Carrots, pumpkin, zucchini

Carrots, pumpkin, zucchini: carrots, pumpkin, zucchini is a source of vitamin A. Protective effect against cancer because they contain carotene is also known.

Spinach and other green leafy vegetables: vitamin A, vitamin C and calcium term partners. Especially those above 35 years old spinach and other green leafy vegetables to consume more important.

Garlic: Garlic is antibacterial and anti-virus, but also the effect of the immune system booster. Powerful source of selenium in the garlic for a healthy life should necessarily includes sulfur. The stomach and intestines that help to strengthen the garlic into a tooth at each meal necessarily consumed name.

Kiwi: Daily vitamin C you need to eat enough for this little kiwi. Because the kiwi, at least with more vitamin C than oranges bananas contain potassium up.

Green tea: do not add nutritional value of plant and accelerate your weight loss will be very helpful for us to review. Contains highly antioxidant, supports our heart health, digestion and blood sugar by helping the body temperature settings. Accelerates the metabolism, increase fat oxidation. In this way, helps us lose weight.

Cabbage: broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower is a good source of beta carotene, and shall protect the body against free radical damage. They also contain vitamin C and calcium. Cauliflower, the indole content, and other materials with antikansorejen effect bioflavonaid while research, in particular the regular consumption of cabbage, the risk of breast cancer in women who have put reduced significantly. Brussels sprouts are one hundred percent of daily vitamin C requirements are met.

Ginger: helps the body fight infections, toxins allows ejected. Known to be effective in the fight against cancer ginger, tea consumed as fresh as you can eat and can also add to.

Black radish: Antibiotic features include oils and is effective against infections. Appetizer, diuretic, liver and bile amplifiers also have to remove effects that can drink water or land turbun roots can consumed fresh in salads.

Grapes, kiwi, blueberry and orange: This fruit is one of vitamin C stores. He therefore must be consumed in large quantities. Especially the orange peel as much as possible while trying to peel the thin.

Avocado: egg-shaped fruit, cancer, heart and reduces the risk of diabetes. And contains healthy monounsaturated fat.

]]> http://healthlifes.org/nutrients-that-protect-from-diseases.html/feed 3 http://healthlifes.org/cornflakes-with-chocolate-milk.html http://healthlifes.org/cornflakes-with-chocolate-milk.html#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:10:45 +0000 admin http://healthlifes.org/?p=546 Continue reading →]]>

chocolate

What You Eat When Nobody’s Watching

Not long ago, I was reveling in a quiet evening at home. My husband was away on a business trip, and our infant daughter was snoozing in her crib. I had just settled down with a book when a small voice in my head pinged me: Pantry. Bottom shelf. I ignored it and continued to read, but the voice became more insistent, more wheedling: Go get it. You’re allll alone. Go. Now.

I obediently rose, made my way to the pantry’s bottom shelf, and found it: a box of pistachio-flavored instant pudding, stashed behind a bag of crushed flaxseed. In a trance, I began an all-too-familiar ritual: adding two cups of milk to the mix, which was the queasy green color of hospital walls and flecked with desiccated pistachios. Immediately, the goo thickened up, thanks to disodium phosphate and tetrasodium pyrophosphate. Then I slopped it into a large bowl, grabbed a spoon, and happily polished off three of the four servings.

I know. I know. I write for a magazine called Health, for goodness’ sake. And normally I’m a seven-helpings-of-fruit-and-veg, farmers’ market–attending, supplement-popping flexitarian locavore. But every once in a while, when I’m free of my husband’s horrified gaze, I’ve got to have that instant pudding. It’s sweet, it’s cold, and it reminds me of being a kid, when my favorite babysitter, Nancy, would whip me up a bowl after my folks went out to dinner.

I don’t know another soul who eats this flavor of pudding, but when it comes to quirky eats, I’m certainly not alone. When I started quizzing otherwise-mindful eaters on what they really ate when they were by themselves, the variety—and loopy inventiveness—was impressive.

Cornflakes with chocolate milk. Fried-bologna sandwiches on white bread slathered with mayonnaise. (This, from someone who goes to the gym seven days a week.) Vanilla ice cream topped with globs of microwaved creamy peanut butter. Canned crescent rolls lacquered with spray butter, cinnamon and sugar, and a pinch of nutmeg (“like a bad cinnamon roll,” says its proud creator).

cnn health

But the man whose research introduced the world to the 100-calorie snack pack — now a multimillion-dollar slice of the food market — begs to differ. To Cornell University food psychologist Brian Wansink, Ph.D., portion awareness is the key to making sure that more of the 200 food choices we make each day are closer to what our thinking brain — as opposed to our instinctive brain — would like.

The cards are stacked against most Americans. Our bodies think we’re still hunter-gatherers threatened by imminent famine at the end of every season — even as we drive the minivan to Costco. Our supermarkets offer tens of thousands of products, often sold in packages that could feed a small nomadic tribe.

Cookinglight.com: 10 healthy habits for 2010

“When it comes to portion control, you can count on your brain not being very interested and your body not being very well calibrated,” Wansink says. Result: We often overeat in 100-or 200-calorie increments, which over time adds up to a weight gain that seems like a mystery to the eater. And here’s the rub, according to Wansink: Most of us know what we’re supposed to eat, and how much of it. We just ignore what we know. We eat, he says, “mindlessly.”

“People think education and awareness are the answer to a better diet, but they’re not,” Wansink says. Consider even the simplest dietary “rules”: More than a fifth of Americans probably know we’re supposed to eat two to four servings of fruit each day, but only about 20 percent actually do it. We fail in part, Wansink says, because we’re bombarded by subtle and not-so-subtle cues that trigger instinctive as opposed to conscious eating behavior. Much as behavioral science is used to explain why Americans make illogical decisions about money, Wansink specializes in what could be called behavioral home economics. Since founding The Food and Brand lab in 1992, he has designed and conducted nearly 300 studies of the prominent role persuaders play in eating habits.

Why We Overeat

Two brain systems govern the decision to snack on an apple versus a big bag of cheese curls. The limbic system is subconscious, emotional, and more likely to bet on present opportunity than weigh future consequences; it does the evolutionary job of protecting us against the future unknown. The analytic system weighs courses of action more consciously. Most of us know there’s a good chance we’ll have enough to eat next month, but rational thought is frequently overruled by the limbic system’s “me, now” imperative. We are products of both systems, plus all sorts of cultural influences to boot.

CookingLight.com: Nutrition essentials: Eat smarter, live longer

Wansink specializes in simple yet dramatic experiments that show how unreliable our rational brains are against the instinctive urge to eat. Even dumb-sounding tricks can fool us into misreading our appetites, our satiation. In one experiment, Wansink compared the behavior of subjects spooning soup from regular bowls to those eating from bowls rigged with feeder tubes that kept the level of soup constant. Even though the bottomless-bowl subjects ate 73 percent more soup, they rated their feelings of fullness the same as those who’d consumed about 9 ounces from the ordinary bowls.

Now consider how available food is in our candy-store society. Pointedly, Wansink has shown that a person dips into a candy bowl 71 percent more often if candy is on a desk rather than in a desk drawer. Consider how distracted we often are when we eat: Subjects who ate while watching television consumed nearly 30 percent more food in a Wansink study. Consider, too, the sheer enthusiasm food sellers muster: Another Wansink study showed that subjects were 27 percent more likely to order “Triple-Chocolate Black Forest Volcano Cake,” compared to the same cake if it were called, simply, “chocolate cake.”

Cookinglight.com: Dietitian-approved: 12 healthy snacks

“Triple-Chocolate Black Forest Volcano Cake” is hardly a hidden persuader: It’s full-throttle hard sell. But what continually surprises Wansink is how often we’re influenced by both the hidden and the obvious triggers to eat, and how little we are inclined to admit the role they play in our choices. “Regardless of how much we are influenced by what the person next to us is doing, or the menu description of a restaurant entrée, we vehemently deny being influenced,” he says.

At Cornell, Wansink has shown a knack for the theatrical, perhaps dipping into his early experience as a comedian and his first academic post as a professor of marketing. “My research doesn’t involve randomized controlled trials,” he acknowledges. “It’s based on field experiments instead of epidemiological studies.” Beyond that, he knows how to design simple, graphic experiments that end up getting lots of press, even in magazines like Cooking Light.

In one, he gave students at a health and fitness camp the option of pouring any beverage of their choice into short, wide glasses or tall, thin ones. Here, he focused on the natural tendency to misjudge the effect of height proportionate to width: The campers who were given short glasses poured 74 percent more. Later he reproduced the study with bartenders, using booze — a sexier-sounding study that was published in a peer-reviewed science journal and gained considerable media attention. The finding remained the same: Pour your beverage into a tall, thin glass, and you’ll drink less.

Small Portions Ahead?

In the world of the instinctive brain battling the conscious brain, of too much food everywhere, and too many hidden cues and hard-sell tactics, what’s a person to do? Wansink advises a combination of tactics, a personal tool kit of strategies that keep hidden persuaders at bay.

Cookinglight.com: 10 healthy eating resolutions

First, think about where you put food in your home or office. “The easiest thing to do is to change your immediate environment so you can do the right thing without thinking about it,” he says. This doesn’t mean clearing your kitchen and home of all “temptations.” Rather, Wansink’s data suggests that the amount of certain foods you eat will vary if you vary their location. When you bake a pan of brownies, even a Cooking Light recipe, cut them into small pieces, and store out of view, on a higher shelf (don’t worry, you’ll remember they’re there). Put fresh fruit in view instead. “You’re much more likely to take and eat something off a fridge or cupboard shelf at eye level. Arrange storage at home so you see healthy stuff first,” Wansink says.

Another dead-simple idea: Buy and use smaller plates and bowls. “I’m amazed by how powerful this is,” he says. Other similar strategies are listed on the previous pages. Wansink, meanwhile, has bigger fish to fry. His Food and Brand Lab launched SmallPlateMovement.org to proselytize the argument that when it comes to plates, at least, size matters; and this year it convinced all 53 restaurants in Albert Lea, Minnesota, a town of about 20,000, to use 10-inch plates instead of the standard 12- to 14-inch plates.

CookingLight.com: 10 surprisingly healthy foods

“If it’s a buffet, people will take less and waste less,” he says. “If it’s a fixed-plate restaurant, it makes portions look more appealing. On a 10-inch plate, 6 ounces of salmon looks like the best deal in the world!”

Results of the Albert Lea experiment will be released in January 2010. Even if positive, it may be hard to take the argument to the national level in a country in which big portions are constantly equated with good value — consider the Thickburger. Still, this isn’t Wansink’s first time overcoming skepticism from the business community: He cooked up the now-ubiquitous 100-calorie pack.

Even plate-size preaching seems like small potatoes compared to Wansink’s other major ambition: making the next version of Dietary Guidelines for Americans more useful. As executive director of the USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion from 2007 to 2009, Wansink played a key role in selecting the committee currently developing the 2010 Guidelines, which form the basis of all government nutrition policy and are revised every five years. Wansink stacked the committee with members who share his wish to inform public policy with learnings from the kitchen-counter decisions of everyday eaters. He hopes this approach will give the 2010 Guidelines broader impact. (One can only hope, considering the head-scratching that greeted the design of the 2005 Food Guide Pyramid.)

CookingLight.com: Fitness friendly snacks

“I pushed to include people with one foot in behavior and one in science,” he says. “Everybody knows you’re supposed to eat an apple instead of a candy bar, but it’s not going to happen without help.”

It’s no different for the first lady.

When Michelle Obama mentioned her daughters’ weight once had gotten “off balance” in speeches about childhood obesity, she came under criticism from parenting bloggers and anti-eating-disorder activists. They said the first lady inadvertently brought attention to her two young daughters’ weight when they are at a sensitive age.

Obama’s mention of her girls in this context raised an issue many parents may confront. When parents become aware of a possible health problem related to their children’s weight, how can they address the problem without causing self-esteem issues for youngsters?

It’s better to address a weight problem with children directly rather than pretending it doesn’t exist, said Dr. Tom Robinson, the director of the Center for Healthy Weight at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

“In our experience, obese children know that they are heavy. They may compare themselves with their peers or kids they see in the media and, not infrequently, they may have been teased about their weight,” he said.

Parents should have an open dialogue with their children and assure them they are loved regardless of weight, he said.

Obama on Tuesday is unveiling more details of a nationwide campaign tackling childhood obesity. Although her discussion of her daughters sparked controversy, observers say Obama had good intentions by personalizing a glaring public health problem.

“Probably what she was doing was making people realize she’s saying this as a mother, that she has faced this issue,” said Marilyn Tanner-Blasiar, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. “She was bringing it home, but it was perceived the wrong way. It’s a delicate issue, and being honest about it is important, but you have to be careful, because kids listen.

“They become on high alert when the topic is about them even though they act like they are not listening. They will overhear. If it’s going to be hurtful to them or harm them, you don’t want to go there,” said Tanner-Blasiar, who works with children.

Obama talked about how at one point, the family’s pediatrician “warned that he was concerned that something was getting off balance” with her children’s body mass index, in a January 28 speech in Alexandria, Virginia.

She said the family addressed the issue with small changes: Daughters Malia and Sasha drank water instead of sugary drinks, low-fat milk instead of whole milk and reduced their TV time.

Blogger Jeanne Sager questioned the effect Obama’s comments might have on the girls. Sager wrote on a Strollerderby blog: “Their mother is trying for the greater good, but she’s taken an extremely touchy subject out into the open.

“They are being raised in front of everybody. There are some things that should be kept private,” said Sager, who battled bulimia as a teenager.

Dr. Ovidio Bermudez, the medical director of the Eating Disorders Program at Laureate Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, said weight matters are usually a sensitive subject and should be discussed within the family.

“Imagine if a child is losing their hair,” he said. “That’s something that would be addressed in a private fashion with a lot of sensitivity for their emotions and their implications. It’s the same thing addressing weight. You have to be really careful that you don’t take something so tightly close to emotion [and put it] into the public eye. These things need to be dealt [with] as private matters.”

Nutritionists and pediatricians offered tips on ways to address children’s diet and fitness issues:

Focus on health, not weight
Compliment your children on lifestyle behaviors like “Great snack choice” or “You really run fast” rather than on the loss of a pound or two, said Tanner-Blasiar, a registered dietitian.

Be a partner in health, not the police officer
It doesn’t work if a parent hovers and monitors what the child eats and his or her activities. Parents can improve the whole family’s health by not buying junk food, sugary drinks, avoiding fast foods and planning weekend activities for the entire family. Not being the police does not mean children get a free-for-all. Parents need to set firm limits, Robinson said.

Treat children equally
Even if one of your kids has issues related to obesity and another doesn’t, make sure one isn’t getting a cookie and the other is getting a stalk of broccoli. The disparity in treatment breeds resentment and negativity, experts said.

Create an open environment to discuss issues
Sudden fluctuations in weight may have nothing to do with food. The child could have emotional issues that trigger eating disorders, said Lynn Grefe, chief executive officer at the National Eating Disorders Association.

Move
Don’t just talk about eating right and exercising. Lead by example by making lifestyle changes as a family. Turn off TVs and computers. Look for ways to spend fun, active time together.

Here are things to avoid:

Don’t play the blame game
Avoid yelling, bribing, threatening or punishing children about weight, food or physical activity. These issues can turn into parent-child battlegrounds that breed shame and anger. The worse children feel about their weight, the more likely they are to overeat or develop an eating disorder.

Don’t label your children
Some parents give labels to their children. Tanner-Blasiar said she runs into families who label their children as the slow, fast, skinny or fat one. Be careful, she said, because sometimes kids “live up to their labels.”

Don’t criminalize the cupcake
An occasional treat is OK, as long as treats are eaten in moderation. Making something forbidden tends to have unintended effects.

Don’t disparage your own weight
Kids are always listening and internalizing what their parents say and do. Parents who belittle themselves and their own figures inadvertently could pass that on to their children.

Avoid the f-word
Getting to a healthy weight is not about becoming skinnier or prettier. Emphasize health over appearances.

dementia, study says

Eating a diet rich in healthy fats and limiting dairy and meat could do more than keep your heart healthier. It could also help keep you thinking clearly.

New research shows that sticking to the Mediterranean diet, previously shown to reduce heart and other health issues, also may help lower the risk of having small areas of dead tissue linked to thinking problems. Known as brain infarcts, they’re involved in vascular dementia, the second most common form of dementia, after Alzheimer’s disease.

“We’ve got these diseases of aging that cause disability, cost a ton of money to treat and manage, and wreck people’s lives,” said Dr. Gregory Cole, a professor of medicine and neurology at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in this new study. “You’ve got to get in there and figure out what actually works for prevention, and not have people guessing.”

A Mediterranean diet includes a lot of fruit, vegetables and fish, olive oil, legumes and cereals, and fewer dishes containing dairy, meat, poultry, and saturated fatty acids than other diets. It also involves small to moderate amounts of alcohol.

The study relates diet to strokes, said Dr. Nikolaos Scarmeas, a neurologist at Columbia University Medical Center and lead author of the study. The research will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in April.

An infarct, a kind of stroke, happens when the passage of blood is slowed or completely blocked by clotting. This study looked at people who had never had a clinical stroke, but may have had smaller strokes that went unnoticed. An MRI brain scan can detect these small strokes.

The study looked at 712 people over the age of 65 living in New York. Participants were asked about their diet and then, about six years later, underwent an MRI. In general, dietary patterns are consistent for at least seven or eight years, Scarmeas said.

Researchers found that people who most closely followed a Mediterranean-like diet were 36 percent less likely to have areas of brain damage, compared with those whose eating habits were furthest from the diet.

The study shows association, not causation, meaning there could be some other factors linking the Mediterranean diet to resilience against this form of brain damage. For example, other research has found that higher adherence to the diet seems to protect against hypertension, also associated with these brain problems.

But in this new research, when the scientists controlled for hypertension, the diet was still linked to a lower risk of brain damage. It is possible that the diet protects the brain vessels themselves, irrespective of other problems such as high blood pressure, Scarmeas said.

The participants who followed the Mediterranean diet the least had an increased risk for having strokes that was similar to people with hypertension. Those who most strongly adhered to the dietary regimen had a level of protection similar to people who did not have hypertension.

Scarmeas’ previous research has shown that the Mediterranean diet may reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Looking at 2,250 individuals from the Washington Heights-Inwood Columbia Aging Project, researchers found a 40 percent lower risk among those who stuck to this diet, scientists reported in the Annals of Neurology in 2006. The people involved in the brain infarcts study are a subset of that original group.

As many as 2.4 million to 4.5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, according to the National Institute on Aging. Between 1 and 4 percent of people over the age of 65 have vascular dementia, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Other studies have suggested that this food regimen may help in preventing second heart attacks, lowering cancer risk and stopping the need for diabetes drugs in patients with type 2 diabetes.

The new study “gives you better evidence than ever that this is actually protective, and protective against the development of dementia,” Cole said.

The risk factors for vascular disease overlap with those of Alzheimer’s disease, he said. These include high blood pressure, high-fat diets, type 2 diabetes and low folate intake. People who have both Alzheimer’s and vascular disease — a condition called mixed dementia — have a more rapid progression of Alzheimer’s disease, Cole said.

A subsequent issue to address is whether a person must follow the entire Mediterranean diet in order to reap these benefits, or whether there are portions of it that contribute positive effects, Cole said. It would be easier for people to focus on adding particular elements to their diets — for example, by taking fish oil capsules — rather than trying to readjust their eating habits altogether.

Cole’s own research deals with fish oil, which is relevant because fish is a component in the Mediterranean diet. The bottom line for dementia is that fish oil may help in the very early stages, but more research must be done to confirm this, he said.

In a study, his group found that DHA fatty acids from fish oil could delay or deter the onset of Alzheimer’s disease in rats or older mice that had been genetically altered to develop the condition. Also, a recent study found that the DHA component of fish oil from algae helped people with minor memory impairment, but this needs to be replicated in order to be more definitive, he said.

When Scarmeas’ group looked at the individual components of the diet, they found a stronger association between the overall diet and brain damage prevention than with any individual food in the diet, suggesting that the combination all of the elements may be producing the effect, Scarmeas said.

Researchers will continue to follow the participants in the study and check in on them every year and a half, Scarmeas said.

The next step would be to have controlled experiments concerning food and dementia in which participants are randomly assigned to follow a diet, Cole said. It is complicated in general to compare the benefits of a particular diet with the benefits of not following a different food regimen.

The combination of these three habits is associated with a lower risk of obesity in children, according to a new study.

The study, which included 8,550 4-year-olds from around the United States, found that children who ate dinner with their families more than five times a week, slept for at least 10.5 hours a night, and watched less than two hours of TV a day were 40 percent less likely to be obese than children who did none of those things.

Roughly one in seven children who practiced all three of the behaviors was obese, compared with one in four youngsters who practiced none of them, according to the study, which was published in Pediatrics.

Health.com: Is it baby fat or obesity?

Even maintaining just one of the routines–all of which, on their own, have been linked to a lower risk of childhood obesity in previous studies–lowered the odds that a child would be obese by about 25 percent, the study found.

“We found an independent effect of each, which suggests that doing more of them was better,” says lead study author Sarah Anderson, Ph.D., an assistant professor of epidemiology at Ohio State University. “If you were doing one, adding another one–either one–was associated with a lower prevalence of obesity.”

Many families in the study were already implementing at least some of the behaviors. Nearly 40 percent of the families practiced two of the three, which lowered the odds that a child was obese nearly as much as all three, the researchers found. However, just 15 percent of families practiced all three of the behaviors, according to the study.

Health.com: 20 Easy meals for families to enjoy together

Households were more likely to practice all three if they were white, if they were two-parent families, if the mother wasn’t obese, if the mother had a bachelor’s degree, or if the household income was higher.

Significantly, however, the study found that the link between the behaviors and the lower risk of obesity held even after they controlled for a family’s economic status and other factors, which suggests that the behaviors are beneficial regardless of a family’s circumstances.

“We should encourage parents to have these routines for young children,” says Anderson. “In some families it’s going to be harder to do these things [because of] social and economic constraints, but we should consider what would make it possible for them to have these routines in their household.”

Health.com: 10 Habits of healthy families

William T. Dalton III, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at East Tennessee State University, says that the relationship between the three routines in the study–as well as other factors that weren’t studied–is complex, and that they are likely interconnected.

“If kids are getting adequate sleep, they’re going to have more energy during the day to be physically active,” says Dalton, who has researched the link between families and obesity but was not involved in the current study. Similarly, he adds, children who eat dinner at the table with their family aren’t eating in front of the TV, a bad habit that often leads to less mindful eating and doesn’t teach children how to regulate their food intake.

The larger household context needs to be considered, says Dalton, not just certain behaviors in isolation. “I think it’s important to look at broader family functioning, in terms of how families work as a unit,” he says. “Are the families where kids don’t get enough sleep the types of families that have other challenges? [Maybe] both parents are working, so they let the kids stay up later because that’s their only chance to see them, and then staying up later leads to more snacking.”

Anderson acknowledges that the study, which used surveys to gauge the frequency of each routine in households, says little about how each household implemented the behaviors. “We don’t know who was eating dinner with the kids, what kind of TV was watched, or how well the child slept,” she says. Nor did she and her co-author assess what kind of food the children ate or how physically active they were.

Anderson and her co-author are unable to say with any certainty that eating dinner together more often, getting more sleep, and watching less TV will help any given child lose weight, because of the other factors that may contribute to a child’s obesity (or that may protect normal-weight children from becoming obese).

Health.com: 8 Reasons to make time for family dinner

Still, says Anderson, “We feel comfortable recommending these routines for the prevention of obesity. They may have a potential benefit for obesity, they also have a benefit for children’s development, and they’re not likely to cause the child any harm.” Although more research is needed to prove that these routines directly lower childhood obesity, she adds, parents shouldn’t wait to implement the behaviors in the study.

Nor, says Dalton, should the routines outlined in the study distract parents from the most important contributors to childhood obesity. In the end, he says, “It still comes down to eating too much and not being active enough.”

Desani Marshall was never really overweight, but she was always a little big for her age. During a checkup at age 4, her doctor pointed out to her mother that Desani was gaining weight more rapidly than he thought was normal. Six months later, she was still putting on pounds at a rapid pace—a strong predictor of future obesity.

“I didn’t take it seriously; I didn’t think it was that bad,” says Desani’s mother, Caryl Marshall, of New York City. “But then he showed me the growth chart. At the rate she was gaining, what really made me take it more seriously was what the future could be.”

Now 7, Desani is gaining weight at a normal pace, thanks in part to dietary changes—such as cutting out soda—that Marshall has implemented. “Everybody would look at her and say, ‘She’s so skinny. Why?’” Marshall says of her daughter’s regimen.

In some ways, Desani’s success story is an exception. Across the country, childhood obesity has only gotten worse. More than 20 years after it was first described as an epidemic, 17% of American children and adolescents are obese—triple the rate in 1980—and nearly one-third are overweight, according to the latest government data. Alarming statistics such as these have prompted government agencies, schools, and nonprofit organizations to launch a barrage of anti-obesity programs in recent years.

And no family—including the first family—is untouched by it, it seems. Michelle Obama recently started an anti-obesity campaign and also created a storm of controversy when she mentioned that at one point she was concerned about her own daughters’ risk of obesity. The family’s pediatrician told her to keep an eye on Sasha’s and Malia’s weight, so the family made some small changes to get the girls back on track, including less TV watching, smaller portions, and water in lunch boxes instead of other drinks. It made a difference, the first lady said, and the weight concern is a thing of the past.

But critics said she might be fostering eating disorders by discussing her daughters’ weight in public. Although eating disorders can be a risk in weight-conscious teens or preteens, research suggests that the more common scenario is that parents are oblivious to a child’s extra weight, and make no changes to reign in weight gain.

Parents clueless about kids’ weight
Parents tend to underestimate their child’s weight and the health risks associated with being too heavy, studies suggest. In a 2006 study that surveyed the parents of obese children, only one-half recognized that their child was overweight, and less than one-third said they were “worried” about their child’s weight. In another survey, only 38% of parents had taken steps, or were planning to take them, to help their obese child lose weight.

Several factors may be contributing to this indifference among parents, experts say. Some parents believe their child’s excess weight is just “baby fat,” for instance, and some may simply be in denial. Or it could be that parents have concluded their kid is normal after eyeballing his or her overweight peers.

“Because so many children are overweight and obese…they don’t stand out as much as they would have 20 or 30 years ago,” says nutritionist Elisa Zied, a registered dietitian and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. “I almost see a lack of concern with some parents.”

Parents should be concerned. Although some overweight kids do outgrow their baby fat, roughly two out of three are likely to grow up to be obese adults, according to a 2009 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Childhood obesity, moreover, is associated with a slew of serious health problems, including diabetes, asthma, heart disease, and depression.

How do you know if your child’s chubbiness is baby fat or a serious health problem? You can’t always tell just by looking, and you can’t always count on pediatricians to broach the subject. But you can take matters into your own hands and adopt habits that will keep your child as healthy as possible.

You can’t trust your eyes
Most parents probably feel pretty confident that they know whether their child is overweight or not. The research tells a different story: A large proportion of the parents of overweight children—and especially mothers, who are surveyed more often—do not perceive their children as overweight. In some studies, the percentage of parents who don’t realize (or won’t admit) that their child is overweight has been reported to be as high as 80% to 90%.

It’s not entirely clear what accounts for this disconnect. For starters, many parents define obesity differently than health professionals do, and distrust the growth charts used by pediatricians. In a focus group discussion that was excerpted in the journal Pediatrics in 2001, one mother of a preschooler defined an obese person as someone who “can barely walk.” Other mothers denied that their children were fat or overweight, and instead used words like “big-boned,” “chunky,” and “solid” to describe them.

Susan Carnell, PhD, a research fellow and childhood obesity expert at the New York Obesity Research Center, attributes the failure of parents to accurately assess their child’s weight to changing social norms. Not only are kids heavier than ever before, but roughly two-thirds of adults are also overweight, and parents who are overweight themselves are less likely to identify their children as overweight, Carnell notes.

“We gain many of our perceptions from comparison with peers,” she says. “So if we compare a healthy-weight child with their overweight classmates, we may even think they are too skinny and try to feed them up.”

Social values and beliefs may also distort a parent’s perception. Parents are more likely to overestimate the weight of their daughters, for instance, perhaps because they feel it is less acceptable for girls to be heavy. Similarly, some studies suggest that parents of different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds have different conceptions of body type and overweight.

The doctor may not bring it up
If you’re waiting for your child’s pediatrician to tell you that your child is a bit heavy, don’t hold your breath. In spite of the myriad health risks associated with childhood obesity, pediatricians often fail to screen for it during annual checkups and office visits.

In a recently published survey of its members conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), virtually every pediatrician said they measured height and weight during checkups. But just 52% use those figures to calculate body mass index (BMI), a simple ratio of height-to-weight that provides a rough yet useful snapshot of whether a child is overweight for his or her age. (The CDC defines overweight as a BMI in the 85th percentile or above, and obesity as the 95th percentile or above.)

Even if they do feel that a child is overweight, many pediatricians are hesitant to say so, perhaps because they think it’s a touchy subject. In the AAP survey, only 59% of pediatricians said they believe that families want to discuss weight.

“I think some doctors are reluctant to bring up weight because they are not trained to deal with it sensitively,” says Carnell. Discussing a child’s weight with parents in the wrong way—by implying that they are to blame, for instance—can make parents “feel guilty and defensive,” she adds.

Doctors may also adopt a hands-off approach to weight because they feel there’s little they can do. Less than one-quarter of the pediatricians in the AAP survey believed that there are effective treatment strategies for overweight and obesity.

“We all have strategies we use that can make a difference with a certain proportion of kids,” says Eugene Dinkevich, MD, the division chief of general pediatrics at SUNY Downstate Medical School, in Brooklyn. “But it’s not like an ear infection where you can give someone an antibiotic and they’re better.”

Pediatricians only set aside about 15 minutes for a regular checkup, Dr. Dinkevich says, and they have to pick and choose which topics to discuss with parents in that time. Doctors must ask themselves, “What am I competent to talk about, and if I talk about it, will it make a difference?” he says. For far too many doctors, he adds, obesity treatment and prevention don’t fall into that category.

New guidelines for childhood obesity screening might help reassure pediatricians. In January, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of experts that advises the federal government on preventive care, released new guidelines that urge doctors to routinely calculate the BMI of children between the ages of 6 and 18. The guidelines also say that children who qualify as obese should be referred to various interventions, such as nutritional counseling or physical activity programs.

“In 2005, we said you can screen kids, but we had insufficient evidence of any effective therapy for weight loss,” says task force chairman Ned Calonge, MD, referring to the previous guidelines. “Now we have evidence that shows you can get modest weight loss through these intensive programs.”

What parents can do
Although the new guidelines may encourage pediatricians to monitor the weight of their patients more closely, parents should be proactive about doing so as well.

The easiest and best way to gauge whether your child is overweight or obese is to track their BMI using growth charts, which show the national percentiles for children by age. (Printable growth charts for boys and girls are available on the website of the CDC.)

Parents should monitor their children’s weight more or less from birth, experts say. “If they shoot up on the growth charts in terms of weight, that’s when you have to be aware of the situation,” says Zied. “You want to see consistency across the growth charts rather than any fluctuation.”

Periods of rapid weight gain have been shown to predict future obesity, says Samuel S. Gidding, MD, the chief of pediatric cardiology at the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children.

Of course, prevention is also key. Parents need to choose good foods for their children as soon as they stop breast-feeding, says Dr. Gidding. “A lot of kids are being overfed, and they’re being fed foods that really have no business being in a child’s diet: sugar beverages, excess juice, lack of fruits and vegetables, too many french fries,” he says. “Parents really need to provide nutritious food while the child’s a baby.”

As children get older, parents should teach them about nutrition, appropriate portion sizes, healthy eating habits (such as sticking to regular meal times), and the importance of being active, according to Zied. These messages are often more successful if they’re delivered in kid-friendly terms, she adds. “Try to teach your kids what’s in it for them,” Zied says. “Are they going to run faster, throw the ball farther, get more baskets in? Teach it in terms that relate to them, because the health messages get lost.”

Above all, parents should remember that their kids are likely to adopt their eating and exercise habits, good or bad, and that they should therefore model healthy behavior.

“You have to practice what you preach,” says Zied. “If parents don’t have healthful habits, you can’t really expect kids to have those either.”

eat Time

Between office merrymaking, neighborhood fêtes and assorted other bashes, the calendar at holiday time is crammed with opportunities to enjoy our favorite indulgences and meet this year’s party crashers those extra unwanted pounds. But shindigs don’t have to spell diet disaster. I love a scrumptious party buffet as much as anyone, but over the years, I’ve learned how to celebrate without gaining weight.

My strategy? I never hit a party on an empty stomach. About an hour before I leave home, I munch on a healthy snack with some protein, such as nuts or yogurt, to take the edge off. This way, I can concentrate on the conversation, not the canapés.

Second? If I want a treat, I have one or two, but I try not to follow the waiter around the room. If the cheese balls are calling my name, I snap one up, then try to find a healthier option to fill up on.

Finally, given the choice between a good-for-you and a not-so-healthy food, I choose the more virtuous option. Wild salmon or the porterhouse? Salmon, please. Margaritas or wine? I can have fun at a party sipping lower-calorie heart-healthy Pinot Noir, thank you!

By simply following these three healthy commandments, I enjoy every bash without feeling the urge to exercise twice as hard the next day. Want to savor the good times without gaining? Follow these keys to RSVP “yes” to slim!

Consider the morning after. Tempted to double back to the buffet or dessert table? Put down your fork and ask yourself a question, says Judith Beck, Ph.D., of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research in Philadelphia: “How do I want to feel tomorrow? Bloated and disappointed in myself or proud and healthy?” You’ll be motivated to let the waiter clear your plate. Create a visual reminder of your goal to eat moderately by wearing your “skinny” dress or a favorite bangle. Remind yourself: I’m trying to take good care of ME! (Let our style squad help you find a new party dress with daily Lunchtime Deals.)

Prioritize seasonal specialties. I’m a sucker for chocolate lace cookies like my great-grandmother used to make. I never pass up a lace cookie during the holiday season because I know I’m unlikely to find myself in the temptation zone after the ball drops. Then, come January 1, I revert to fruit and other healthier choices. If I swore off lace cookies altogether, not only would the holidays be joyless, but my willpower would diminish at some point (whose doesn’t?). I’d probably go overboard. Got visions of your own version of lace cookies? Save room in your calorie budget for whatever makes your taste buds merry. See which cookies are the smartest pick for the party season.

Nix impossible resolutions. The way I see it, the minute I “resolve” not to eat something, it’s all I want! Better to aim to eat reasonably healthy throughout the year—yes, even smack in the middle of the social whirl, than to pledge to start fresh on January 1. If you think your days of eating for enjoyment are numbered, you’ll be more likely to overindulge while you’re still “allowed,” says Heather K., Jones, R.D., coauthor of What’s Your Diet Type (Hatherleigh Press). Instead, nibble sensibly and consistently, which means sampling some of your favorite indulgences but keeping up the “mostly healthy” approach. That way, you won’t feel compelled to go on a pre-resolution eating spree, or need to take off the holiday pounds come January—because you won’t have added them in the first place. Now, that’s cause for a toast!

Make the most of all your meals by loading up on superfoods that combat fat, fight stress or perfect your complexion.

Worst Chicken Appetizer

A funny thing has happened to America’s restaurant appetizers, starters, and sides: They’ve started growing bigger than the main meals. It’s now common for a diner to wolf down 500 or 600 greasy calories before even starting on the entree, or to find that amount sitting alongside an already-giant burger.

One might wonder where all the calories end up. The answer: our collective belly-fat supplies. Last year, obesity rates stayed constant in only 13 states, while the other 37 states saw an increase. This big fat growth—which stretches over 75 percent of America—is due in no small part to our propensity to eat full meals before we eat full meals. (It’s not uncommon anymore to take in 2 days’ worth of calories in a single meal at one of our favorite restaurants.)
To help you wrap your arms around the problem, the writers of the bestselling Eat This, Not That! series have gathered the most gluttonous starters and side binges in America. If this list doesn’t make you hungry, then you’re already ahead of most of us.

Worst Seafood Appetizer
Long John Silver’s Breaded Clam Strips
320 calories
19 g fat (4.5 g saturated, 7 g trans fat)
1,190 mg sodium

The restaurant industry began to shift away from frying in partially hydrogenated oil 10 years ago. Now, Long John Silver’s is one of the few places left clinging to their trans-fatty fare. The word that should have set you off was “breaded”—it implies that the dish has been fried in oils, and in this case, those oils are packed with potentially heart-harming trans fats. Who wants to order fried seafood through a squawk box anyway? Luckily, Long John also serves up a number of dishes that boost good cholesterol, none better than the simple grilled fillet of salmon.

Eat This Instead!
Lobster Stuffed Crab Cake
170 calories
8 g fat (2 g saturated)
390 mg sodium

Worst Kids’ Side
Bob Evans Smiley Face Potatoes
524 calories
31 g fat (6 g saturated)
646 mg sodium

These incessantly smiling potatoes are more than just creepy; they’re more fat-and-calorie-packed than Bob’s Sirloin Steak. Let this be a lesson to you youngsters: Just because they’re smiling, doesn’t make them nice.

Bonus Tip: Most restaurants’ kids’ meals are dietary disasters—but not all. See which one made our list at eatthis.com.

Eat This Instead!
Home Fries
159 calories
3 g fat (1 g saturated)
533 mg sodium

Worst Drive-Thru Side
Arby’s Large Mozzarella Sticks
637 calories
42 g fat (19 g saturated)
2,047 mg sodium

Fried cheese is never a good idea, but as a sandwich sidekick, it spells certain disaster. Anything with as much saturated fat as a Double Whopper should not be called an appetizer or a side. Arby’s menu presents a side dish conundrum, given that their entire roster of “Sides and Sidekickers” receives the deep-fried treatment. Best to skip over this section entirely. If it’s cheese you crave, order the French Dip ’N Swiss or Ham and Swiss Melt instead to save more than 300 calories.

Eat This Instead!
Martha’s Vineyard Salad with Light Buttermilk Ranch Dressing
330 calories
14 g fat (5 g saturated)
923 mg sodium

Worst Chicken Appetizer
Denny’s Buffalo Chicken Strips (5)
730 calories
32 g fat (0 g saturated)
2,940 mg sodium

Another example of how two seemingly similar items can be worlds apart in terms of nutrition. We’ve seen worse strips, to be sure, but when you can have a basket of wings for less than half the calories, why would you choose these? We’ve never seen a leaner wing than the ones from Denny’s. But like any good wings, they should be shared (especially with that sodium count).

Eat This Instead!
Buffalo Wings (9)
300 calories
21 g fat (5 g saturated)
1,940 mg sodium

Worst “Healthy” Starter
P.F. Chang’s Chicken Noodle Soup
759 calories
24 g fat (4 g saturated)
4,135 mg sodium
92 g carbohydrates

Researchers from Penn State found that starting dinner with a bowl of soup can cut calorie intake over the course of the meal by up to 20 percent. But when you start dinner with 180 percent of your daily sodium allotment, why bother going on? It’s the best part about getting sick: the promise of chicken noodle soup yet to come. Studies have shown it works, too, but no study could have planned on the torrent of sodium that swirls among Chang’s noodles. Experts recommend capping your daily sodium intake at 2,400 milligrams. Any more than that can put you at an increased risk for heart disease over time, not to mention swell you up with retained water. Unfortunately, all Chang’s soups suffer a similar fate. Your only choice is to swap out your bowl for a smaller cup.
Bonus Tip: One of the biggest secret sources of calories in our daily diets comes in liquid form. For 12 terrifying examples, check out The Worst Beverages in the Supermarket.

Eat This Instead!
Egg Drop Soup (cup)
61 calories
2 g fat
1,122 mg sodium

Worst Dip Appetizer
Chili’s Hot Spinach & Artichoke Dip with Chips
930 calories
77 g fat (34 g saturated)
3,130 mg sodium

Sure, there are artichokes and spinach in this dip, but they are drowned in cheese and mayo. These nutrition numbers are just for one serving—the plate, which you may easily plow through, surely has more than one serving. Opt for an app that doesn’t test your self-control, like the eggrolls. With almost half the fat and 1/3 the sodium, they are one of the safest items on Chili’s appetizer menu.

Bonus Tip: Those post-meal calories are just as damaging to your diet as the ones you consume in appetizer form. Check out the 10 Worst Ice Cream Treats in America for a jaw-dropping list of dangerous desserts.

Eat This Instead!
Triple Dipper Southwestern Eggrolls with Avocado Ranch (2 each)
640 calories
42 g fat (10 g saturated)
1,370 mg sodium

Worst Potato Side
Dairy Queen Chili Cheese Fries
1,240 calories
71 g fat (28 g saturated, 0.5 g trans fat)
2,550 mg sodium

This is DQ’s real Blizzard. You can almost feel your blood pressure rise just looking at this catastrophe. Too bad it’s listed as a side, gobbling up an entire day’s worth of sodium and half a day’s calories before you move on to your burger. This one’s a no-brainer: chili, cheese, fried potatoes. But even a savvy eater couldn’t possibly anticipate how bad these three ingredients could be when combined by one heavy-handed fast-food company. Stick with classic ketchup and recapture 930 calories.

Eat This Instead!
French Fries (regular)
310 calories
13 g fat (2 g saturated)
640 mg sodium

Worst Appetizer in America
On the Border Firecracker Stuffed Jalapenos with Chili Con Queso
1,950 calories
134 g fat (36 g saturated)
6,540 mg sodium

Tex-Mex cooks are never shy with the salt, but this dish breaks even their reckless boundaries. Each little cheese-stuffed popper contains more than 1,000 milligrams of sodium. Appetizers are the most problematic of most chain-restaurant menus. That’s because they’re disproportionately reliant on the type of cheesy, greasy ingredients that catch hungry diners’ eyes when they’re most vulnerable—right when they sit down. Seek out lean protein options like grilled shrimp skewers or ahi tuna when available; if not, simple is best—like chips and salsa.
Bonus tip: To discover more deceptive dishes posing as health food imposters, check out this must-read list of 30 “Healthy” Foods that Aren’t.

Eat This Instead!
Chips and Salsa
430 calories
22 g fat (3.5 g saturated)
440 mg sodium

Obesity Counties

People who want to maintain a healthy weight over time shouldn’t obsess about their fat intake, new research shows.

The percentage of calories that a person got from fat, as opposed to protein or carbohydrates, had nothing to do with how much weight they gained in the coming years, the research team found.

The kinds of fat they ate didn’t matter either, Dr. Nita Forouhi of the Institute of Metabolic Science, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, UK and her colleagues found.

The findings, Forouhi noted in an email to Reuters Health, show that “it is more important to aim for a healthy lifestyle including a balanced healthy diet and regular physical activity, than to focus on fat intake alone as a factor for weight gain.”

The role of dietary fat content in obesity and weight gain is still controversial, Forouhi and her team note. To investigate, they looked at data on nearly 90,000 men and women from six different countries participating in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition Study. Participants were followed for up to 10 years.

Average fat intake ranged from 31.5 percent to 36.5 percent of total calories. On average, people gained about a quarter of a pound every year. But analyses that accounted for several factors found no relationship between how much weight people gained and how much fat they ate, or their intake of polyunsaturated fats versus saturated fats.

The findings shouldn’t be seen as showing that people can eat as much fat as they want, Forouhi said. “That would be absurd, given so much evidence that already exists on the potential harms of diets high in saturated or trans-fats for heart health for instance,” the researcher said.

In the US, she added, dietary recommendations state that people should maintain a fat intake that is 20 percent to 35 percent of total calories, and eat “healthy” fats from fish, nuts, and vegetable oils instead of “unhealthy” saturated and trans fats.

She added: “The healthiest way to avoid weight gain is to make sure that, when appropriate, total calorie intake is limited by reducing one’s intake of added sugars, fats, and alcohol, which all provide calories but few or no essential nutrients, to watch portion sizes of food (so food portions consumed do not increase in size over time), and at the same time take regular physical activity.”