Nov
13
2011
As we already know, our kids are getting many of their calories each day from sugary foods like soda, energy drinks and sugar loaded snacks. Now, new research by Joseph Carlson of Michigan State University’s Division of Sports and Cardiovascular Nutrition and published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, indicates that teens need to increase the fiber in their diets by eating more plant based foods and not focus on restricting the fats. According to the USDA (choosemyplate.gov), here are the health benefits from eating more plant based foods (fruits and vegetables):
Eating a diet rich in vegetables and fruits as part of an overall healthy diet may reduce risk for heart disease, including heart attack and stroke.
Eating a diet rich in some vegetables and fruits as part of an overall healthy diet may protect against certain types of cancers.
Diets rich in foods containing fiber, such as some vegetables and fruits, may reduce the risk of heart disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.
Eating vegetables and fruits rich in potassium as part of an overall healthy diet may lower blood pressure, and may also reduce the risk of developing kidney stones and help to decrease bone loss.
Eating foods such as fruits that are lower in calories per cup instead of some other higher-calorie food may be useful in helping to lower calorie intake
Dietary fiber from fruits, as part of an overall ...
Posted in: Editor's Page, Home
Mar
26
2011
I recently attended a screening for the movie entitled, “Race to Nowhere.” It’s an excellent, realistic story about the stress and pressure that our kids are going through. The pressure from the enormous amount of homework that is given to cover all of the material in the lesson plan. Pressure to take honors and advanced placement courses to bump up the grade point average over the previously top “4.0”. Pressure to get the, “A” and load the high-school resume with everything from proficiency in sports and musical instruments to demonstrating a serious commitment to community service. Pressure to get into the “best” school –whether it’s college for high-schoolers or even a top tier lower, middle and upper school for our younger kids. Pressure to look unique and stand out amongst all of the top applicants. Pressure felt by the parents and their kids. Pressure to succeed. And what is this pressure doing to our children? What is this pressure doing to us as parents? In some cases it is having a deleterious effect on the child, on the parent and on the family. The rates of teenage suicide are climbing. Clinical depression is being seen more and more in the teenage population by psychologists. We already know that the use of caffeinated beverages, energy drinks and stimulants are also on the rise in this age group. We have research ...
Posted in: Editor's Page, Home
Feb
11
2011
Well, there it is my friends. The reports are finally out-over a half billion of us-that’s right us-the people and residents of planet Earth, are obese. And this represents a doubling since 1980. These studies, led by researcher Majid Ezzati of the Imperial College of London and Harvard University, were published recently in the Lancet journal. And you know what happens with 500 million people with obesity? You are right again-a rise in the secondary medical problems that result from the obesity like heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Can you imagine a rising population of people with heart problems and diabetes? Our medical system will be overloaded with new patients. Not to mention-seeing many young obese individuals that develop secondary problems earlier and prior to adulthood. It’s catastrophic. What can be done? Cutting portion sizes and increasing exercise will help. Our medical treatment for elevated blood pressure and high cholesterol is getting better. But that won’t stop the tidal wave of kids and adults that will develop these problems. Maybe we should all feel better that we can treat these secondary problems effectively. But we really need to focus on primary prevention. We need to start the nutrition and fitness education at an early- preschool age and continue this until adult hood. We need to teach our young generation of kids how to eat, what to eat that ...
Posted in: Editor's Page, Home
Oct
26
2010
A new study from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center* found that Type 2 diabetes among adolescents has increased dramatically. Why? Well, it is related to the increasing rates of childhood obesity that we are seeing. With the rates of overweight and obese children rising, we are seeing the secondary medical problems that are surfacing-type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Additional problems such as arthritis, cancer, sleep difficulty and respiratory disorders will also be seen. And my friends this is not just a domestic issue. As adult and childhood obesity spreads throughout our world, we can expect these associated medical problems to increase as well. According to the World Health Organization (WHO)*, 1 billion adults are overweight; 300 million adults are obese; there are over 285 million people with diabetes and 42 million children in the world currently classified as overweight or obese with 22 million children under the age of five estimated to be overweight! By the year 2030, almost 500 million people world-wide will have diabetes. This is an epidemic!
What about in the United States? According to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)*, one in three adults will have diabetes by the year 2050 and the rates of diabetes will double and even triple in that time period. Over 24 million Americans (adults and kids) have diabetes and 25 % of them don’t even know it! ...
Posted in: Editor's Page, Home
Jun
09
2010
Did you know that in the latest guidelines (Dietary Guidelines for Americans), all children (from preschool through age 18) should be physically active and get 60 (sixty) minutes of exercise/physical activity each and every day? Well it’s true. This exercise or activity does not have to be only from sports, but also can come from walking and playing (a.k.a. recess). And the exercise does not have to be done all at once. You can break it up into several periods throughout the day- for example: 6-ten minute episodes or 4- fifteen minute episodes.
Parenting tip#1: according to many studies, kids (and adults too) that are physically active have a lower risk of developing chronic diseases like obesity, type-2 diabetes, elevated BMI, stroke, coronary artery disease, colon cancer, osteoporosis elevated blood fats, elevated blood pressure and elevated insulin levels. On the other end of the spectrum, kids that are not active and are sedentary (e.g. sit in front of the TV or computer) have a much higher risk of developing chronic diseases like overweight, obesity, coronary artery disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and certain types of cancer.
Parenting tip #2: If you eat 100 more food calories a day than you burn, you'll gain about 1 pound in a month. That's about 12 pounds in a year.
Here is a chart that shows the calories (units of energy) ...
Posted in: Editor's Page, Home
May
17
2010
The White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity issued a report to the President on childhood obesity on May 13th, 2010 entitled: Solving The Problem Of Childhood Obesity Within A Generation. It is a summary of recommendations on how to approach the epidemic and focuses on four “priority” areas: 1. Empowering parents and caregivers; 2. Providing healthy foods in schools; 3. Improving access to healthy, affordable foods; and 4. Increasing physical activity. The goal for the Task Force is “returning to a childhood obesity rate of just 5% by 2030.” Can this be achieved? I am not so certain. Of course additional indicators such as measuring the number of children eating a healthy diet, making sure that children eat less sugar in their diet, increasing fruits and vegetables and increasing physical activity will be extremely important for the success of this plan.
The report indicates that: A. one in every three children (31.7%) ages 2-19 is overweight or obese, B. that obesity is estimated to cause 112,000 deaths per year in the United States, C. one third of all children born in the year 2000 are expected to develop diabetes and D. even more starling that the current generation may be on track to have a shorter lifespan than their parents.
Additional points from the report are the following:
Each year obese adults incur an estimated $1429 more in medical expenses than ...
Posted in: Editor's Page, Home
May
15
2010
Here we are, my friends, the Fat Police are ready to deliver governmental penalties for our body weight being out of proportion to societies specifications. Have we reached that point where we need new laws telling us that we are “fat”, “overweight,” “obese?” I guess we have. At least our congressional leaders feel that way. It’s not new. As pointed out in my last article, governments all over the world are proposing similar new laws and restrictions. Obesity is an epidemic and getting worse globally. According to recent statistics, 17 percent of 6 to 11 year olds and 17.6 percent of 12 to 19 year olds are obese. 33 percent of 6 to 11 year olds and 34 percent of 12 to 19 year olds are overweight. Obesity medical costs are estimated to have totaled $147 billion in 2008. Can you imagine what the costs will be in 2010?
Several new bills have been proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives and you should all be aware of them:
A. H.R. 1585-The FIT kids ACT: passed the House of Representatives April 21, 2010, renews the emphasis on physical education in schools. The Act would work to ensure kids are active during the school day and are taught to be personally responsible for their health. The legislation would engage parents and the public by requiring all school districts and states to report on ...
Posted in: Editor's Page, Home
Apr
29
2010
After reading the last feedback mail from my most recent posting on the potential of governmental penalties or restrictions for those individuals that may be over a certain weight limit (body size limit), I realized that this is a very hot topic for debate. I was surprised that so many people agreed about levying extra taxes and increasing the cost of health care for those citizens that are classified as obese. In addition, suggestions came in regarding extra taxes on artificially sweetened sodas(specifically with high fructose corn syrup), candy and donuts, and of course fast foods. Someone mentioned the recent laws that Mexico passed about requiring daily exercise for school children and a law that would restrict schools from selling junk food to students. I looked in to this and found out the following details:
The lower house of the Mexican Congress passed a law against childhood obesity. This law will try to limit the selling of junk food in primary and secondary schools and also require daily half hour exercise periods.
The new law will also try to stop children from eating and drinking foods with high fat, high sugar and preservatives and to encourage shops near schools to sell fruit and “healthy juice.”
According to Mexican data, almost 52 percent of the 5 to 11 year olds in Mexico are either obese or overweight and that Mexico has one of the ...
Posted in: Editor's Page, Home
Apr
27
2010
The headlines hit every newspaper, radio and television news program all across our country: 45% of all Americans have high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol. These are the results of the most recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. 13% of American adults had at least two of these conditions and 3% had all three! 15% of American adults had one of these problems undiagnosed-yes-they are walking around with diabetes, elevated blood pressure or high cholesterol and they don’t even know it! Non-Hispanic African-Americans were more likely than non-Hispanic white and Mexican-Americans to have at least one of the three conditions. And even more revealing, non-Hispanic African-Americans were more likely to have all three conditions compared with non-Hispanic white Americans. As we all know, all three conditions are associated with heart disease-the leading cause of death in the United States. According to additional data from the Centers For Disease Control And prevention (CDC), African-Americans had a 51% higher prevalence of obesity compared with whites. It’s all starting to make more sense. In fact a recent research projection made by Anirban Basu, PhD of the University of Chicago indicates that “obesity rates across all age categories in the U.S. adult population will remain stable for the next 10 years. However young African American adults ages 18-39, children-mainly boys ages 6-9 and ...
Posted in: Editor's Page, Home
Mar
18
2010
So let’s start with this one: they are calling her a wannabe “biggest woman in the world.” Donna Simpson, a young woman of only 42, and already the “World’s Fattest Mother” according to the Guinness Book of World Records , has been gracing the pages and television screens of virtually every news organization in the USA this week, claiming that she weighs 600 pounds and wants to go to 1000 pounds. What! That’s right-she is currently at 600 pounds-and by every measure and medical account-she is in the obese-morbidly obese category. According to many published reports (MSNBC, FOX News, Post Chronicle, etc.) she wants to be “World’s Fattest Woman.” And how will she get there-the answer-by eating over 12,000 calories a day. Many world class athletes and body builders will consume between 10 to 20,000 calories a day of course burning up between 3-5000 calories in their exercise regimen. Donna Simpson will only be burning up calories by breathing, eating or walking to the bathroom or bed room. What will this be costing her to get to this outrageous weight-well some estimates say between $500-1000 dollars a day in food costs. Now here is a major ridiculous part of this story-Donna has a web site where people can pay money to see her eat. OMG!!! Yes, by going to Supersizebombshells.com, you can see Donna and other ...
Posted in: Editor's Page
