Category Archives: Health & Fitness

Using a physical activity time machine to explain the obesity epidemic.

Posted on May 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

What caused the current obesity epidemic? Is it that we are eating more now? Or are we less active than we were? Most likely, it is a combination of both. And although the typical American diet is given plenty of blame for causing people to gain weight, a low level of physical activity deserves attention, too.

One way to answer this question is to look back at what life was like about 100 years ago, when obesity was uncommon. Unfortunately, no one thought to make accurate measures of daily activity back then. But there is a way to go back in time and assess the diet and physical activity that was common 100 years ago.

In my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week I wrote about an interesting study that essentially took researchers back in time to measure physical activity. The results show that we are much less active today, which certainly plays a big role in the obesity epidemic.

You can learn more about the study I mentioned here.

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It’s not just for kids: Adults need recess, too.

Posted on May 14, 2013 | Leave a comment

The childhood obesity epidemic is usually blamed, in part, on the fact that most kids aren’t active enough at home and at school. Opportunities for activity in school are less common now because programs like physical education and recess are being cut in an effort to save money or to dedicate time for test preparation. This has an effect not only on health but on academic performance, since regular activity improves attention, memory, and learning (in addition to the health benefits).

Parents are partly to blame, too. There are plenty of missed opportunities for physical activity outside of school. Since most adults don’t get enough activity, it is no surprise that they aren’t encouraging their kids to be active.

Adults get the same benefits from regular physical activity as children do. Just as kids who are active during the  day perform better at school, adults who are active at work are more productive. But most people spend much of their work day sitting with little to no activity. This is bad for health and for job performance.

So why don’t adults get recess, too? They should!

This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week. It is also the mission behind an initiative called Instant Recess, which provides tools to help people include short activity breaks into their day. Far from being a burden or a waste of time, these short bouts of activity improve health, mental wellbeing, and productivity.

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Missed opportunities to promote physical activity for kids.

Posted on May 6, 2013 | Leave a comment

Most kids don’t get enough physical activity. No surprise that inactivity is associated with health conditions like obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes. But a lack of activity in children can lead to poor academic performance, too.

But we are missing good opportunities to provide kids with chances to be physically active at home and in school. This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard today.

Schools are a perfect place to include opportunities to be active. Unfortunately, opportunities for activity, from PE to recess, are among the first cuts to be made when budgets are tight. Why isn’t promoting an active, healthy lifestyle  just as important as promoting math or reading or science?

A common argument is that parents should teach their children about a healthy lifestyle, not schools. I disagree. At some point, we (society) decided that parents shouldn’t have to teach their kids math or reading or science. I don’t know the exact rationale, but it likely had something to do with the fact that most parents don’t have the knowledge or skills to teach these essential subjects. Why should activity and, while we are at it, nutrition, be any different?

In fact, we have been experimenting with removing  physical activity and nutrition education from schools and leaving it to parents for some time now. Given the childhood (and adult) obesity epidemic, it hasn’t gone well. Maybe it is time to revisit providing quality health, activity, and nutrition education in schools.

If you want to learn more about benefits of and ways to promote physical activity for kids the Physical Guidelines for Americans is a good place to start. In particular, the Midcourse Report offers recommendations and solutions regarding physical activity in children.

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Read this before you go out for lunch today: Comparing fast food and casual dining restaurant meals.

Posted on April 29, 2013 | 3 comments

Everyone know that fast food is unhealthy. Of course, some fast food is better than others and it is possible to get a reasonably healthy meal at a fast food restaurant. But if you are concerned about calories, fat, added sugar, and sodium in your diet, fast food probably isn’t the best choice.

Eating at a casual dining restaurant such as Applebee’s, Ruby Tuesday, and T.G.I. Friday’s must be healthier, right? Think again! My Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week addresses this issue.

According to data collected by one of my students, Kyle Sprow, this is not always the case.

He compared a typical meal from McDonald’s, Subway, and  Applebee’s. The Applebee’s menu includes Weight Watchers low-calorie options  in addition to the regular menu items, so he looked at both. We chose these restaurants because of their popularity and because their menus are consistent with other similar restaurants.

He was able to compare typical fast food (McDonald’s), “healthy” fast food (Subway), a typical meal at a casual dining restaurant (Applebee’s regular menu), and healthy options at the same restaurant (Weight Watchers menu). Here is what he found:

  • The sit-down restaurant meal is likely to be higher in calories and fat than fast food. This is due in part to large portion sizes.
  • A meal at Subway may be lower in calories and fat than a meal at McDonald’s, but depends on what type and size of sandwich (and condiments) you choose.
  • The Weight Watchers menu at Applebee’s really is much lower in fat and calories than the regular menu, even better than Subway.
  • No matter where you eat, you are likely to get a lot of sodium in your meal, at least 50% of your daily recommended intake even if you chose the “healthy” options.

So, what will you have for lunch today?

 

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Good for you and good for the Earth. Celebrate Earth Day by making healthy choices.

Posted on April 22, 2013 | Leave a comment

Today is Earth Day! How are you planning to celebrate?

You can learn more about Earth Day and steps you can take to reduce your impact on the environment here.

Did you know that some choices you make are good for the environment and your health? For example, walking instead of driving and eating more vegetables instead of meat are two ways you can improve your health and help the environment. You can read more about this in my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.

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Candy and soda for breakfast! The truth about popular children’s breakfast foods.

Posted on April 16, 2013 | 1 comment

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right? A healthy breakfast can help kids pay attention and do better in school. In adults, a good breakfast can reduce hunger and help with weight control. That’s probably not new.

You may be surprised to learn that many  popular breakfast foods for children—and adults—are anything but healthy. In fact, many of these choices more closely resemble candy and soda than a healthy start to the day!

This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week. It was also a project that one of my students, Brittney Austin, worked on this semester. While some of the results clearly showed that some breakfast foods were essentially candy, like frosted Pop-Tarts which have nearly as many calories and as much sugar as a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.

In other cases, the comparison is more complicated. For example, Sunny D orange drink contains only 5% juice but has as much added sugar as a Coke. It is essentially orange soda without the bubbles. But when you consider that 100% orange juice has as much sugar as the Sunny D, maybe the “orange soda without bubbles”  isn’t so bad.

But it is! While it is true that the sugar content is essentially the same, the real orange juice also contains vitamins and minerals. And  even though some “juice” drinks have added vitamins and minerals, the real juice is still better. Here’s why: children who drink the artificially sweetened juice flavored drinks may become accustomed to the unnaturally sweet taste and find that they don’t like naturally sweetened juice or whole fruit. So even if the nutrients are the same as real juice, the “juice” drinks can lead kids away from eating fruit—a bad outcome!

Take a close look at what your children eat for breakfast. Is it a healthy meal or candy and soda in disguise? And take a good look at your own breakfast. It may not be much better!

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Don’t be an April Fool! Weight loss myths revealed.

Posted on April 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

Diets don’t work!

Exercise will make you gain weight!

This supplement will melt fat away while you sleep! 

Unfortunately, claims like these are not an April Fools joke. They are repeated so frequently that diets and exercise are avoided by many in favor of supplements to promote weight loss. Also unfortunately, they aren’t true. My Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week busts these common weight loss myths. Here is a bit more about each.

1. Diets don’t work! This is a common claim, usually to explain why most people who lose weight end up gaining it back. But diets do work. Almost every diet leads to weight loss in the short-term and some lead to  long-term weight loss. I have written about selecting the “best” diet and why the diet you pick isn’t the most important predictor of weight loss previously. And it is possible to lose weight and keep it off. But it is difficult, as this article explains so elegantly. Difficult, not impossible.

2. Exercise will make you gain weight! This is another popular myth about weight loss.  The good news is that exercise does work to promote weight loss. In fact, weight loss by exercise alone results in greater fat loss and preserves muscle compared to weight loss by diet. It’s true. But you probably shouldn’t try to lose weight by exercise alone. The best results will come from combining diet and exercise.

3. Melt fat away while you sleep by taking supplement X! This sounds great, which explains why Americans spend billions of dollars on dietary supplements each year. Unfortunately, most of these supplements have not been researched either adequately or at all to determine their effectiveness or safety, or they have been shown to be ineffective, as shown here. A conservative conclusion is that there are no supplements that have been shown to safely promote long-term weight loss.

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Know your nutrients: Fats

Posted on March 18, 2013 | Leave a comment

I am continuing my celebration of  National Nutrition Month by writing about the major nutrients (called “macronutrients”) in my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard. This week I provided information about fats.

Although there are different sources and types of dietary fats, they are are usually grouped together. This leads to the misperception that “fat is bad” or “fat is good. It turns out that some fat intake is essential for good health and getting more of your dietary fats from some sources is better for your health than other sources. For example, saturated fat and trans fats are This is where things get confusing.

I try to alleviate some of this confusion in my column, but I wanted to provide some links to additional (and quality) information. You can learn more about dietary fats, including additional details about functions, health effects, and recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention here and from the Mayo Clinic here.

Ultimately, making smart food choices is needed to shift the balance from unhealthy (saturated and trans) fats to healthier (monounsaturated and omega-3) fats. But determining the types of fats in the food we eat is difficult, to say the least. This excellent graphic shows the food sources of the various types of fatty acids and I find it helpful for making recommendations.

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Source: http://canola.okstate.edu/nutrition

Even though the health effects of dietary fats is a confusing issue, the bottom line is that most people could benefit from the following two steps:

  1. Reducing their intake of total fat
  2. Shifting the balance  away from saturated (primarily animal sources) and trans (processed foods) fats toward monounsaturated and omega-3 fats from vegetable oils and fish.

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Know your nutrients: Carbohydrates

Posted on March 13, 2013 | Leave a comment

March is National Nutrition Month, an annual campaign to educate people about making healthy eating choices. Reading food labels is an important step in making smart choices. But food labels tend to be confusing, and many people don’t understand the terminology or even what the major nutrients listed on a food label are. In order to make informed decisions, people really need to know some basic information about the food we eat, including the major nutrients.

I am celebrating National Nutrition Month by writing about the major nutrients—carbohydrates, fats, and protein—in my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard. This week I provide an introduction to carbohydrates.

You can learn more about carbohydrates, including specific guidelines and recommendations here.  I recently heard an interesting segment about whole grains on the NPR show Talk of the Nation. Apparently, all whole grains are not created equally. It’s worth a listen.

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If you were paid millions of dollars, you would lose weight too!

Posted on March 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

Jared Fogle has been a spokesperson for Subway restaurants for 15 years now. He has had a huge impact on Subway sales, largely because of his remarkable weight loss which was due, in part, to eating Subway sandwiches. (Of course, there is nothing magical about his “Subway diet.” The weight loss was due to the fact that he was eating far fewer calories!)

What is more remarkable than his initial weight loss is the fact that Jared kept the weight off for 15 years. He has had some serious motivation to do so. First, he has literally been paid millions of dollars to keep the weight off. Second, because his story is so widely known and because he is so recognizable, Jared is accountable to all of us. His weight regain would be noticed by many people, include some who have made him a role model.

Most of us won’t get paid to lose weight (or exercise or quit smoking), but we can find something to motivate us. And by telling people about our goals—or better yet, getting them involved with us—we are accountable to others. In this way we can benefit from the very same factors that have contributed to Jared’s success.

You can read more about motivation and accountability and making health behavior changes in my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.

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