Tag Archives: health

The diet wars continue

Posted on September 8, 2014 | 2 comments

If you are confused or frustrated by the conflicting claims about whether a low-fat or low-carbohydrate diet is the best, you are forgiven. First we were told that eating a low-fat diet was the best way to lose weight and improve heart health. Then, research suggested that low-carbohydrate diets were better. And back and forth it has gone for years.

During this time, the prevailing recommendations have suggested that a diet low in fat and high in carbohydrates was best. But more and more research has supported the notion that cutting carbohydrates, not fat, would lead to greater weight loss. Although this has been supported by some research, critics pointed out that eating more fat would raise blood cholesterol and other risks for heart disease.

According to a recent study, though, low-carbohydrate diets seem to have benefits for promoting weight loss and improving some indicators of heart health over low-fat diets. But you should hold off on shunning fruits and vegetables in favor of cheeseburgers! Here is a practical interpretation of the research and some common sense recommendations, taken from my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.

The study, published last week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, reported on 150 men and women who either restricted the amount of carbohydrates or fat they ate. After one year, the group that ate a low carbohydrate diet lost over 7 pounds more than the subjects on the low-fat diet. Additionally, the low-carbohydrate diet promoted greater improvements in blood lipids than the low-fat diet.

This is important for two reasons. First, this wasn’t a weight loss study; the researchers were simply following the subjects to see what would happen as they followed either diet. The fact that the low-carbohydrate group lost more weight suggests that it is relatively easier to cut calories following this type of diet.

This is consistent with other research showing that eating more carbohydrates, especially refined carbohydrates and sugar, can actually make people feel hungrier and eat more. Indeed, other studies have shown low-carbohydrate diets to be more effective for weight loss than low-fat diets (although a more recent study suggests there isn’t such a difference).

Second, the greater decrease in triglycerides and “bad” LDL cholesterol and increase in “good” HDL cholesterol in the low-carbohydrate group were different from what might be expected. Conventional wisdom holds that a low-fat diet should have a greater effect on blood lipids. Since weight loss can have a big effect on blood lipids, the improvement in the low-carbohydrate group may be due to losing more weight, not a direct effect of the diet.

It is important to note that the low-fat diet also led to weight loss in this and numerous other studies. The critical component of any weight loss diet is that it is relatively low in calories, regardless of what nutrients supply those calories. Really, almost any diet will lead to weight loss as long as it contains less energy than what is expended, but a low-carbohydrate diet may be more effective for weight loss than the traditional low-fat diet.

The bottom line is that the best diet is one that emphasizes eating wholesome foods, not on cutting carbohydrates or fat. That said, limiting carbohydrates in the form of refined grains and added sugar is an excellent way to reduce calorie intake and improve the overall nutritional value of what you eat. And shifting toward more monounsaturated fats (think olive oil and nuts) rather than worrying about the total amount of fat you eat is also a good idea.

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Mindfulness matters for health.

Posted on September 2, 2014 | Leave a comment

According to a TIME magazine cover article from earlier this year, we are in the midst of a “mindful revolution.” Beyond being a trendy topic, mindfulness is important for making meaningful and lasting health behavior changes. This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week. 

Mindfulness can be described as an awareness of thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and the surrounding environment. This is most commonly explored through mindful meditation, a practice that is credited with improving physical and mental health. Beyond meditation, being mindful can help to improve attention and focus in nearly every aspect of life.

 

Thinking about your actions and the effect they have on your health and the health of others can be good for you and those around you. It turns out that we engage in many health behaviors that are driven more by habit than conscious decision-making. This includes what, when, and how much we eat as well as how active we are, two of the most important determinants of health.

 

When was the last time you thought about what you were eating? Not just which restaurant to go to or what time to eat, but really thought about what and how much you ate? Chances are, at least some of the time you eat when you aren’t hungry or keep eating even when you are full. You probably also eat foods you know you shouldn’t or don’t intend to, sometimes without even realizing it.

 

This concept was explored in depth by Brian Wansink in the 2006 book, Mindless Eating. Based on his research, this book helped to explain the hidden reasons behind what, why, and how much we eat, often without being aware of it. This includes marketing tricks as well as environmental factors, many of which operate outside of our consciousness, that drive our food choices and prompt us to eat. 

 

This is where mindfulness comes in. By making an effort to be cognizant about your own thoughts and sensations as well as the environment you are in, you can prevent overeating and poor food choices.

 

Furthermore, we should be aware of how our food choices influence others around us. Research shows that children of parents who eat more fruits and vegetables tend to eat more of these foods than kids without such influence. Mindful eating includes accounting for how our actions and choices can influence the decisions of other family members and friends.

 

 

The same is true for how active or sedentary we are. Being active is a choice, sometimes a difficult one, that is influenced by other people and the environment. Most people spend the majority of the day sitting at work and at home, often without thinking about it. This sedentary lifestyle has been linked to an increased risk of obesity and heart disease, so it is relevant.

 

 

Sure, it feels good to sit on the couch to watch television. Think about it: is that really the best way to spend your time? At work, taking short breaks to get up from your desk and move can make you feel more alert and energized. Isn’t that worth it?

 

 

Similar to eating, our activity choices can influence the actions of those around us. A suggestion to walk to lunch can increase your own activity and that of your friends. Planning to go for a walk or bike ride with your family after dinner is a great way to share the benefits of activity.

 

 

When it comes to health, mindfulness matters. Being mindful about what you eat and make a choice to be more active allows you to have a positive effect on your health and the health of those around you.

 

 

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To make your diet healthier, add exercise.

Posted on August 25, 2014 | 2 comments

The American diet is frequently blamed for the poor health of Americans and, increasingly, other countries. The quest for the healthiest way to eat can literally take people around the world to find the right foods eat.

Unfortunately, diets and supplements that include these “super foods” are rarely the answer to good health on their own. It turns out that the key getting the optimal health benefits from your diet isn’t the food itself—it’s exercise!

This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week. It’s not to say that what you eat isn’t important (it is!). The point is that healthy eating will only get you part of the way to the goal of good health.

For decades scientists have tried to isolate the types of foods or individual nutrients that lead to good health by studying what healthy and unhealthy people eat around the world. In some studies eating more of a certain nutrient or food, like saturated fat or red meat, was associated with a higher risk of heart disease and people who ate more fish had better heart health.

This is how we arrived at the common guidelines that encourage us to eat more fish and less red meat. The assumption was that the saturated fat in red meat was the cause of more heart attacks in Americans while the beneficial oils in fish protected the Japanese from heart disease.

But these studies, or at least the interpretation of these studies, didn’t take into account the fact that the populations that had the higher heart attack risk were also less active than their healthier counterparts. Perhaps it was the physical activity that made the difference in health.

A good example of this is the popular Mediterranean diet, which is often touted as the healthiest diet in the world. It’s true that people in the Mediterranean region historically tended to have a lower risk of heart disease. This was thought to be due to their diet which emphasizes healthy fats from olive oil along with vegetables, whole grains, seafood instead of red meat, and red wine in moderation.

Unfortunately, eating more olive oil or drinking more red wine, both recommendations based on the Mediterranean diet, won’t necessarily make you any healthier. This is because health benefits are due to a complex interaction of what we eat and other lifestyle factors, including activity. And people in the Mediterranean region move a lot more than we do, a key to realizing the benefits of the local diet.

Another example is the Ornish diet, a low-fat, semi-vegetarian diet that has been credited with improving blood lipids and even reversing the process that clogs arteries in heart disease. This is part of the reason for the recommendation to avoid foods high in saturated fat and cholesterol and eat more vegetables. It’s true that this diet has been shown to improve heart health, but the subjects in the studies also exercised regularly. Achieving the full benefits of this diet requires exercise, too.

Even the typical American diet won’t necessarily be unhealthy when combined with enough exercise. The Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps famously revealed what he ate on a typically day. The amount and type of foods he consumed were not what you would expect from someone so fit and healthy! Without the hours of training he engaged in each day that diet would almost certainly have resulted in obesity and poor health.

So, as you work toward improving your diet, don’t forget about the importance of daily exercise or other activity in maximizing the health benefits. And when people ask your secret, you can tell them that the real key to a healthy diet is exercise.

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Time to make your new school year resolutions

Posted on August 18, 2014 | Leave a comment

Today is the first day of school for my kids and the first official day back for me and my colleagues at USC Aiken. So, it seems like a perfect time to make and plan for New School Year resolutions. It’s also a good time to assess your progress on your New Year’s resolutions and restart (or finally get started) on your goals. This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.

It’s hard to believe, but summer is winding down and the start of a new school year is upon us. As teachers, students, and parents know, this is the real beginning of the new year. For those of us involved in education, the first day of school is a perfect time to make new goals for the upcoming year, whether they are related to school or not.

This is a lot like making New Year’s resolutions on January first. Hopefully, you are still on track with your resolution. Sadly, research suggests that only 8% of people actually achieve their goal (more data here).

There are a host of reasons for this. Some of the most common resolutions—quitting smoking, losing weight, and getting in shape—are also some of the most difficult behaviors to change because they require making significant lifestyle modifications. To make things worse, many people set unrealistic goals or try to take on too much at once.

Many people who fail to keep their New Year’s resolutions this year will recycle them next year and try again. In fact, most people who manage to successfully quit smoking or lose weight have tried many times in the past. Sometimes experience, even a bad experience, is the best way to learn what does and doesn’t work.

But there is no need to wait until 2015 to restart your stalled New Year’s resolution or finally get around to doing what you planned months ago. Setting a date to begin a behavior change is an important step in the process so, why not make a New School Year resolution and try again now?

Here is some advice to help make this second chance to start or restart your New Year’s resolutions successful.

Be realistic. Many people fail to keep their resolutions simply because they don’t set realistic goals or aren’t realistic about what it will take to meet those goals. For example, running a marathon is an ambitious goal for almost everyone, especially someone who doesn’t exercise at all. A resolution to work up to jogging five days per week, with a goal of completing a 5k run is more realistic and achievable.

Focus on learning. Making most health behavior changes involves learning as much as doing. Something as simple as eating a healthier meals requires learning about the nutrients that make some foods healthier than others, learning to read food labels to select healthy foods, and learning how to cook and prepare healthy meals. If your resolution is to learn about healthy meals you will be able to achieve that goal and be well on your way to eating a healthier diet.

Manage your time. Most health improvement projects require taking time to learn about, implement, and maintain those healthy behaviors. If you resolve to manage your time to include exercise or meal preparation in your daily schedule you will be much more likely to meet your goals. Trying to add these new activities as “extras” to your already busy day will inevitably lead to them getting squeezed out.

Plan ahead. Most people already know that changing health behaviors can be challenging, even under the best circumstances. It’s no wonder that holidays, travel, and other life events can complicate or even derail an otherwise successful diet or exercise program. Make it your resolution to think about what you can do before, during, and after these (and other) disruptions occur to keep yourself on track.

Hopefully these steps will help you keep your resolutions, achieve your goals, and make this a happy, healthy year. As a bonus, you can take January 1 off!

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Don’t go into (health) debt!

Posted on August 12, 2014 | Leave a comment

We are all aware of the hazards of being in debt. Too many individuals and families have gotten themselves in a poor financial situation by spending too much and not saving enough. For most, this debt has developed over several years and will have an impact lasting years into the future.

Unfortunately, this is not the only debt we face. Many of us are also in a health debt crisis. This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.

Poor eating habits and increasingly sedentary lifestyles have led to an obesity epidemic. This is important since the three leading causes of death among adults (heart disease, stroke, and cancer) are directly linked to poor diet, inactivity, and obesity.

Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer are among the conditions that make up our health debt. Even if we have not been diagnosed with these or other health conditions, our lifestyle has put us on that path.

Whether our doctors have told us or not, many of us are in poor health. And our overall health and potential complications get worse each year, so the longer we are overweight and inactive, the worse our health is likely to be in the future. That is our health debt crisis.

Another example of a health debt is smoking, the cause of nearly 90% of lung cancer cases. Lung cancer doesn’t develop after the first cigarette; it takes years of smoking to cause cancer. One estimate suggests that there is a 20 year time lag between smoking and lung cancer diagnosis.

During this time smoking is causing damage to the lungs that leads to cancer, but it is usually undetectable. The cancer process is underway long before it causes symptoms, and since smokers are unaware of it, they continue to smoke. Quitting smoking begins to erase this debt but former smokers suffer poor health even after they quit. In some cases, the debt can’t be completely paid back.

Aside from poor health and reduced quality of life, health debt carries a financial cost. The medical costs attributed to obesity alone are estimated to be $147 billion per year, and a typical obese patient spends over $1,000 more per year on their own medical care than someone at a healthy body weight. The financial burden is both collective and individual, meaning we all pay for it.

Just as financial debt is due to an difference between the money we save and what we spend, much of our health debt is due to an imbalance between the energy (calories) we save and spend.

We have been spending too little energy through activity and saving too much of the energy we eat in the form of fat. Each day we consume more calories than we burn, we store that extra energy as fat. Even a small difference each day adds up over time.

Putting it in these terms, the pathway out of health debt is clear—spend more energy by being more active and cutting back on the calories we eat. Like a financial debt, even though the solution is easy to identify, putting it into place requires making some difficult choices.

But it doesn’t have to be a painful process. Even small changes in activity and diet can lead to weight loss and improved health over time. Make it a priority to be active every day and try to spend less time sitting. Pass on second servings at meals and skip desert once in a while.

Remember, the health debt wasn’t created overnight. It was the result of small changes over time, some of which we may not have noticed. Fixing it will take time, too.

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Are fat-free and sugar-free foods healthy? Maybe not!

Posted on August 4, 2014 | 1 comment

Have you ever felt confused by the health claims made about some foods? If so, you are not alone. Nutrition is isn’t always easy to understand and, unfortunately, misleading information on food labels only makes it worse.

There are a great many foods that seem as though they would be healthy choices for weight loss or good health in general. Surprisingly, some of these low-fat and low-sugar alternatives aren’t as healthy as you might think.

This is because, in many cases, the claims on the label only tell part of the story. This isn’t to say that the information is false, but it does require some interpretation to understand whether these foods are really a healthy choice.

My Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week includes two examples of label language that seems to indicate a healthier option, but may not necessarily be the case:

1. Fat-free

Cutting back on fat intake is a good way to reduce calories and is typically recommended for weight loss. It is also a major part of traditional recommendations to lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease, although recent research suggests this may not be so important.

In order to meet a demand for lower fat and lower calorie foods, manufacturers have long offered fat-free versions of popular items. Cookies, snack foods, and salad dressings are among the most popular fat-free foods, especially for people who are trying to lose weight.

However, the number of calories in the fat-free foods may be the same as the full-fat versions because manufacturers often add sugar to make these lower fat foods taste as good. This is often the case for cookies, cakes, and other fat-free baked goods.

In the end, these fat-free foods may not really be lower in calories. And common sense tells us that the best way to reduce calories is to eat fewer of these snack foods and dressings in the first place.

 2. Sugar-free

Reducing sugar intake is also a popular way to limit calories in many foods and beverages. Currently, sugar is viewed as a major contributor to obesity and poor health in general, so this also makes some foods appear to be healthier than they really are.

While it is true that sugar-free versions of desserts and snack foods do usually contain fewer calories, the alternative sweeteners used instead raise some concerns. While there is no good evidence that these sweeteners are harmful, they certainly don’t make these foods any healthier.

It is important to note that the concern is with foods that have added sugar, such as packaged or prepared desserts, baked goods, and snacks. Foods with naturally occurring sugars like fruits, fruit juices, milk, and some vegetables are not worth worrying about.

Again, the most reasonable approach to creating a healthy diet is to eat fewer foods with added sugar, not looking for foods that replace added sugar with artificial sweeteners.

The Bottom Line

The problem for most people isn’t that they are eating cookies with too much sugar or salad dressing with too much fat, it’s that they are eating too many cookies and using too much dressing in the first place. Lowering fat or sugar in these foods does little to make people healthier.

The only way to do that would be to limit the intake of these processed foods in favor of more “real” food. Indeed, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and natural oils (like olive oil) are widely thought to be healthful, certainly better than processed and modified alternatives.

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Pass your vacation fitness test this summer

Posted on July 14, 2014 | Leave a comment

Going on vacation can be relaxing for you and your family. But depending on what you do, it can also involve lots of activity. Hiking, watersports, even a long day at a theme park can be a good test of your fitness.  My Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week is about how an upcoming vacation is a good reason to get in shape.

Vacations are a great chance to get away, relax, and recuperate. They also present an opportunity to be active through hiking, cycling and many other pursuits. But even sightseeing and visiting theme parks can require far more activity than many people are accustomed to. In fact, many vacation activities are a good test of your fitness.

Unfortunately, many people find out the hard way—sore feet and achy legs, for example—that they weren’t prepared for this level of activity. The good news is that regular exercise can prepare you for your next vacation so you can focus on having fun, not your tired body.

There is good reason to choose an active vacation. Spending time outdoors can reduce stress and walking on the beach or snorkeling in the ocean seems like fun, not exercise. The end result is that being active on your vacation adds to the restorative effect of taking time away from your usual routine.

In one study people who had a physically active vacation reported that they felt mentally and physically fitter, felt more balanced and relaxed, could concentrate better during work, were in a better mood, and felt more recuperated than those who took it easy.

Even if you don’t choose a vacation to participate in a specific exercise you will likely spend time being active. Most vacation destinations are selected in part because there are interesting sights to see or are easy to get around without a car. This means you will be on your feet a lot more than usual.

Think about a family trip to Disney World. It is not uncommon for people to be on their feet for 12 hours and walk 10–15 miles in a single day. Most people don’t do that much walking in a typical week! This can lead to blisters, muscle soreness, and fatigue, limiting what you can do and, at the very least, making your time less enjoyable.

Since regular exercise promotes endurance and strength, being fit can make it easier to get through long days on vacation. If you spend much of your time sitting at work and home, visiting a museum or standing in long lines at a theme park can be daunting.

But if you spend more of your day up and moving you will have an easier time in these situations. A whole day walking around sightseeing can be exhausting, but less so if you are accustomed to taking long walks. That isn’t to say that you should walk for 10 hours each day, but regularly walking or do other activity for over an hour will help.

Here are some tips to help you prepare for your next active vacation. You should limit sitting and spend more time standing and moving around at work and at home. This will help you get ready for long days on your feet.

Dedicating 30 minutes each day to being active will build endurance, and you can get bigger benefits from doing more. If your vacation will include vigorous exercise, building strength through resistance training and flexibility through stretching or yoga can help you avoid injury.

Your goal should be enjoy your vacation and the extra activity it will likely include. In addition to the numerous other health benefits, improving your fitness through regular physical activity will help you appreciate your vacation time more with less stress, meaning you can return home relaxed and ready to take on your usual routine.

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Keep your cool this summer.

Posted on June 10, 2014 | Leave a comment

It’s that time of year again… time for my annual Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard about being active safely in the summer heat.

No doubt about it, summer is here. The kids are out of school, sports camps are underway, the playground is calling, and the lawn needs to be mowed. And it’s hot! But the high temperature and humidity doesn’t have to keep you from taking part in your favorite outdoor activities. By taking a few precautions, outdoor activities in the summer heat can be safe and enjoyable for your entire family.

1. Drink plenty of fluids

When it’s hot you have to sweat to lose heat and maintain your body temperature. High humidity makes sweating less effective, so you sweat even more. Losing lots of water through sweating can lead to dehydration. At the very least, you probably will feel fatigued but in more severe cases dizziness, low blood pressure, and fainting can occur.

For this reason it is important to drink plenty of fluids before, during and after your outdoor activity. As a general rule, a cup (8 oz.) of water every 15 minutes is sufficient for most people. Thirst is a good indicator of fluid needs, but you should take frequent breaks to rehydrate.

Make sure to remind kids to take breaks since they can get so busy playing that they forget. Water, juice, sports drinks, and other soft drinks are equally effective, so pick something you and your kids will drink.

2. Take breaks

The longer you are active the hotter you will get and you may feel more fatigued because of the heat. Taking frequent breaks will give you a chance to rest, cool down, and get something to drink.

3. Seek out shade

Being in the sun means that you will feel even hotter because you gain heat from the sun’s rays. Spending as much time as you can in the shade will help you stay cool. While this isn’t always practical for all activities, look for shady spots to take breaks.

Keep in mind that shady areas at will change throughout the day, so plan your trip to the park accordingly. Also be aware that direct sunlight can make outdoor surfaces like playground equipment very hot. This is another reason to find shady areas to play.

4. Pick cool clothes

Lighter colored clothing will reduce heat gain from the sun. Synthetic fabrics that wick sweat from the skin can help keep you feel cooler, too. And having more skin exposed will allow you to lose more heat.

5. Wear sunscreen

Sun exposure is the leading cause of skin cancer. Always use a broad-spectrum (both UVA and UVB rays) sunscreen and apply—and reapply—it according to the instructions. You should also protect your eyes by wearing a hat or sunglasses.

6. Avoid the hottest times of the day

Try to plan your outdoor activity in the morning or evening to avoid the hottest times of the day. Keep in mind that the highest temperatures often occur in the late afternoon or early evening, so right after work may not be the best time for outdoor activities. Early in the morning is probably the best time since it tends to be cooler and less humid.

You may not be able to plan your activities in the shade or when it is cooler. This is especially true for people who work outdoors. In these cases, drinking plenty of fluids and taking frequent breaks is particularly important.

These tips should help you and your family safely enjoy spending time outdoors this summer. And never underestimate the cooling power of a popsicle on a hot summer day!

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The physical activity report card is in. We pretty much failed.

Posted on May 14, 2014 | Leave a comment

The spring semester just ended at the university where I teach. Which means my colleagues and I have been busy evaluating our student’s progress and submitting grades.

About this time, another report card came in from the National Physical Activity Plan evaluating physical activity in U.S. children. The results aren’t good. In fact, we pretty much failed! This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.

 

It’s probably no surprise that the majority of Americans are not active enough. Only about half of adults meet even the minimum recommendation for physical activity of 30 minutes per day, five days per week. Compounding this problem is the fact that many people spend much of their time at work and home being sedentary—some spend over 12 hours per day sitting!

Low levels of physical activity is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, some cancers, and, of course, obesity in adults. Becoming more active is probably the most important change a sedentary person can make to improve their health. The impact is similar to a smoker who quits.

What may be surprising is that this is a problem for children, too. Less than half of children ages 6–11 are active for 60 minutes per day. Among teenagers, it is less than 10%! The health effects of too little activity in kids is similar to that of adults.

The combination of inactivity and obesity can lead to “adult” diseases such as type 2 diabetes in young people. For this reason, some experts predict that this generation of children may be the first ever to die at a younger age than their parents.

Current recommendations call for children under the age of 18 to attain at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity at least five days per week. In younger kids this can be achieved through active play. In teens it is more likely to include organized sports and games.

The National Physical Activity Plan is a set of recommendations, programs, and initiatives designed to promote an active lifestyle at work, school, and home for all Americans. It was established by an alliance of health professionals and researchers.

This group recently released a report card on physical activity for children and youth that graded the success of efforts to promote activity in several areas. The results show that we are failing to meet even minimum goals and recommendations. Here is a summary of that report card:

Overall physical activity: D-. Only 42% of 6–11 year old children and just 8% of kids ages 12–15 meet the 60 minutes per day activity goal.

Sedentary behaviors: D. About half of all children spend more than the recommended upper limit of two hours of screen time, which includes TV, computer, and video games, per day.

Active transportation: F. Just over 10% of children walk or bike to school regularly.

Physical education in school: C-. Only about half of children attend at least one PE class per week.

Based on these grades, American children are not getting enough physical activity. But it isn’t fair to say that our children are earning these grades—it’s the adults who are failing! Most children are at the mercy of parents, teachers, and other adults who decide how they will spend their time at school and at home.

The report card shows that we are either not allowing our kids to be active enough or limiting opportunities for them to move and play. This isn’t necessarily a conscious effort, but is likely a consequence of the physical activity habits of adults that our children adopt.

Given the importance of regular activity for growth, development, health, and even academic success, getting our kids to be more active should be among our highest priorities. This requires both individual action and organized community efforts to make physical activity and exercise a part of every child’s day.

And while we are at it, we (the adults) should make this same effort. Perhaps the failing grades on the recent report card will motivate us.

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Stealthy Healthy Eating

Posted on May 6, 2014 | Leave a comment

My Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week is about the many processed foods that include added nutrients, primarily vitamins, minerals, and fiber, to make them healthier. While this seems like a good thing—helping people get enough essential nutrients, even if they eat a poor diet—there are drawbacks to using these foods instead of eating actual food that contains these nutrients.

What if there was a way to get the benefits of eating vegetables without having to eat any vegetables? This may be a dream for millions of American children and adults who don’t eat enough vegetables.

Thanks to creative food processing, the healthy components of vegetables can be added to many foods, including soda, candy bars, and other sweets. Books and websites contain recipes for adding pureed vegetables to brownies and other baked goods. There is even a new line of prepackaged pureed vegetables to use!

The recommended intake of vegetables ranges from one cup per day for young children to 3 cups for adults. A simpler guideline is to fill half of your plate with fruits and vegetables at each meal. The goal should be to eat a variety of vegetables throughout the week.

There are plenty of good reasons for people to eat vegetables. Most vegetables are a low-calorie source of essential vitamins and minerals. The dietary fiber found in vegetables (and fruits and whole grains) plays a role in maintaining a healthy body weight, lowering cholesterol, and reducing the risk of some cancers.

Fiber is increasingly added to processed foods including granola bars and energy bars. It is possible to get up to half of your daily recommended intake of fiber by eating a single Fiber One bar. That is the equivalent of a cup or more of most vegetables! Considering that many of these snacks are essentially candy bars, they are a tasty way to get fiber.

Vitamins and minerals have long been available as supplements and added to certain foods, including products made from grains like pasta and bread. But now you can get vitamins in many soft drinks, many of which have as much sugar as soda. And calcium is added to a variety of foods from breakfast cereals to snacks.

There are, of course, some benefits of doing this. People who don’t eat a healthy diet can get enough essential nutrients through these products. Some of these foods are low in calories so they can help people who are trying to lose weight.

While these “hidden” nutrients may seem like a good solution for people who don’t eat enough vegetables, this form of stealthy healthy eating may have some negative consequences.

These processed foods may be high in sugar, fat, and calories which could contribute to weight gain. The fact that these foods are designed to taste good—many include chocolate—may lead people to overeat. Aside from excess calories, eating far too much fiber could cause GI discomfort or other health problems.

More concerning, though, is the fact that these foods set an expectation that healthy foods should be sweet. This is particularly problematic in children, who may avoid eating vegetables (and other healthy foods) in favor of sweet drinks and snacks that contain the same nutrients.

Additionally, getting vitamins, minerals, and fiber through processed foods keeps people from learning how to make healthy choices and prepare real food. This has consequences for developing healthy eating habits in both children and adults.

Focusing on getting individual nutrients over eating a variety of healthy foods is thought to be an important cause of the current obesity epidemic. Relying on processed foods with added vitamins, minerals, and fiber may be doing more harm than good to your health.

The bottom line is that you should get your nutrients from real food and balance what you eat with daily physical activity. Remember, good health comes from making smart choices, not from a bottle or a box!

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