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At the Last Supper, No Supersizing
Tweet Share on Facebook March 23, 2010 Comment (3)What would Jesus eat? Probably a lot less than we do now, according to an examination of how portion sizes have changed over time. Two brothers with divergent interests—Brian Wansink, a marketing professor and director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University's department of applied economics and management, and Craig Wansink, professor and chair of the department of religious studies at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk—collaborated to examine artistic depictions of the Last Supper over the years to see how portion sizes have changed.
Not surprisingly, they found that relative sizes of the entree, bread, and plates have increased during the past 1,000 years. In order to control for the dimensions of different works of art, the Wansinks indexed average size of food items to the average size of the heads of human subjects. (Head size hasn't changed over that time, while average height and weight have.) They found that the relative size of the main course increased by 69.2 percent, the relative size of the bread by 23.1 percent, and the plate by 65.6 percent.
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Calorie Counts on Restaurant Menus as Part of Health Reform
Tweet Share on Facebook March 22, 2010 Comment (6)Coming to chain restaurants nationwide, courtesy of Congress (or at least 219 House Democrats): calorie counts on menus and menu boards. Health reform legislation passed yesterday includes provisions to require restaurants with more than 20 outlets to post calorie information for all of their regular menu items.
[Here are 10 healthful snacks that won't break the calorie bank.]
Whether the move, which some cities have already instituted, will actually work to change purchases or reduce waistlines is still a matter of debate. A working paper released in January by the Stanford Graduate School of Business looked at Starbucks. It found that the calorie posting mandated in New York City was linked with a 6 percent reduction in calories per transaction—though beverage purchases weren't affected. A study conducted by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene also found an impact; it said that people who saw the posted calories and used the information in their purchasing decisions "consumed 152 fewer calories at hamburger chains and 73 fewer calories at sandwich shops compared with everyone else," wrote USA Today. (It's worth noting that it was the city government that mandated the calorie postings in New York.)
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‘Guiding Stars’ Food Label Program Seems to Boost Healthful Food Sales
Tweet Share on Facebook February 26, 2010 Comment (2)In the last couple of years, supermarkets and manufacturers have launched a number of programs aimed at helping shoppers make more healthful decisions when purchasing food. The Food and Drug Administration has even gotten involved, vowing to come up with a single set of nutritional criteria for food makers' front-of-the-pack labels. The open question about all of these efforts is whether they'll actually work, both to increase purchases of more nutritious foods and, ultimately, to bring down rates of obesity and related diseases.
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‘Stuffed’ Suggests How the Food Industry Can Battle Obesity
Tweet Share on Facebook February 19, 2010 Comment (11)In more than 30 years of working in the food industry, Hank Cardello didn't think much about the health consequences of the products he promoted, whether Betty Crocker cake mixes, a proposed new malt liquor, or Diet Coke. He thinks about them plenty now, though. After a cancer scare in 1995, Cardello switched gears and started to look more critically at how his industry might help combat obesity. He's now CEO of 27 Degrees North, a consulting firm that helps companies marry profit and social responsibility. In Stuffed: An Insider's Look at Who's (Really) Making America Fat (Ecco), just released in paperback, Cardello lays out his views on why consumers are not entirely to blame for their own girth, why well-meaning government regulations often fail, and how the food industry might put its marketing oomph behind better alternatives to some of the high-calorie packaged foods that Americans snarf down. Here are edited excerpts from our conversation:
You say the obesity problem is not simply a matter of personal responsibility and that the food industry bears some blame because "too much high-calorie food [is] marketed too effectively to too many who can't resist."
The food industry's historical posture was always this: We provide healthy options, and you're big boys and girls, so be responsible and choose them. Then there's CSPI [the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group], which has never run a company and seemed to have the message that the industry should just take its cough medicine and behave. They really speak different languages. It's like right vs. left. When the "left" says the food industry should change because it's the right thing to do, it isn't getting inside the industry's head. My philosophy is: Let's turn the industry's marketing prowess to the good. We can show them how to make more money and to do the right thing at the same time. -
Former Olympic Skater Michelle Kwan Talks About Fitness (and Health)
Tweet Share on Facebook February 17, 2010 CommentWhat works for you in terms of diet and exercise at one point in your life isn't necessarily going to be your routine forever. An extreme example of this: Michelle Kwan, the former Olympian and figure skating champion whose life is very different than it was when she was actively competing. Now she's studying international relations in graduate school, is a public diplomacy ambassador for the United States, and has partnered with General Electric to promote its new Healthymagination initiative, which focuses on preventive medicine and healthy habits. (As part of that effort, GE, the Cleveland Clinic, and Ochsner Health System commissioned a survey about health and doctor-patient relationships. Among the findings: Americans rate their own health highly, but say other people's health is "going in the wrong direction.")
I chatted with Kwan for a few minutes after the press event announcing the survey results. Some diet and fitness tips gleaned from her experience transitioning to a new kind of life:
*Portions need to be matched to activity level. "I'm a big eater," Kwan says. (Her parents owned a Chinese restaurant.) Working out for six hours a day, as she did when she competed, meant she could eat as many as 4,000 calories daily. No longer; in her grad school classes, she actually has to sit down for big parts of her day. Although she has a sweet tooth, she watches the quantity of her food and eats healthfully. She says that, like everyone else, she has tried various dietary trends (including Atkins) but has settled on something close to the Zone Diet, which recommends a 40-30-30 percent balance of carbs, protein, and fat.
[Read Do Program Diets Work? Rarely. Here Are 7 Tips to Shed Pounds.]
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Kettlebells Really Do Help You Work Up a Good Sweat, Study Says
Tweet Share on Facebook February 12, 2010 CommentI have an exercise-loving friend who says all you really need to get fit is a couple of kettlebells, the things you may have seen in your gym that look like cannonballs with handles. He may be on to something. A small study published by the American Council on Exercise (scroll down for the link to a PDF) found a particular kettlebell workout burned as many calories per minute as running at a six-minute-mile pace. And, because you're lifting something heavy, you're getting both a strength and aerobic workout.
That doesn't mean that a beginner is going to immediately achieve the same kind of intensity. The 10 volunteers tested by researchers at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse were healthy 29-to-46-year-olds who were already experienced in kettlebell training. And the workout was tough: Following a warm-up, they did 15 seconds of one-armed snatches with their dominant hand, rested for 15 seconds, and did 15 seconds of one-armed snatches with their nondominant hand. A snatch involves lifting the kettlebell by the handle, swinging it back through your legs, then using that momentum and your own strength to swing it back and up above your head. (It's easier seen than described; search for "kettlebell snatch" on YouTube and you'll have plenty of examples.) They repeated that work/rest sequence for 20 minutes, then cooled down. Each used a 26.4-, 35.2-, or 44-pound kettlebell, depending on such factors as gender, body weight, and experience level.
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Lager or Ale? Consider the Silicon Content of Beer
Tweet Share on Facebook February 8, 2010 Comment (11)The evidence on alcohol and health is tricky to interpret. While heavy drinking does no one any favors, there may be benefits in moderate alcohol consumption for those who aren't at heightened risk of breast or colon cancer. Some research suggests, for example, that consuming up to two drinks a day for men, one for women, provides some cardiovascular protection. A study published in 2005 found that men and women who drank some but not a lot (one drink per day, three to seven days per week) were the leanest. And last year, research suggested that moderate alcohol consumption may also help boost bone mineral density, thus protecting against osteoporosis.
The caveat to all this is that there's no direct evidence that drinking causes the benefits that have been observed, just that people who drink moderately also seem to be in better health. But if you do wish to hoist a brew, a new study published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture may at least help you decide between a pale ale and a lager. Researchers at the University of California–Davis measured the presence of dietary silicon, the element in beer suspected to benefit bone health. (The estrogenic effect of alcohol consumed in moderation also very likely plays a role.)
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Forget the Chips and Dip; This Is One Weird Super Bowl Diet
Tweet Share on Facebook February 5, 2010 Comment (1)A one-size-fits-all approach to diet isn't likely to work since we all have our individual quirks, both biological and behavioral, that make us thrive on one eating pattern rather than another. Dwight Freeney, a defensive end for the Indianapolis Colts, is an extreme example of the quest to pinpoint the exact formula for his body. (His team will face the New Orleans Saints in the Super Bowl on Sunday.) As described by Sports Illustrated this week, his diet for the days prior to the playoff game against the New York Jets consisted of nothing besides beef and pinto beans.
How did he come up with such a bizarre-seeming plan? Through a protocol created by a licensed nutrition counselor, Sari Mellman, and implemented with the help of her son, Leon, a chiropractor who acts as Freeney's "food coach." Through the protocol, called Sari Mellman's Dietary Progression, Freeney's blood is regularly analyzed to see "what foods create an organ and tissue inflammation response," and the diet is tweaked accordingly, says Leon. There's more to it than just blood analysis—clients, who pay up to the $5,995 the website quotes for the most complete version of the program, get a binder full of educational and customized information—but if the details sound vague, that's because for nonclients, they are. The protocol is proprietary.
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Barefoot (or Barefoot-Like) Running May Guard Against Injury
Tweet Share on Facebook January 27, 2010 Comment (4)Those $150 supercushioned running shoes you just bought? They may be predisposing you to lower leg and foot injuries like plantar fasciitis, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzed the forces that occur when runners hit the ground heel-first (as is common when wearing modern, cushioned shoes), and mid- and fore-foot first (more common among barefoot runners). The heel-strikers came down harder. "Fore-foot- and mid-foot-strike gaits were probably more common when humans ran barefoot or in minimal shoes and may protect the feet and lower limbs from some of the impact-related injuries now experienced by a high percentage of runners," the authors wrote in a study published in Nature.
This study is but the latest voice in the heated debate over barefoot running. As I wrote last year, some manufacturers have rushed to capitalize on a grass-roots trend that's been around for years, offering stripped-down, barefoot-like shoes. (The new research was funded in part by one of those manufacturers, Vibram USA.) While there's a devoted cadre of truly or nearly barefoot runners, scientists told me when I wrote that story that even if less-cushioned shoes do turn out to be better for some people, someone used to running in the more familiar shoes shouldn't simply toss them in the trash and head out au naturel. If you want to try out some of the minimalist shoes or even no shoes at all, build up gradually and see if it works for you. It's also a good idea to start out on grass rather than a hard surface. Runner's World has a good article in the current issue that offers two different views of the subject.
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Omegas, Fiber, Gluten-Free, Probiotic: Some Health Claims Sell Big
Tweet Share on Facebook January 27, 2010 Comment (3)Despite the recession, spending on foods featuring health claims was up last year, according to data from Nielsen Wire. Many of these products are so-called functional foods, offering a specific health benefit beyond basic nutrition. That benefit can occur naturally—think of the antioxidants in fruit—or it can be added to otherwise nutritionally vacant foods by processing, as with VitaminWater.
[Read more about VitaminWater's health claims.]
But as I wrote last year, you should be cautious when faced with a label making a health or wellness claim. If a food isn't already healthful before extra nutrients are added, there's no reason to buy it. For example, an energy bar may claim to have a lot of fiber, but if it's otherwise a sugar and fat bomb, why bother? [Here's a guide to fiber sources—soluble, insoluble and beyond.] According to Nielsen, sales of foods making a fiber claim rose 13 percent last year.
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