovely illustrated guide on the umassmed.edu website and another good discussion on MedlinePlus, the NIH website. The former guideline has both potassium and calorie data.

Adults with normal kidney function should be getting 4.7 grams a day from the foods they eat (if you have reduced kidney function, ask your own physician how much you should ingest). Some medicines affect your ability to excrete potassium; for the rest of us 19 and older the Food and Nutrition Center of the Institute of Medicine says the 4.7 gram amount is reasonable. Nursing moms need 5.1 grams a day.

Here' a good potassium source

A large baked potato with skin has 845 milligrams of potassium and 160 calories while 1/2 of a medium sized cantaloupe has 680 milligrams and only 60 calories. A medium banana has 451 milligrams with 105 calories.

Red meats, chicken, salmon, cod, flounder and sardines are all good sources of potassium and a cup of low-fat plain yogurt has 530 milligrams with 150 calories.

Many of us have eaten far too much sodium (in processed foods) and too little potassium.

It's time for a change.

 

 

Posted in additives, Food Additives, Food producers and less-healthy foods, medically-oriented background info, Unhealthy eating | 1 Comment »

So what should I eat?

Friday, June 24th, 2011

Medical research comes through for us

I was reading my morning papers yesterday, The Wall Street Journal (hard-copy edition) and the New York Times breaking news (on my Kindle). I came across a June 23, 2011, WSJ article titled "You Say Potato, Scale Says Uh-Oh." It detailed a recent research study online in a prominent medical journal. The premise was what you choose to eat will determine what happens to your weight over a four-year period.

The overall conclusion, once again, is picking healthier items for your diet leads to less weight gain. Most American adults gain a pound a year, but if they add a serving of French Fries on a daily basis, they'll gain more (3.35 pounds). The NEJM said the participants in three huge studies (a total of 120,877 U.S. men and women who were free of chronic diseases and non-obese at the start of the studies), gained most if the extra item was potato chips, and lost weight if it was yogurt. The list, after chips, in deceasing correlation to weight gain included potatoes, sugar-sweetened beverages and unprocessed red meat or processed meat.

Negative numbers were noted for the addition of vegetables, whole grains, fruits, nuts and then yogurt. Other lifestyle influences were examined. If one of the subjects exercised regularly, they lost weight; if they watched much TV, they gained pounds.

So what's new here? Huge studies over lengthy time periods + a few different conclusions.

The study's co-author, Dr. Walter Willet, the chairman of Epidemiology and Nutrition at Harvard's School of Public Health was interviewed on NPR New's program "All Things Considered." He commented that highly refined foods-sugar-added beverages and potatoes, white rice and white bread-were related to greater weight gain. The presumption is these foods are rapidly broken down into sugar, absorbed and then quickly removed by the action of insulin. So if you eat these things, in a short while you're hungry again.

high-protein Greek-style yogurt

Nuts have fat, but keep us satiated for a prolonged time. Yogurt was a surprise to the research group (we're talking about natural yogurt without added sugar) and the mechanism for its influence on weight is unclear, but may relate to the healthy bacteria included.

The bottom line may be just because some foods contain fat, doesn't necessarily mean they'll be fattening. On the other hand, foods that keep us satisfied for a longer time may help us control our overall calorie intake over the long haul.

 

 

 

Posted in Food Choices, Healthy eating, medically-oriented background info, Obesity, Publications, Uncategorized, Unhealthy eating | No Comments »

Brian Wansink's "Mindless Eating" concept

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

Don't fill your plate this way

I just read Brian Wansink's book, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. Wansink got a PhD in Consumer Behavior from Stanford and from 2007 to 2009 was the USDA's Executive Director for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. He's currently in an Endowed Chair at Cornell and won the humorous Ig Nobel Prize in 2007.

If you've never heard of the Ig Nobel Prizes, Google the term. They started in 1991 and were originally given for discoveries "that cannot, or should not be, reproduced." They are presented by Nobel laureates in a ceremony  sponsored by three Harvard groups, broadcast on NPR, on the Internet and on Science Friday the day after Thanksgiving. Some are thinly veiled criticism (BP was a co-winner in 2010 for disproving the old belief that oil and water don't mix). Most are for serious work that has a humorous slant (malaria-carrying mosquitoes are equally attracted to the smell of Camembert cheese and human feet; this led to insect traps in Africa being baited with that cheese).

In Wansink's case, his award was given in the Nutrition category for studying people's appetite for mindless eating by secretly feeding them a self-refilling bowl of soup.

His work has focused on how our environment influences our eating habits. Wansink says we all make well over 200 food choices a day (what to eat, what to drink, how much of each) and we rarely know why we make those decisions or if they are helpful/healthy choices.

For instance, one of his experiments showed using smaller plates can help you serve and eat less. Another concerned fat-free foods, which may have nearly as many calories (and sometimes more) than the standard version of the same food item. In one of his studies, normal-weight subjects given low-fat foods actually consumer one-sixth more calories and overweight subjects took in nearly 50% more calories.

Wansink says low-fat foods have a "health halo;" we think they're better for us and therefore, in a sense, give ourselves permission to eat more of them.

Container size is another of his "food trap" areas. When presented with a larger package, a larger bottle of a soda or a short, fat glass to pour a drink into, we end up eating or drinking more.

He suggests a series of food trade-offs and food policies (if I want that doughnut, I need to spend an hour walking; I'll only eat snacks when I'm sitting at the table).

Try eating with these instead of a knife and fork

I liked Wansink's books, already had been using many of his strategies, but found others I can adopt. I think his studies and concepts are valid and his ~300-page publication well worth reading.If you do so, you may find yourself using chopsticks the next time you eat Chinese food. You'll likely eat less per bite and eat slower.

I may try them for American food.

 

Posted in Complications of Obesity, Life Expectancy, medically-oriented background info, Obesity, Publications, strategies for healthy aging, Unhealthy eating, Weight Loss | No Comments »

« Older Entries