May
01
2017
A report from the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition
It’s National Physical Fitness & Sports Month! The President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition is excited to keep the journey from #0to60 going by encouraging everyone to #MoveInMay.
This May, stay motivated with the President's Council's Presidential Champions and Presidential Active Lifestyle Award (PALA+) programs! Each program allows you to track your daily physical activity and earn awards.
There are countless ways to get moving and we are asking our partners to help us inspire all Americans to be active. We’ve created this #MoveInMay Playbook where you can find themes, tips and motivational messages that you can promote throughout the month. You can also get ideas to #MoveInMay and every day at 0to60fitness.org !
Importance of Physical Activity
Physical activity provides long-term health benefits for everyone! By being active, you will burn calories that you store from eating throughout the day and—it can be as easy as walking the dog or as rigorous as running a marathon. Providing opportunities for children to be active early on puts them on a path to better physical and mental health. It's never too late to jumpstart a healthy lifestyle.
Physical Activity & Obesity
Physical activity, along with proper nutrition, is beneficial to people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities. And it is important that everyone gets active: over the last 20 years, there's been a significant increase in obesity in ...
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Jan
02
2016
A report from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Scientists have uncovered a pathway in mice that allows white fat — a contributor to obesity and type 2 diabetes — to burn calories as if it were brown fat or muscle.
The body uses white fat to store extra energy. Too much white fat (obesity) increases the risk of type 2 diabetes and other diseases. Brown fat, in contrast, generates heat to maintain body temperature and, like muscle, has lots of calorie-burning mitochondria.
Brown fat is found in small mammals like rodents throughout their lives. Humans have it at birth, but we lose it as we age. Researchers once thought that our brown fat was essentially nonexistent by adulthood. Recent studies found that not only do adults have brown fat but it also may play an important role in weight control. Boosting the activity of brown fat, or converting white fat to brown fat, could be potential strategies for fighting obesity.
A team of NIH researchers led by Dr. Sushil G. Rane of NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) were studying a protein called TGF-beta. TGF-beta and its related factors are known to control the development, growth and function of many different cell types. Blood levels of TGF-beta have been linked to obesity in both mice and humans. In previous work, the team found that the TGF-beta pathway plays ...
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Mar
07
2014
From a World Health Organization (WHO) Report:
Free sugars contribute to the overall energy density of diets.
Ensuring energy balance is critical to maintaining healthy body weight and
ensuring optimal nutrient intake.
There is increasing concern that consumption of free sugars, particularly
in the form of sugar-sweetened beverages, may result in both reduced
intake of foods containing more nutritionally adequate calories and an
increase in total caloric intake, leading to an unhealthy diet, weight gain
and increased risk of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).
Also of great concern is the role free sugars play in the development of
dental diseases, particularly dental caries. Dental diseases are the most
prevalent NCDs globally and though great improvements in prevention
and treatment have occurred in the last decades, dental diseases
continue to cause pain, anxiety, functional limitation and social handicap
through tooth loss, for large numbers of people worldwide. The treatment
of dental diseases is expensive—costing between 5 and 10% of health
budgets in industrialised countries—and would exceed the financial
resources available for the whole of health care for children in the
majority of lower-income countries.
The objective of this guideline is to provide recommendations on the
consumption of free sugars to reduce the risk of NCDs in adults and
children, with a particular focus on the prevention and control of weight
gain and dental caries. When finalized, the recommendations in this
guideline can be used by program managers and policy planners to
assess current intake of free sugars relative to a benchmark and develop
measures to decrease intake of ...
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Jan
14
2011
Wow, by the response from my last blog, you guys and gals are ready! It seems that many of us are ready to get the weight off. I am proud of all of you honest folks-yes, we let it out-we are honest-we gained weight and we are not happy campers. And now, you took the first five steps: 1. You got rid of all of the junk food in your kitchen-had to be done 2. You have weighed yourself-good or bad-had to be done 3. You set a weight loss goal that is realistic-had to be done 4. You made an exercise schedule and finally you went for (or have scheduled) a checkup with your medical provider-had to be done. Great job! Had to be done! Must be done! You are well on your way to success. Now you are all wondering, what’s next? What other secrets can you tell me? Tell me Graehm, please, please!
So let’s talk food! That’s right “da food!” What type, how much and when can I eat it? Isn’t that what we all ask several times a day? In my family, we ask it before we even finish our first meal of the day. We need to know! And we need to know now! We all think about food incessantly. It makes us feel good knowing what ...
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Feb
23
2010
Okay, let’s review: what do we know so far? A. We know that obesity is an extra accumulation of fat. B. We know that the problem is coming from an imbalance-more energy in the form of calories (food) coming into the body-our children are eating more and not enough energy (calories) being burned off-not enough exercise. C. We know that a pediatrician and researcher uses the Body Mass Index (BMI) as a way to identify weight problems in children-a way to measure your child’s weight against other children of the same age and sex and tell us whether he or she is at risk; D. We know that there are lots of consequences from being obese-heart disease, arthritis, sleep apnea and psychological problems and finally, E. We know that President Obama said that 30 percent of our children are either overweight or obese .So what’s next? Are we all sure we know whether our children are obese or just overweight? And what do we do to solve this problem? Class, let’s continue our journey-now Part two:
Overweight vs. Obese: (CDC) These are terms used to classify kids and adults and based on Body Mass Index (BMI-height and weight). BMI for kids and teens takes into account growth changes, differences in body fat between boys and girls. BMI calculator for Child and Teen. So go to your pediatrician’s (or primary ...
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