Ramanisblog

Tag: junkfood

  • On Diet and Why Dieting does not help.

    Glasstrut, Tip Top
    Image via Wikipedia

     

    Causes for Obesity and weight gain have not been found conclusively.

    By Dieting with the scant knowledge we have often impairs Health and  results in loss of Stamina.

    I have seen people who have been on Diet looking shrunken,frame is there but some thing is missing.

    Also Dieting may damage metabolism.

    Individuals are unique.

    There can never be a standard Diet for all of us.

    My suggestion,in the interest of your health, is,eat what you want in moderation.

    Avoid junk food.

    Shun snacks.

    Take one breakfast , two meals a day.

    Take fibrous food , vegetables and Fruits9( eat food not simply as a dessert, but eat when hungry-read my blog on How to eat fruit?)

    Eat Dinner before 10 pm.

    Have a good sleep.

    Story:

    The most immediate reason that diets don’t work over the long term is that they promote a loss of the internal signals for hunger and fullness that are necessary for normal eating. This was the finding of a classic study conducted by Janet Polivy and Peter Herman at the University of Toronto, published in 1999. In this experiment, a group of dieters and a group of nondieters were given the task of comparing ice cream flavors. Participants in each group were divided into three subgroups. Before getting the ice cream, the first subgroup was asked to drink two milkshakes, the second subgroup was asked to drink one milkshake, and the third subgroup wasn’t given any milkshakes. Next, the researchers offered the groups three flavors of ice cream and asked the participants to rate the flavors, eating as much ice cream as they desired.

    The results revealed that the nondieters ate as you might expect: those who hadn’t consumed any milkshakes ate the most ice cream, those who’d consumed one milkshake ate less ice cream, and those who’d consumed two milkshakes ate the least. The dieters, by contrast, reacted in the opposite way. Those who were offered no milkshakes before the taste test ate small amounts of ice cream, those who drank one shake ate more ice cream, and those who’d consumed two milkshakes ate the most ice cream!

    The researchers termed what had happened to the dieters “disinhibition,” which occurs as a result of a “diet-mentality.” The milkshake preload had a different effect on dieters than on nondieters. Nondieters, eating in an unrestrained and normal manner, tend to regulate their food consumption according to internal physical cues of hunger and satiety. Therefore, in the experiment, nondieters regulated the amount of ice cream they ate based on perceived fullness. What could be more obvious and natural?

    The dieters, however, reacted in the opposite way — the more milkshakes they consumed, the more ice cream they ate. Why did they lose the capacity to regulate their intake? According to the researchers, this “counterregulation” occurs because a milkshake preload disinhibits a dieter’s usually inhibited or restrained eating, almost like a switch: “I’ve blown it anyway, so I might as well keep eating before I go back on my diet.” This is an almost irresistible incentive to go on eating well past physical fullness.

    The dieters, however, reacted in the opposite way — the more milkshakes they consumed, the more ice cream they ate. Why did they lose the capacity to regulate their intake? According to the researchers, this “counterregulation” occurs because a milkshake preload disinhibits a dieter’s usually inhibited or restrained eating, almost like a switch: “I’ve blown it anyway, so I might as well keep eating before I go back on my diet.” This is an almost irresistible incentive to go on eating well past physical fullness.

    For example, metabolism plays a significant role in determining our weight. Resting metabolic rate refers to the amount of energy the body burns when not engaged in physical activity; it accounts for approximately 70 percent of the calories we burn each day. About 40 to 80 percent of the influence for resting metabolism is apparently inherited. In the journal Nature Medicine, Jeffrey Friedman, director of the Starr Center for Human Genetics, writes, “The commonly held belief that obese individuals can ameliorate their condition by simply deciding to eat less and exercise more is at odds with compelling scientific evidence indicating that the propensity to obesity is, to a significant extent, genetically determined.”

    This inherited weight range, known as the set point, is the weight your body settles at when you’re eating in response to signals of hunger or fullness and engaging in some level of physical activity. Our set point acts like a thermostat, seeking to maintain our natural body weight within a range of 10 to 20 pounds. When we take in less food as fuel, our body deals with this reduction by slowing down to conserve energy. Metabolism is lowered, reducing the rate at which calories are burned. Within 24 to 48 hours of beginning a calorie-restricted diet, metabolic rate decreases 15 to 30 percent. Our body has successfully slowed itself down to defend against this self-imposed famine. By contrast, when our body takes in more food than it needs as fuel, the metabolism speeds up and burns calories more quickly. In her book Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight, Linda Bacon, a physiologist specializing in nutrition and weight regulation, explains that when this mechanism is working properly, it functions as a force that pulls you back to your comfortable range whenever you veer away; however, if you consistently override your body’s signals of fullness, this system becomes broken. The goal is to find your healthy weight, keeping in mind that even if we all ate the same and exercised the same, we wouldn’t weigh the same. Weight is a complicated matter, which can be affected by a variety of factors, including medical issues, such as thyroid problems or polycystic ovary syndrome, the side effects of medications, poverty, stress, and lack of sleep.

    http://www.alternet.org/story/149702/why_diets_make_you_fatter_–_and_what_to_do_about_it?page=1

  • U.S. agencies want to ban some kid food ads

    Long over due and welcome move.Please read my blog on Advertising.
    WASHINGTON
    Tue Dec 15, 2009 5:39pm EST
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a bid to tackle rising youth obesity, U.S. companies would be prohibited from advertising to children foods that contain large amounts of sugar or salt, or even low levels of trans fats, under a proposal released on Tuesday by a working group from several U.S. agencies.

    The working group made up of members of the Food and Drug Administration, Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Department of Agriculture and Centers for Disease Control issued what it called tentative proposed standards for food marketed to children, defined as up to age 17.

    Those foods could not have more than 1 gram of saturated fat per serving, 13 grams of added sugar, 200 milligrams of sodium or 0 trans fats, which they defined as more than half a gram, per normal serving.

    At a related conference to discuss food advertising and any link it might have to obesity among children, Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, said that if the obesity-related health risks — high blood pressure and diabetes among them — were caused by radiation “alarm bells would be going off across America. There would be a huge outcry.”

    Sebelius, who also admitted to a weakness for Cheetos, said that it was important for any changes in advertising rules to be across the board so that companies that eliminate child-oriented ads for unhealthy foods were not punished for it.

    “We need to start doing a better job of regulating the types of ads our children see,” she added.

    Some food manufacturers have already reformulated some kid favorites to take health concerns into account. Kellogg, which makes Froot Loops, and General Mills, maker of Cocoa Puffs, have both said they would reduce the amount of sugar in some food advertised to children.

    The chairman of the FTC, Jon Leibowitz, noted these and other steps forward.

    “These changes have come in small increments,” said Leibowitz. “Put simply, it is time for industry to supersize its efforts.”

    Dan Jaffe, executive vice president for government relations at the Association of National Advertisers, argued that advertisers were not to blame for the growing number of fat children and any restrictions on ads could run afoul of the First Amendment.

    “The advertising community faces a real clear and growing threat of censorship,” he said.

    (Reporting by Diane Bartz, editing by Matthew Lewis)
    http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BE5BO20091215?feedType=nl&feedName=ushealth1100

  • Junk food reigns in ads on Web sites for kids

    Junk food manufacturers must remember that they also have kids.Money earned by spoiling children’s ( for that matter any one’s) health is Sin Money.
    True, parents can not monitor mouse click of children.Solution lies with the Government, which could block this ads or penalize the companies, journalists/media and most importantly with the manufacturers with a conscience.

    Amy Norton
    Tue Dec 15, 2009 9:40am EST
    NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Advertisements for junk food may be cluttering many of the Web sites most popular with children, a new study suggests.

    When researchers examined 28 of the Web sites most frequented by children, they found that the majority of food products advertised there met experts’ criteria for “foods to avoid.”

    Ads for sugar-laden cereals, candy, soda or fast food populated a majority of the Web sites, which included sites one would not readily associate with food, like those run by Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network, among others, noted Dr. Lori Dorfman, director of the Berkeley Media Studies Group in California and one of the researchers on the study.

    In contrast, of the 77 advertised products across all the Web sites, only five were foods that children should be encouraged to consume, the researchers report in the American Journal of Public Health.

    Cartoon Network declined to comment on the study, and calls to Nickelodeon were not immediately returned. But a spokesperson for PBS Kids — cited for having “fast food brands represented” on its Web site — said that its representation in the study is “misleading.”

    PBS Kids does not accept advertising, and “it does not market food products to children,” said Lesli Rotenberg, senior vice-president of children’s media.

    Instead, the site carries, at the bottom of some pages, the logos of various PBS sponsors — which include fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A. “Children will never see an image of a food product,” Rotenberg said.

    She also noted that PBS Kids has Web pages — Fizzy’s Lunch Lab and Don’t Buy It — designed to teach kids about healthy eating and avoiding media influences, respectively.

    When it comes to the issue of media influences on children, TV ads have long been under fire for marketing junk food to children and teenagers.

    But the Internet has provided a whole new outlet for advertisers — and companies are expected to keep increasing the proportion of their spending devoted to online marketing, according to Dorfman’s team.

    “The public health implications are serious,” Dorfman told Reuters Health in an email, “because digital marketing such as what we found on Web sites popular with kids is much different than TV advertising, which caused the alarm in the first place.”

    “Digital marketing,” she argued, “is immersive, interactive and incessant — rather than 30 seconds watching a TV commercial, children are spending 20 minutes deeply engaged with the brand.”

    A recent study found that food manufacturers’ use of “advergames” — online games that companies use to boost traffic to their Web sites and promote their brands — may indeed influence kids’ eating choices.

    When researchers had children play advergames that focused on cookies and chips, the kids wanted those same foods afterward. But when the games featured fruit and orange juice, the children tended to want those foods for a post-game snack.

    For the current study, Dorfman and her colleagues assessed the nutritional quality of foods and beverages advertised on the 28 top children’s Web sites between July and August of 2007.

    Of the 77 products they found, 49 met the “foods to avoid” criteria set by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), an advisory body to the federal government. Another 23 products fell into the neutral category because they were neither junk foods nor nutritious enough to be encouraged; such products included lower-sugar cereals and certain baked snack foods.

    Only five of the advertised products — including oatmeal, milk and pure fruit juice — were foods that the IOM encourages children to eat.

    “Parents should be concerned because much digital marketing flies under their radar,” Dorfman said.

    But she also asserted that parents should not be given the job of monitoring the ads their kids see online.

    “The online environment is not like watching TV, something a family might do together,” Dorfman said. “It’s unreasonable, and unfair,” she added, “to think that parents could monitor every mouse click children make.”

    Instead, Dorfman argued, “food marketers and children’s media companies need to adhere to higher nutrition standards for the foods they market to children, especially when they do it out of earshot of parents.”

    SOURCE: American Journal of Public Health, November 2009.

  • The 10 Weirdest, Grossest Ingredients in Processed Food

    Self explanatory..Read the article.
    Story:
    Everyone now knows that processed and fast foods are not the bastions of nutrition, but that shouldn’t make these ingredients found inside them any less revolting. This list sends a clear message: when a packaged food contains more than five ingredients and includes some that are difficult to pronounce, stay away. Make a b-line straight to the organics aisle and go for vegan meals or vegetarian recipes instead.

    1. Fertilizer in Subway Sandwich Rolls
    While chemical fertilizers inevitably make it into our produce in trace amounts, you would not expect it to be a common food additive. However, ammonium sulfate can be found inside many brands of bread, including Subway’s. The chemical provides nitrogen for the yeast, creating a more consistent product.

    2. Beaver Anal Glands in Raspberry Candy
    http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/143560/the_10_weirdest%2C_grossest_ingredients_in_processed_food/