Category Archives: Health & Fitness

Making healthy food choices is never easy. It is made more challenging by the fact that some foods that appear to be a smart choice may be less healthy than you think. Often, prepackaged fruits and vegetables contain added sugar, fat, or salt, making them less healthy than eating them fresh.

Consumption these foods can also make it less likely that people—especially children—will eat fresh fruits and vegetables when they are available. Here are some examples of foods that may appear to be healthy but, upon closer examination, turn out to be less nutritious than we might think.

Fruit snacks: These gummy fruit treats are a favorite among kids. If you check the package you will probably see that they contain real fruit or fruit juice, so they must be healthy, right? While there is variation among different brands, in most cases these snacks contain little, if any, actual fruit. If you read the ingredients you will see that they do contain lots of added sugar, meaning that many of these snacks are essentially candy. In fact, if you compare some brands of fruit snacks with something that is easily recognized as candy, such as gummy bears, you will see that they have a similar sugar content.

Fruit drinks: Not everything that looks like fruit juice is actually juice. Take orange “juice” drinks like Sunny D and Hi-C for example. These popular orange drinks contain mostly added sugar and water—and only 5% juice. By contrast, real orange juice is 100% juice. You might think that because Sunny D and Hi-C have less sugar and fewer calories they are a healthy alternative to real orange juice. Don’t be fooled! When you look at the ingredients you will realize that these drinks are far from real juice, essentially orange soda without the bubbles!

There are two problems with this. First, some foods that appear to be healthy because they either claim to or actually do contain fruit are actually less healthy than we might believe. Considering that fruit snacks and fruit drinks are likely to be consumed as alternatives to real fruit juice or a piece of fruit as a snack, these foods could lead to poor nutrition. This is especially true in children.

Second, sweetness is one of the most important tastes we respond to. Consuming food and beverages that are flavored like fruit but are actually much sweeter may make real fruit less palatable. Again, this is especially true for children who may develop an expectation that strawberries should taste like strawberry-flavored fruit snacks or that orange juice should taste as sweet as Sunny D. These kids are likely to prefer the sugar-sweetened version over the real fruit. Since these sugar-sweetened “fruits” tend to be higher in calories, consumption of these foods is one contributor to childhood obesity.

This isn’t just the case with fruit. Adding salt and sauces to vegetables makes them more flavorful, to the point that many of us don’t eat plain vegetables very often. The majority of potatoes are consumed in the form of French fries, loaded with both fat and salt. This has changed how we expect potatoes to taste so that now we typically eat baked potatoes “loaded” with butter, sour cream, cheese or bacon. When was the last time you ate a plain baked potato?

But there are some simple steps you can take to get back to eating real fruit and vegetables. Look for 100% fruit juice or, better yet, a piece of fruit instead of fruit-flavored drinks. Instead of sugar-sweetened fruit snacks, try dehydrated fruit. Cut back on the salt, butter, and other toppings you add to vegetables or purchase frozen vegetables without added sauces.

Nutrition, exercise, and health information can be confusing. 
But it doesn't have to be that way.
What can I help you with?
 drparrsays@gmail.com | @drparrsays

There are numerous community and workplace weight loss competitions and fitness challenges underway in our area right now. These programs are a popular way to start making health improvements with friends or coworkers. Many people find the competition aspect of these programs to be motivating. Even those who are reluctant to start a diet or exercise program are more likely to give it a try. But this raises the question, are “biggest loser” type weight loss programs effective at promoting lasting weight loss? Does winning the competition make maintaining a healthy body weight any easier?

The short answer is probably not. Remember, the goal of any diet should be for you to lose weight and keep it off. The majority of people who lose weight will eventually gain it back, plus some extra. This is more of a problem for programs that emphasize rapid weight loss. As a general rule, the quicker someone loses weight, the quicker they are likely to gain it back. So, an eight-week weight loss competition is likely to promote rapid weight loss followed by weight gain when the program ends.

There is a practical reason why this happens. In order to lose weight and keep it off, people need to learn a whole new lifestyle involving what, when, why, and how to eat and exercise. These lifestyle changes are difficult to make and can take months or years to fully adopt. It is unlikely that trying to win a weight loss competition, which emphasizes quickly losing weight over learning new skills and behaviors, would support that outcome. In addition, some contestants may follow inappropriate diets or participate in exercise that is too intense. This could lead to injury, illness, or, at the very least, a failed weight loss attempt.

That’s not to say that these weight loss competitions don’t have benefits. There are certainly participants who would not otherwise consider losing weight at that time. Many programs organize participants into teams and the benefits of group support in promoting weight loss are well established. Some programs provide incentives for participating like access to exercise facilities or personal training sessions, which may encourage people to be more active. Others provide monitoring and education to promote success beyond the program. For example, the 12-week YMCA Team Lean program includes weekly education sessions and weigh-ins, a strong group dynamic, and monitoring to prevent rapid, unhealthy weight loss. Other programs, however, are shorter in duration and provide little in the way of education or support for making long-term lifestyle changes.

And don’t think that you are likely to achieve similar results to the contestants on the reality TV shows. The environment on those shows is so different from real life—constant supervision, guidance by experts, and the ever-present cameras, which make the contestants accountable to millions of viewers. The fact is that many “biggest losers” regain all the weight they lost after the show ends. Despite the intensive education and intervention, many contestants are not prepared to make the type of lifestyle changes needed to maintain weight loss in the real world.

There is a simple solution if your goal is to lose weight and keep it off: participate in the competition, take advantage of the resources, but don’t focus only on winning. Instead, use the program to develop healthy eating and exercise habits.  You will find that concentrating on modifying your behaviors is the key to success. Whether you win or not, know that the end of the program is just the beginning of your weight loss journey.

Nutrition, exercise, and health information can be confusing. 
But it doesn't have to be that way.
What can I help you with?
 drparrsays@gmail.com | @drparrsays

Do you need to exercise every day? Or could you exercise on just a couple of days instead? According to a recent study, Saving your exercise for the weekend can give you the same health benefits as spreading your exercise out over multiple days. However, becoming a “weekend warrior” might not be the best approach for you.

Current physical activity recommendations call for us to accumulate 150 min/week of moderate-intensity activity or 75 min/week of vigorous activity. Typically, this would be done on multiple days per week (walking 30 min per day on 5 days, or jogging 25 min on 3 days). This study answers an important question about physical activity and health—can you get away with only exercising a couple of days per week instead of the recommended 3-5 days? It also included people who do some, but not enough, activity throughout the week.

This study looked at how physical activity pattern was linked to the risk of death from all causes, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and cancer, a common way of examining the effect of physical activity on health in large populations. The study compared the risk of death among four physical activity pattern groups: inactive, insufficiently active (some activity, but not enough), regularly active (meeting PA recommendations throughout the week), and weekend warriors (meeting recommendations in just 1-2 days per week).

The results show that, compared to the inactive group, the risk of death was lower in the insufficiently active, regularly active, and weekend warrior groups. This was true for deaths overall as well as deaths from CVD and cancer. Furthermore, the reduced risk was similar for the three activity patterns, but lowest in the regularly active participants.

This confirms what we already knew from numerous other studies: regular physical activity promotes longevity. The study also suggests that being active throughout the week, but not enough to meet those recommendations, is also associated with some reduction in risk. We knew that, too. What this study adds is that meeting the recommendations by doing the activity on 1-2 days, the “weekend warrior” pattern, is beneficial, too. In fact, this activity pattern seems to be about as good as being active most days of the week. This is good news for people who aren’t active on a daily basis!

That said, this study only examined mortality, meaning the number of people who died during the follow-up period. It doesn’t tell us much about how these activity patterns affect health the way most of us would consider it: controlling blood pressure, diabetes, blood lipids, or depression. It also doesn’t say anything about weight control or improving strength, endurance, or flexibility, which are important reasons many people are active. In both cases, exercising regularly is the key to realizing the benefits!

Additionally, the typical “weekend warrior” tends to engage in exercise that is more intense and/or longer duration than what they might do if they exercised regularly. Indeed, the study indicates that almost all (94%) of the weekend warriors played sports and relatively few (31%) walked for exercise. While this is fine for most people, participating in vigorous, prolonged exercise can lead to a greater risk of injury, especially in people who aren’t in good shape to begin with.

So, people who are weekend warriors should select activities they will enjoy, and focus on duration over intensity. A long walk, hike, bike ride, or kayak trip on the weekend is something most people can do without too much risk. But the best approach is to be active throughout the week as much as possible and use weekends for more ambitious exercise sessions.

Nutrition, exercise, and health information can be confusing. 
But it doesn't have to be that way.
What can I help you with?
 drparrsays@gmail.com | @drparrsays