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August 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Causes of Childhood Obesity – Eating Habits

The Wrong Foods Lead to Obesity

In order to live, we must eat. Somewhere in our history, we stopped eating to live and started living to eat. This obsession with food has led to not only obesity in adults,  but a rising obesity in children. Let’s examine the eating habits that can lead to obesity in children and the ways to change those habits.

Marketing & Advertising

Advertising makes companies millions of dollars a year. Why? People view the ads or see commercials on television and buy, The Usual Suspectsbuy, buy. Unfortunately, this is turning us into a nation of obese people.

On a daily basis, we see numerous advertisements extolling the virtues of some sort of tasty food that is not necessarily good for us. You can probably hum those snack food jingles without thinking.  This marketing and advertising has us spending millions of dollars on unhealthy food in restaurants, very unhealthy fast food, and all sorts of prepackaged meals and snacks. This has lead to poor eating habits for adults, children and families.

Food Choices

Children have access to all types of food. There are snack vending machines, soda machines, and fast food restaurant counters in in school cafeterias. At one time, kids took their lunches to school, but now most kids buy their lunch. It’s fast and easy, and they can eat virtually anything  they want.  The majority of food in malls is non-nutritious such as burgers, fries and soda.

But it’s not just about what we eat – in fact, it’s more about what we drink. According to various studies, drinking one soda per day increases the childhood obesity risk by sixty percent!  This bears repeating, – just one soda a day can increase a child’s risk of being obese by 60 percent!

Sodas are High Fructose Corn Syrup, sugar, and empty calories. A single serving of soda can pack a whopping 120 to 180 calories. And remember: that’s  PER SERVING (with most sodas being 20 ounces, they actually contain 2.5 servings). This adds up to about 300 calories — and 300 calories is almost an entire meal’s worth of calories with absolutely no nutritional value.

“Diet” sodas are full of empty calories, and they give a false sense of security, leaving people thinking they are consuming a healthy alternative. But diet drinks have been shown to cause weight gain because people falsely believe they can have a diet drink (or two) and then eat a donut because they saved those extra calories. But there are a lot of obese people walking around carrying diet drinks – why is that?

Snacking

Kids usually come home from school and are looking for a snack. They just naturally reach for whatever is available to snack on. While doing homework or watching TV, they mindlessly overeat, consuming a lot of calories in a short period of time. Maybe even skipping supper because they have filled up on high sugar snacks.  By then, the damage to our daily caloric intake is done.

Turning Eating Habits Around

Changing eating habits requires changing how you look at food. To save your children from the dangers of obesity, don’t go for convenience; make time to eat the right foods. Purchase and prepare healthy snacks. Cut up an apple to give it to them with a  little peanut butter. Have bananas onhand for a quick snack. Have healthy snacks available for those times when we all naturally snack.

January 7, 2010Remove sodas that are loaded with High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Educate yourself on what the foods you purchase really contain. Learn to read the nutrition labels. Get rid of high sugar content foods. A high sugar diet is a high fat diet and the main cause of obesity in children. It is too easy to reach for quick, convenient snacks, and the temptation is everywhere — we are bombarded with unhealthy foods both at home and away. Make your home a healthy atmosphere by removing unhealthy foods from your pantry. Good health and the fight against obesity in children begins in the home.

Causes of Childhood Obesity – Eating Habits

In order to live, we must eat. Somewhere in our history, we stopped eating to live and started living to eat. This obsession with food has led to not only obesity in adults, but a rising obesity in children. Let’s examine the eating habits that can lead to obesity in children and the ways to change those habits.

Advertising

Advertising makes companies millions of dollars a year. Why? People look at ads or see commercials on television and buy, buy, buy. Unfortunately, this is also turning us into a fat nation. On a daily basis, you will see numerous advertisements extolling the virtues of some sort of tasty food that is not necessarily good for you. You want to go get that tasty morsel right now, don’t you? You can probably hum those snack food jingles without thinking.

Because of the draw of these advertisements, millions and millions of dollars are spent on unhealthy fare at restaurants, fast food, and all sorts of prepackaged meals and snacks. This leads to poor eating habits for not just adults, but children, too.

Food Choices Available

Nowadays, children have access to all types of food. In school cafeterias, there are snack vending machines, soda machines, and fast food restaurant counters. It used to be that kids brought their lunches to school, but now most kids buy their lunch since it’s easy and they can eat virtually anything they want. At malls, the availability of non-nutritious foods is more prevalent than good, healthy food choices.

And it’s not just about what we eat – it’s about what we drink. According to various studies, drinking sodas even once a day increases the childhood obesity risk by sixty percent – let me repeat that – just one soda a day can increase a child’s risk of being obese by 60 percent!

Sodas are sugar and empty calories. A single serving of soda can pack a whopping 120 calories to 180 calories. Remember, that’s per serving. And if you’ve read a soda “nutrition” label, you’ll see that in a twenty ounce soda there are two and a half servings. Drinking the entire bottle will fill you with about 300 calories added to your daily consumption. That amounts to an entire meal’s worth of calories with absolutely no nutritional value. That’s 300 calories of absolutely zero nutrition.

Even so-called diet sodas cause a risk as they give a false security that a child is receiving a healthy alternative. Diet drinks have been shown to actually cause weight gain for this reason. Children, and adults alike, falsely believe they can have a diet drink and then eat a donut because they saved those extra calories. There are a lot of obese people walking around carrying diet drinks – why is that?

Snacking

When kids come home from school and start in on their homework, they get the munchies. Their little hands just naturally grab for something to snack on. Then, it’s time to relax. That’s when our snacking goes into overdrive. We easily overeat when we are mindlessly watching television, looking through a magazine, or surfing the Internet. Typically, the snacks we grab are sugary, salty, high calorie, and high fat. The problem with this snacking is, just like with sodas, we can eat a lot of unhealthy snacks before we are filled up and those snacks have no nutritional value. By then, the damage to our daily caloric intake is done.

Turning Eating Habits Around

Changing eating habits requires changing how you look at food. Don’t go for convenience; make time to eat the right foods. Get into the habit of preparing healthy snacks. Cut up an apple to eat with a little peanut butter. Grab a banana and eat it while you study. Have healthy snacks available for those times when we all naturally snack.

Bad eating habits is one of the biggest causes of obesity in children. It is far too easy to fall into an unhealthy eating habit. We are bombarded with unhealthy foods both at home and away. Make your home a healthy atmosphere by removing unhealthy foods from your pantry. Good health and the fight against obesity in children begins at home.

To learn more about how to deal with childhood obesity, check out this excellent book by Susan Okie. To order the book, click on this image.

What are your thoughts?  Leave a comment or sound off about the epidemic.

Filed Under: Childhood Obesity, High Fructose Corn Syrup Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
August 3, 2010 By 1 Comment

Are breads contributing to your weight gain? Try this one

I found this bread suggestion in Jorge Cruise’s book, The Bellyfat Cure.

I tried it and have to report that it is awesome. Now, I love breads. I have also realized recently that breads often have High Fructose Corn Syrup AND usually about 5 grams of sugars in each slice.

Whole Grain BreadSo what is so special about Ezekiel 4:9 (that come from the ovens over at Food For Life)? Well, here’s what they say on the package:

  • The Original Flourless Low Clycemic
  • Sprouted 100% Whole Grain Bread
  • Certified Organic Grains
  • All Natural
  • No Preservatives
  • Complete Protein
  • Glycemic Index: 36
  • There are 18 Amino Acids Present in this Unique Bread From All Vegetable Sources – Naturally Balanced in Nature

It really does taste good.  It might be a bit of an adjustment if you normally eat white bread, but your health is worth having a quality bread that won’t contribute to illness and/or weight gain.

PS I first bought the bread in a health food store (frozen foods area) for $5.95.  I then realized I could purchase it at Fred Meyer and it is only $3.49

This just  proves that eating “health foods” doesn’t necessarily mean you have to purchase them from an overpriced health food store.

Filed Under: Good Foods Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
August 2, 2010 By 1 Comment

Using Stevia for Sweetening Everything

Stevia Plant

Stevia Plant

Since deciding to get off of artificial sweeteners and refusing to consume anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup, I have discovered Stevia.  Personally, I love the taste, although I don’t get the same response from everyone. It seems to be an acquired taste for some…

What is Stevia?

Well Stevia is a herb. It’s really delicious and sweet. And a really good substitute for any kind of sugar.

But to see what the real definition of Stevia is, I tapped into Wikipedia.

Wikipedia says:

Stevia is a genus of about 240 species of herbs and shrubs in the sunflower family (Asteraceae), native to subtropical and tropical regions from western North America to South America. The species Stevia rebaudiana, commonly known as sweetleaf, sweet leaf, sugarleaf, or simply stevia, is widely grown for its sweet leaves. As a sweetener and sugar substitute, stevia’s taste has a slower onset and longer duration than that of sugar, although some of its extracts may have a bitter or licorice-like aftertaste at high concentrations.

So basically what they are saying is that Stevia is a herb, used for centuries for naturally sweetening foods and drinks.  There are no apparent side effects from using it. It is not a sugar so does not pack on bellyfat, and won’t overexcite your brain cells (whew, what a relief that is).

Wikipedia continues with this:

With its extracts having up to 300 times the sweetness of sugar, stevia has garnered attention with the rise in demand for low-carbohydrate, low-sugar food alternatives. Medical research has also shown possible benefits of stevia in treating obesity and high blood pressure. Because stevia has a negligible effect on blood glucose, it is attractive as a natural sweetener to people on carbohydrate-controlled diets.

So it even helps us lose weight, but more than that, it is used medicinally in some populations.

For medicinal use, Wikipedia says:

For centuries, the Guaraní tribes of Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil used stevia, which they called ka’a he’ê (“sweet herb”), as a sweetener in yerba mate and medicinal teas for treating heartburn and other ailments.[11] More recent medical research has shown promise in treating obesity[12] and hypertension.[13][14] Stevia has a negligible effect on blood glucose, even enhancing glucose tolerance;[15] therefore, it is attractive as a natural sweetener to diabetics and others on carbohydrate-controlled diets.

Look who’s has been using Stevia for decades. Again from Wikipedia:

In the early 1970s, Japan began cultivating stevia as an alternative to artificial sweeteners such as cyclamate and saccharin, which were suspected carcinogens. The plant’s leaves, the aqueous extract of the leaves, and purified steviosides are used as sweeteners. Since the Japanese firm Morita Kagaku Kogyo Co., Ltd. produced the first commercial stevia sweetener in Japan in 1971,[8] the Japanese have been using stevia in food products, soft drinks (including Coca Cola),[9] and for table use. Japan currently consumes more stevia than any other country, with stevia accounting for 40% of the sweetener market.[10]

Today, stevia is cultivated and used in food elsewhere in east Asia, including in China (since 1984), Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Malaysia. It can also be found in Saint Kitts and Nevis, in parts of South America (Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay, and Uruguay) and in Israel. China is the world’s largest exporter of stevioside.[10]

Where to buy Stevia:

I have found that Walmart has the best deal on Stevia. Look for it in the pharmacy/supplements area. You can purchase a box of 100 packets for $6.  I paid that for 50 packets in a health food store!

 

Check out the Cuisipro Herb Keeper

Storing herbs seems simple but unless you properly store your herbs they will only last a few days. Herbs are sold in bundles and for most recipes a bundle is too much. What happens to the leftovers? If they are not used right away most of what was bought is thrown out.

Cuisipro Herb Keeper’s unique suspended tray system makes it easy to store and access herbs. Other herb keepers tend to be overcomplicated to use or drip water all over the place when gathering herbs.

The Cuisipro Herb Keeper comes in 2 convenient sizes so you can choose the one right for you; large one that handles multiple bunches of herbs and compact size for a single herb bundle.

Click the image to learn more about this product. 



Filed Under: Good Foods, Stevia, Sugar, Sweeteners Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
August 2, 2010 By 1 Comment

Sugar May Be Bad, But This Sweetener is Far More Deadly

No High Fructose Corn Syrup

No High Fructose Corn Syrup

View this incredible video presentation by Robert H. Lustig, MD UCFS Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism. It is about 1.5 hours in duration, but if you want the truth about High Fructose Corn Syrup, this is the presentation to see.

Filed Under: High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sugar Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
July 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

High-fructose corn syrup: What are the concerns?

High-fructose corn syrup seems to be a common ingredient in many foods. What are the concerns about high-fructose corn syrup?

Answer from Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D.

High-fructose corn syrup is a common sweetener and preservative. High-fructose corn syrup is made by changing the sugar (glucose) in cornstarch to fructose — another form of sugar. The end product is a combination of fructose and glucose. Because it extends the shelf life of processed foods and is cheaper than sugar, high-fructose corn syrup has become a popular ingredient in many sodas, fruit-flavored drinks and other processed foods.

So far, research has yielded conflicting results about the effects of high-fructose corn syrup. For example, various early studies showed an association between increased consumption of sweetened beverages (many of which contained high-fructose corn syrup) and obesity. But recent research — some of which is supported by the beverage industry — suggests that high-fructose corn syrup isn’t intrinsically less healthy than other sweeteners, nor is it the root cause of obesity.

While research continues, moderation remains important. Many beverages and other processed foods made with high-fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners are high in calories and low in nutritional value. Regularly including these products in your diet has the potential to promote obesity — which, in turn, promotes conditions such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and coronary artery disease.

If you’re concerned about the amount of high-fructose corn syrup or other sweeteners in your diet, consider these tips:

  • Limit processed foods.
  • Avoid foods that contain added sugar.
  • Choose fresh fruit rather than fruit juice or fruit-flavored drinks. Even 100 percent fruit juice has a high concentration of sugar.
  • Choose fruit canned in its own juices instead of heavy syrup.
  • Drink less soda.
  • Don’t allow sweetened beverages to replace milk, especially for children.

To view this article at the Mayo Clinic site (and for other fantastic articles) go to:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/high-fructose-corn-syrup/AN01588

Filed Under: High Fructose Corn Syrup Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,