Calorie Counts Coming to a Menu Near You
Can you stomach the truth about what you're eating? Chain restaurants and vending machines will both be required to display the number of calories in their food, according to draft guidelines released Tuesday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Though smaller businesses can opt in, restaurants with 20 or more locations and vendors with 20 or more machines will have to comply. The requirement became a national law as part of healthcare legislation signed in March. An official compliance deadline, however, has not yet been determined, Reuters reports. Among the guidelines: Calorie information must be posted in the same size type as either the menu item or price, depending on which is larger. Vending machines must include the calorie count in a "clear and conspicuous" manner, and the information must be accurate within 10 calories. Additional nutritional data, including saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrates, sugars, fiber, and total protein, must be available upon request.
Can Crash Diets Be a Good Way to Lose Weight?
You have a week to fit into that dress, and five pounds (O.K., 10) to drop. The plan? If you were a Hollywood star, you might eat nothing but baby food or grapefruit until then, or forgo meals in favor of liquids. If you were Kim Kardashian, you'd probably prefer a QuickTrim detox formula. Or if you were Michelle Obama, you would opt for a two-day vegetables-only "cleanse," as she calls the regimen in an interview in the September issue of Ladies' Home Journal.
"People could eat nothing but jelly beans and if they were eating just a small amount, they would lose weight," says Donald Hensrud, chairman of preventive medicine at the Mayo Clinic and medical editor-in-chief of The Mayo Clinic Diet, a guide to healthy weight loss. "You might be able to get away with it for a period of time, but the more restrictive [the diet] is—and the longer you follow it—the greater the risks."
Crash diets are a tempting way to lose weight fast, says Hensrud. But most experts agree that they're not worth the risk. Just one week of overly restrictive dieting can cause serious nutritional deficiencies, alter your metabolism, and undercut your emotional well-being. And most crash diets only set you up to regain the weight, since you haven't made any long-term lifestyle changes, U.S. News's Angela Haupt writes. [Read more: Can Crash Diets Be a Good Way to Lose Weight?]
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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Can Help With ADHD
Adults who struggle with being disorganized, late, and distracted as a result of having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy that teaches them how to solve problems, use calendars and lists effectively, and write down distractions instead of being distracted by them, according to new research in the Journal of the American Medical Association. But CBT not only helps the 4 percent of adults with ADHD; it also helps children who struggle with schoolwork and friendships because of the disorder.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a technique that teaches skills for handling life challenges or overcoming negative thoughts, writes U.S. News contributor Nancy Shute. CBT for children with ADHD is aimed largely at improving their behavior through praise and rewards that motivate them to calm down enough to cope with school or other challenges. Parents or teachers would be trained to reward a child with praise or small treats for paying attention and responding to requests, for example. That's different than CBT for adults, which teaches thinking and self-management skills. Although CBT doesn't cure ADHD, it does make it easier for children to get along in a world that's often intolerant of typical ADHD behavior, explains Richard Gallagher, an associate professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine. Gallagher is working on a randomized, controlled study that is trying to see if CBT can help children with thinking skills like managing time, keeping track of homework assignments, and planning ahead. [Read more: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Can Help With ADHD.]
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