As if the obesity epidemic needed a stimulus package, Cold Stone Creamery, started selling a 1,920-calorie deposit of chocolate ice cream, milk, and fudge syrup into the bellies of those willing to pay $5.50 or more. To withdraw that from your daily calorie bank, you’d have to spend more than four hours on the step machine or nearly seven hours doing water aerobics.Or most people will need to avoid eating for an entire 24 hours to compensate for such a colorie bomb.
As people become more educated, studies have demonstrated that they tend to choose foods that are lower in calories but higher in nutrients. They also pay more. In a study published in the May 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, researchers from the University of Washington compared the eating habits and food costs of a sample of 164 adults in the Seattle, Washington area. Diets of low energy density and high nutrient content have been associated with less weight gain and with lower rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some forms of cancer.
Older people in Northern Ireland are eating on average four portions of fruit and vegetables per day. This is higher than levels in the rest of the UK, but remains below current government recommendations. A huge 22 per cent of respondents were not aware of the current government guidelines on eating five portions of fruit and vegetables per day. In fact, some respondents who were eating only two portions per day thought they were eating enough.
Two areas of the brain work together to give some people the self-control to reject unhealthy foods, a new study has found. California Institute of Technology researchers used MRI to scan the brains of volunteers as they looked at photos of dozens of types of foods and decided which ones they’d like to eat. They found significant differences in the brain activity between people who had self-control in terms of making food choices and those with no self-control.
Sasha and Malia were asked to visit Congress to lobby for changing the Child Nutrition Act to increase the availability of fresh produce in school meals.
Statewide weight loss competitions appear to be a potentially successful weapon in the battle against obesity. These programs can produce weight loss in large numbers of people at minimal cost, according to a new study from The Miriam Hospital and Brown University in Rhode Island, USA. Shape Up Rhode Island reduced the percentage of patients in the study who were obese from 39 percent to 31 percent.
This study looked at wether parental reports of children’s physical activity are stable over time and correlate with objectively-measured physical activity in UK children aged 4.
Move More After-School Collaborative, a group of after-school providers, funders and community partners, the guide suggests small changes that programs can make to help children engage in physical activity for at least 60 minutes daily.
U.S. schools with vending machines that sell candy and soda to students could soon find the government requiring healthier options to combat childhood obesity under a bill introduced on Thursday by two senators. While school meals must comply with U.S. dietary guidelines, there are no such rules on snacks sold outside of school lunchrooms. Many are high in fat, sugar and calories.
Unilever has announced plans to cut the salt content across its global range of 22,000 products with an eye on achieving the five grams daily maximum salt intake recommended by the World Health Organization.