Obesity: a Normal Response to an Abnormal Environment

Scientists in the field of obesity research coined the above phrase which succinctly describes one of our biggest (pardon the pun) health issues.  And the below article lends weight (sorry) to the notion that our environment plays an enormous (oops I did it again) role in the development and maintenance of obesity.  

It seems we eat the equivalent of a whole soccer team each year and we should refrain from munching on at least a few defenders, midfielders or attackers.  Although we might want to do something else with this one (curb those smutty thoughts, dear reader).

  

Fatty spreads contribute to UK’s obesity epidemic

‘Mindless eating’ leads to 43% over consumption

By Mike Stones, 26-Mar-2013

Fatty spreads are the biggest offender in an epidemic of “mindless eating” that leads Britons to

consume 43% more food each year than they should, warns new research commissioned by Weight Watchers.  The study revealed that the average Briton ate 1,270kg of food a year – the equivalent weight of a whole football team  – representing 384kg more food than the body needed. Over consumption was driven by a process of "mindless eating" where people made 220 food and drink decisions every day, yet were conscious of only about 15.

‘Epidemic of over-eating’

Zoe Hellman, head of public health, Weight Watchers, said: “The current epidemic of over-eating is hugely influenced by today’s overloaded food environment. With the increased popularity of coffee shop culture and eating on the go it seems that, everywhere you turn, there is yet another place where you can buy food, cooked and ready to eat.”

The biggest contributor to over-eating was fatty spreads, claimed the organisation. Each week the average Briton consumes seven times more than the recommended amount of butter and margarine-type spreads.

Weight Watchers said most people ate nearly four times the recommended amount of meat each week and more than twice as much bread and three times as many biscuits and cakes. But we eat 69% less fruit and 75% less vegetables than medical guidelines recommended.

‘Toxic environment’

The organisation said it aimed to arm consumers with “the tools and tactics” needed to navigate through a “toxic environment”, to make better food choices for permanent weight loss. Britain’s obesity epidemic places a direct cost burden on the National Health Service of £5.1bn each year, according to the Department of Health. Obesity can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, some cancers, and heart and liver disease. The food and drink industry is working with government to improve the national diet via the Public Health Responsibility Deal (PHRD). Earlier this month, more food manufacturers and food service outlets were urged to sign up to the government's PHRD Food Network in order to halt the rising tide of UK obesity. Its chair, Dr Susan Jebb, said: “Every single food company has something to contribute to calorie reduction ...”

‘Mindless eating’ – in numbers

1,270 – Kg of food consumed each year by the average Britain

384 – Kg beyond which the body needs for nutrition

220 – Number of daily food and drink decisions

15 – Number of conscious daily food and drink decisions

69% – Percentage deficit of fruit compared with medical guidelines

75% - Percentage deficit of vegetables compared with medical guidelines.

Source: Weight Watchers

www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/content/view/print/7563612/2

© William Reed Business Media Ltd 2013. All rights reserved.

Eat THINK and be Merry - e-course

For those of you waiting with bated breath,  here is an announcement.

The publishing of the new Eat THINK and be Merry e-course has been unavoidably delayed (due to me taking a tumble down my stairs - ouch!). The weeks I spent recovering have moved the deadline back to 31st April. 

I'll keep you posted on progress, and where you can find this "incredibly useful course" (my HUMBLE opinion) when it is finished. Stay tuned....


But here's a teaser.  Eat THINK and Be Merry - e-course.

Week 1 - Are you ready?

Week 2 - Emotional Eating - 

Week 3 - Emotional Eating - Part Deux

Week 4 - Are You Really Hungry

Week 5 - Eating Mindfully - Pay Attention:  It Tastes Better!

Week 6 - Where Has My Self-Esteem Gone, and When Will it be Coming Back?

Healthy Eating is Expensive - NOT!

There has long been an argument that eating fresh produce is more expensive than processed/junk foods - which seems to be perpetuated by the media, but is probably also food industry propaganda.  I believe it is misinformation and perhaps good old "all or nothing thinking" that keeps people buying food from the centre aisles of the supermarket rather than the fringes (where the fresh stuff is).

The attitude that "well, if it isn't organic, biodynamic, free-range, locally grown by smiley Buddhists I may as well just eat packet mac and cheese" is way too all or nothing.  Things are neither healthy nor unhealthy, full stop.  They vary on a wide scale of less healthy to more healthy.  And if you improve the quality/freshness of what you eat by 20%, for example, you will make improvements in your well-being to that extent, too.  Probably without adding any cost to your budget.

I'm not advocating for the recent Government minister's directive that insisted someone could live on $2 a day (or whatever that fuss was all about).  But this article below from www.savingsguide.com.au gives clear directives for alternatives that up the healthiness of what you eat without upping the cost.  And be savvy, too.  For example, a bunch of fresh coriander at the supermarket - $3.  At an asian grocer (Box Hill market for those of you who are Melburnians) - two for $1.  Supermarket - SIX times more expensive.  Have I beaten this point to death enough?  I shall stop now and let someone else hammer it for me!

“It’s cheaper to eat unhealthy” – aghh bullsh*t?

04 Mar 13 / Posted by: Sarah Sharp

Popular opinion would have you believe that it costs less to eat unhealthy, fast, processed foods than it does to eat healthily. This is a common misconception perpetuated by fast food giants and lazy people looking for an excuse not to put the effort into their health.

In actual fact, eating healthily can be significantly cheaper than eating rubbish. A good lifestyle is not just about having a great checking account – remember that you won’t be able to enjoy your hard earned savings if you’re run down and unhealthy.

Here are a few tips on how to maximise the health benefits and minimise the cost of what you eat.

Make small changes to your diet and wallet

Minor changes can be made to what you feed yourself and your family with no effect on the price you pay:

·                  Swap white rice for brown rice and white bread for multigrain.

·                  Ditch soft drinks and fruit juice altogether, they are overpriced and incredibly bad for your health. Water is free (kind of), so drink up!

·                  Swap from full cream milk to light milk– light milk has the most foliate and is best for you.

·                  Swap butter for margarine or an olive oil spread.

Even though meat is expensive, that’s no excuse to buy horribly processed muck instead of real, fresh meat. I suggest a quick Google search as to what goes into processed meat products – this will put you off for good.

Instead of sacrificing quality, sacrifice quantity and buy less of a high quality meat product. Make up for the shortfall in calories with veggies and carbs. You should be eating three serves of red meat a week, but note that a serve is only a little more than a palm sized piece. And no, a Coles sausage does not count as a serve of red meat.

You should also be eating two serves of oily fish a week even though it’s frustrating that dieticians harp on about the benefits of oily fish when two salmon steaks can cost more than $20. The fix? Get your oily fish from a tin. Canned salmon or sardines have the same nutritional value as fresh fish and go great in salads, omelettes or bakes.

Be clever with your grocery shopping

Try to be wise about what you buy. Buy fruit and veggies that are in season so you get a lower price and keep a stock of inexpensive staples like bread, rice and canned goods. Buying in bulk is another way to save, especially with products that freeze easily like bread and meat.

When you’re cooking, buy basic supermarket brands, like Home Brand, where you can. Items like pepper, flour, milk, honey, dried fruit and brown rice are all essentially the same whether you buy the cheapest or the most expensive. Beware of some supermarket brand products however as they can be highly processed.

Cooking in bulk and freezing leftovers is another great idea since you minimise waste and thus save money – just make sure what you’re cooking is nutritious in the first place.

Final tips to eat and save healthily

Get educated! The greater your understanding of nutrition, the better choices you can make.

Follow the general rule that you should buy the best quality, freshest and most organic food that your budget allows.

Lastly remember that children have different dietary requirements to adults and you should consider this when deciding what to feed them.

Successful Healthy Eating - a good definition

I know - this blog is either feast or famine (pardon the pun).  No posts for weeks and two posts today.  But this was sent to me by a client (shout out to N who is recovering from surgery - get well soon).  She received the words of wisdom from Sally Symonds, who works as a health mentor.

"Successful healthy eating

Successful healthy eating is about being able to eat well most of the time with very little effort. It’s about being able to choose foods that fill you up and that are good for you.

 It’s about empowering yourself with the knowledge to make healthy choices. It’s about having a range of options – foods for when you’re in a hurry, foods to satisfy your hankering for sweet and crunchy or salty and sloppy. It means you can use healthy frozen meals when you need to, order healthy fast foods when you have to, and not be bored by what you eat

Successful healthy eating is about being able to eat rubbish sometimes and not feel guilty about it. It means that when you eat a chocolate biscuit it just means you've eaten a chocolate biscuit – there’s no emotional baggage. It means that sometimes you snack on things just because they’re there and not because you’re really hungry. It’s about occasionally over-stuffing yourself, and knowing when you’re full – but not too full.

Successful healthy eating means having your brain connected to your stomach so that you can distinguish between feeling hungry and feeling bored, depressed or tired. It means enjoying what you eat and not letting your relationship with food detract from your enjoyment of life, be it physically, socially or emotionally. It means accepting that food is not the enemy.

Successful healthy eating lets you to cross “lose weight” off your to do list. It means you can have a new New Year’s resolution. It means you no longer need to spend the time and energy obsessing over what you eat and how much you weigh. It frees you to redirect your efforts into much more fulfilling and rewarding endeavours … like living your life to the fullest.

I’m sorry if you’re disappointed. I’m sorry if you were expecting something more complicated. That’s it. The “keep it simple, stupid” approach works because we can all be a bit stupid now and then – the 825 million Australian dollars spent on weight loss programs and products in 2012 are testament to that!"

SO THROW OUT THAT ALL OR NOTHING MENTALITY AND EMBRACE SUCCESS!

YOU DESERVE IT!

Emotional Eating - Try Self-Soothing

Happy Monday, campers!  Have you ever heard the funniest joke in the world?  They say that if you hear it, you'll die laughing.  So if you're reading this, then perhaps you haven't actually heard it. Boom Boom!

Well, this piece of music is rated as the most relaxing music in the world (and is guaranteed to be non-fatal.)

The British Academy of Sound Therapy made a study and this piece came out on top.  I've listened to it and became almost catatonic as a result.  

But seriously,  when we get tense or anxious or have an emotion that we insist we don't want to feel, we tend to go straight to the Tim Tams (those poor, much-maligned biscuits).  The ideal alternative is to be able to self-soothe i.e. calm oneself from inside or sit with the emotion without external means - whether that be food, alcohol, drugs or retail therapy.

Tell me what you think of Weightless by Marconi Union.  The link also lists the other nine members of the top ten - I don't see Metallica on there (can't imagine why).

So listen and relaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax.

http://soundcloud.com/justmusiclabel/marconi-union-weightless 

and the article...

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/listen-to-the-most-relaxing-song-ever-170097

Diets Don't Work - Part Trois

More of the same...  I am on my soapbox again about dieting, and the evidence just keeps stacking up against it.  This article from today's The Age online adds more scientific weight to the argument that making small changes long term is far more effective than going on a diet.  We all think that if we go on a diet and lose lots of weight we'll be highly motivated to keep it off.  But that's not the case.  We still have the same issues we had before, for which we use food as a coping strategy.  Changes in both thinking and behaviour are required for permanent weight reduction.

Weight on their minds

Sue Williams
Published: March 11, 2013 - 8:27AM  High-protein, low-carb, no fat. Or how about as much as you can eat with the addition of some miracle product that inexplicably expels the excess from the system?

As most of us grow steadily larger, many weird and wonderful diets have become the ones we are told are the next sure thing - think the Atkins diet, the cabbage soup diet, the grapefruit diet and the South Beach diet. Yet weight gain, obesity and their related problems, such as diabetes and heart disease, continue to soar in the West.

Nutritionist Dr Rosemary Stanton says the only realistic way people will lose weight and keep it off is by eating good, healthy food and exercising. ''There are no miracles in weight loss,'' she says.

Stanton has been working with the federal government's National Health and Medical Research Council on the recent update of its dietary guidelines. The bad news is no surprise: there are no quick fixes.

''If people just cut down on junk food - we've found that junk food and drinks contribute more than 40 per cent to an average child's daily intake, and 36 per cent to that of an adult - there's a lot of wriggle room,'' she says.

So what of the more established diets, the ones most people wanting to lose weight might be tempted to try? Pulse has followed four people on four different popular diets. They were:

The CSIRO total wellbeing diet: This is a low-fat, higher-protein, nutritionally balanced structured eating plan, with recommended recipes and exercise.

The Weight Watchers regime: In this eating plan every food item is assigned points according to protein, carbs, fat and fibre, and dieters eat within a daily points allowance.

The Dukan diet: Conceived by French neurologist Dr Pierre Dukan, it has four phases, from the first seven days, when dieters eat only protein, to the final phase, in which only protein is eaten one day a week for life.

The 5:2 Diet: This is based on intermittent fasting. Dieters eat normally for five days a week, then consume 500 calories or less for the other two non-consecutive days.

Experts have mixed views about the ability of these diets to strip weight off in a healthy, sustainable way.

Stanton says that while the CSIRO diet has been studied by scientists, she is concerned about the amount of red and processed meat it recommends. It's the same with the Dukan diet, which is also ''ridiculously low in carbs. That's not really a diet you should follow for any length of time,'' Stanton says.

The 5:2 diet has one advantage in that it might remind people what it's like to go hungry, but, generally, it's no good if its followers simply gorge on bad food the rest of the time.

As for Weight Watchers: ''That's fairly well balanced, but its greatest asset is that it gives people support, which is much cheaper than paying a dietitian.''

The Heart Foundation doesn't endorse any particular diet because individuals are all so different, nutrition manager Barbara Eden says. ''But we are concerned about particular diets as they leave out essential food groups, so people miss out on some macro- and micronutrients and won't have enough things like iron and calcium and dietary fibre,'' she says.

For those reasons, the Dukan Diet and the 5:2 Diet are the ones Eden favours the least. She says people should try to aim to eat from the five food groups every day.

While Weight Watchers diet plans tend to be well balanced and include physical activity, and the CSIRO has a lot of scientific backing for its diet, Eden still has concerns.

''So many people go on diets and then immediately put the weight back on - or more - when they come off them,'' she says. ''There's no substitute for changing eating patterns slowly over time to make a permanent, sustainable difference.''

Diets Don't Work - Part Deux

Sorry for my recent absence from these blog pages.  As you may have read, I took a tumble downstairs some weeks ago and I have taken ages to recover.  Believe me it wasn't a delicate roll down the stairs like stunt women do.  Anyway, all bruises have gone but I have a shoulder problem which persists.  This has given me a really good excuse to avoid the gym - silver lining.

But I wanted to start communicating again and this is Part Deux about dieting.  Part Trois is on its way.

Simple message - DIETS DON'T WORK.  Not much more to say.  They are ineffective because they are stringent and short term. Permanent lifestyle change is much more effective and less onerous.  Think about what you could achieve by moving your eating 10% up the healthy scale.  Doesn't sound anywhere near as bad as the lemon detox or cabbage soup diet, now does it?  See article below.  

Why obese people don't lose much weight when they diet

Published: February 6, 2013 - 9:57AM

Scientists have pinpointed exactly why obese people don't lose much weight when they diet.
Researchers at Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research have found that a chemical known as the Neuropeptide (NPY), which stimulates appetite, plays a major role in controlling whether the body burns or conserves energy.
The study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, shows that when the body takes in less energy or is on a diet, high levels of NPY signal to the body that it's in starvation mode, and the body subsequently starts storing as much energy as possible.
"Evolution provided us with these mechanisms to help us survive famine," co-author Professor Herbert Herzog told AAP.
"But now we're eating more than we should because food is always available, so in many cases additional energy is stored as fat," he said.
"When you try to lose the extra weight, NPY will trigger and it defeats the purpose of quickly lowering your calorie intake."
Professor Herzog said with obesity being a major epidemic in the community, researchers have found it challenging to find ways of tricking the body into losing weight because of NPY.
"Now that we have identified the exact brain circuitry, drugs can be developed to target and control these types of neurons," he said.
Professor Herzog said it was important to note that the study showed that fad diets simply did not work.
"Weight loss needs to be done over a long period of time and that's what people underestimate," he said.
AAP

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/life/why-obese-people-dont-lose-much-weight-when-they-diet-20130206-2dxd6.html