Diet Reviews Continued...

Obesity has outlasted one more issue–it has been reported that obesity plays a major role in causing type 2 diabetes in women, although obesity and lack of physical activity are deemed as the main reasons of the risk of type 2 diabetes in women. The results of the research are reported in in the journal Diabetes Care.

Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, and his colleagues are the team that conducted the research. The team noted that the relative contribution of obesity and inactivity to the risk of developing type 2 diabetes was not very comprehensively clear; and therefore, to investigate further into this matter, they monitored 68,907 women taking part in the Nurses’ Health Study. We can easily guess that it is quite a big study, and the results of this study should give some clear indications to the problems being monitored. It was noticed that the women in the current trial had no history of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or cancer at the time when they entered into the study. During the 16 years of follow-up of these women, 4,030 cases of type 2 diabetes were reported. It was noticed that after allowing for age, smoking, and other diabetes-associated factors, the risk of type 2 diabetes increased more with increasing body mass index–BMI. This is a clear indication that obesity can lead to the risks of type 2 diabetes. Though inactivity also enhanced the risks of type 2 diabetes, but obesity was the major reason.

It has been already pointed out that the risk of type 2 diabetes is more in obese children, and they also are more prone to cardiovascular and other heart related diseases. This is quite clear now that obesity can prove to be the one main cause of many problems that people face so often.

Eating disorders is often related to habits of people eating items of food that are not generally classified under healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables, milk, and similar stuff. Fast and junk food is also termed under those unhealthy qualities of food. It has been discovered that people who suffer from depression resort to eating unhealthy comfort foods than when they feel happy. 

The January issue of the Journal of Marketing carried a description of several studies conducted by Brian Wansink, the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing, Applied Economics, and Management at Cornell, and his two colleagues. The studies are geared to provide some insight about the relationship in food and mood of the people.

Wansink suggests that people feeling happy try to maintain or extend their moods in the short term. However, they consider the long term and so turn to comfort food with more nutritional value. While at the same time, people, who are feeling sad or depressed, want to take themselves out of that situation with a quick indulgent snack that tastes good and gives them an immediate relief. This is quite a clear indication that people who feel sad tries to eat junk food. 

We can clearly see that there could be a good connection between what your feeling are and what your mind forces you to eat at that time–it sounds very premature to say, but this may turn out to be one of the reasons why people suffer from bad eating habits–they just do not understand what causes them to love the food, which is not characteristically healthy and should be avoided in general routine. However, we need to mention that the study has clearly provided a path for others to follow, and with more research, we may be able to see the picture in a better way.

Well, child obesity is at such a level in US that government of every state is trying new and never-heard-before ways to combat this problem. Here is one of the very different among these ways–the government of West Virginia–the state which has the worst childhood obesity problem in the United States–is all set to use Konami’s “Dance Dance Revolution” to battle the obesity within the school premises. It is important here to note that this would be achieved through a video game, which involves dancing of the player. It has been reported by the state itself that the research conducted along these lines has suggested that it helped to put a halt on weight gain.

The results that are preliminary in the sense that there had been a study conducted on students who aged between 7-12 years for around 24-week. There were around 50 obese children included in the study–it has been reported that a student, who played the game at home for at least 30 minutes five days per week, showed better weight management and had been noticed to shorten the risks for heart disease and diabetes.

The study was sponsored by the West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Agency, and the children that were involved in the study were the children of its policy holders. 

Well, we need to understand here that video and computer games had been termed as the worst enemies of children who are gaining uncontrolled weight. However, this video game involves quite a lot of physical activity, and this is the reason why the state officials are endorsing it for good reasons–we will need to agree that this video game does not have that effects on children that we usually notice with other conventional and free-of-physical-activity video games.

A few days ago, we heard about eating disorders being one of the main reasons for obesity and weight-loss problems. However, the popular belief about eating disorders is that anorexia or bulimia are the main eating disorders. But a recent survey has shown that Binge eating tops the list of eating disorders affecting Americans–it is noticeable here that it is the first-ever national survey on eating disorders.

Binge eating is a particular condition where people undergo frequent and uncontrolled eating binges without purging. It has been found out that this condition affects 3.5% of women and 2% of men during their lifetime. No wonder that like other eating disorders, this condition is also linked to obesity. Dr. James I. Hudson, director of the Biological Psychiatry Laboratory at McLean Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is the lead researcher of this survey.

We can easily gauge the importance of this survey, as according to popular belief, it was other types of eating disorders that were prevalent among the populace. However, it is unfortunately true that this condition is also related to all troubles that arise from obesity. It is said repeatedly that eating disorders and unhealthy life-styles are the main cause of obesity amongst the major part of the population. Awareness and knowledge about these things are top-measures that can help to tackle obesity among the masses. We will need to implement many of the suggestions that medical bodies and organizations are providing for curbing of the epidemic of obesity, which has not spared young, women, old people, and is quite prevalent in children also.

Hopefully, this survey would provide some better insight to tackle the issue of eating disorders, and perhaps, the researchers would also be able to provide some solution for this. We again will need to wait and watch.

You would not be surprised to know that there are many experiments and trials going on to test the efficacy of drugs that are supposed to treat obesity and overweight problems. In one could turn out to be very successful drug release, Britain’s GW Pharmaceuticals Plc announced on Tuesday that human trials of an experimental treatment for obesity derived from cannabis are scheduled to begin in the second half of this year. It is noticeable here that cannabis is commonly associated with stimulating hunger.

It has been also reported that several other companies, such as Sanofi-Aventis, are also working on new drugs that will switch off the brain circuits–the circuits that are responsible for making people hungry when they smoke cannabis. However, the company GW Pharmaceuticals Plc is saying that it has been successful in deriving a treatment from cannabis that could help suppress hunger. It is quite a startling statement, but we can’t comment on this issue till we get the results of human trials that the company has just scheduled.

We can easily understand the urgency and the importance of these trials, as many companies world over are trying to find a drug that can cater to the needs of tackling obesity with any side-effects. However, drugs that are be used in human medication need proper monitoring and have to undergo a series of steps that sometimes take many years to be completed. So, we can guess that it is a good step forward from the company, but we can’t comment on the application and the efficacy of the drug till we get some clear results of the trials. We expect that something positive will come out from these trials, for, the world needs something special in case of drugs dealing to cure obesity. We will surely need to wait and watch what happens and how it comes out.

We have, till now, heard about many medical and food-related things that serve as main causes of childhood obesity. From some genes to the eating habits of children that are often not as per the recommendations act as the general reasons for it. However, marketing and ads geared towards the children are also considered as potential threats for the curbing of childhood obesity, and marketing practices have become an important part of the discussion of nearly 2,000 health care leaders, who started a four-day meeting in Anaheim. The discussion is to examine the challenges of childhood obesity.

It can be well understood that companies and food industry in total do not pay attention to the fact that children under the age of 7 are not well aware about the difference between a program and an ad. The ads that are bombarded upon those children with an idea to make them eat and go for junk food make the situation worse–children do not understand the health-risks that are involved with this junk food, and they just go with the impact of that ad.

The discussion is clearly a step forward to mark marketing practices as a potential cause for the problems of childhood obesity, and a considerable reason for the challenges that health specialists face while addressing childhood obesity. It is clear that parents can’t take the television off from the children–the agencies and the bodies that work for the programs that are telecast on television need to come under the censor of government, which should supply them with some guidelines and regulations, so that the efforts of health specialists and other organizations can yield fruit in terms to tackling childhood obesity. We will need to see how the things progress and what measures are proposed by the attendees of this discussion.

Obesity, no wonder, has become the hottest topic among all the health bodies of the world and particularly in US. It is no surprise to hear or read about new measures taken to tackle the problem of obesity at a mass level, and to make the parents and children aware about the possible disadvantages of obesity. A similar measure has been taken by MetroWest Community Health Care Foundation. The foundation have launched a $250,000 public awareness campaign–it is meant to awaken parents to the dangers of childhood obesity.

The campaign is using a mixture of different media options such as billboards, television spots, and print advertisements. Though we are not sure about the response that the campaign would receive; however, it can be easily gauged that the effort of the foundation is worth appreciating–awareness is the best treatment for obesity, and it has been repeatedly found that parents of most obese children are not aware about what they need to do and what they are doing. Apart from the awareness campaign, the foundation has handed out more than $1 million in grants to schools, community centers, and social service groups for fitness, nutrition, and health education programs aimed at reducing obesity–it clearly marks the commitment of the foundation and the thinking that goes behind such laudable efforts.

A person, who is well aware about the gravity of the situation about obesity, will surely applaud the efforts undertaken by the foundation, and would surely help in her or his way to make the campaign successful. It is clear that parents are the best tools who can work for the reduction of obesity among the children. But it is also pretty clear that they do not know their potential and also the source from where they can draw inspiration–they lack awareness and knowledge about the possible effects of obesity, and also the measures that are needed to tackle obesity.

Eating habits are very crucial for the overall growth of the child, and it is quite obvious that apart from obesity, there are a number of other chronic diseases that are readily associated with bad eating habits of children. A recent study has suggested that these eating habits only get worse as kids grow older, apart from a worrying factor that notices the intake of fruits and vegetables among the US kids lowered quite significantly. 

Nicole Larson, M.P.H., who is the lead researchers of this study, states, “Fruit and vegetable intake is important for the prevention of future chronic disease. So it’s important to know whether intakes of teens are approaching national objectives for fruit and vegetable consumption.”

The study has been conducted by Larson and colleagues from the University of Minnesota–the study is geared to examine whether or not teens in the state were increasing their intake of fruits and vegetables as recommended by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy People 2010 objectives and Dietary Guidelines for Americans. However, contrary to the recommendations, the intake of fruits and vegetables is found to be decreasing even from a level which was recorded in 1999.

“This is giving us the message that we need new and enhanced efforts to increase fruit and vegetable intake that we haven’t been doing in the past,” Larson said.

A person who is knowledgeable in the field of diet and fitness knows easily that fruits and vegetables are quite important to make a balance diet. However, it is admittable that during the phase of such a fast life-style, the consumption of fruits and vegetables would be less. But the magnitude of reduction is stunning and the efforts of health department in recommending the use of these food items is not achieving its results.