Wellness Weekly

A Colorful Plate: A great article passed on to me from my sister and written by S. Squires reminds us that fruits and vegetables contain health promoting compounds that can obviate the need for poly pharmacotherapy as we age. In other words, eating well and in moderation coupled with near daily exercise can prevent illness and loss of physical and mental vigor while increasing well being. So choose bright and myriad colors for your plate at every meal and no white is not really a color nor is it bright. I.e. The sweet potato trumps the white.

Diets: Hate ‘em. Most will work for as long as you work them. Bottom line is that as long as you cut your calories and maintain or increase your amount of physical activity you will lose weight. Are all diets going to provide you with the nutrients you need to be well? No, but they can all lower your weight. Best that you pick one that you can live with forever, i.e. financially, mentally and physically because when you stop doing whatever it is your doing, the weight will come back. Many news sources this week reported on a study out of Israel and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Please note the subjects were predominately male (over 80%) AND the version of the Atkins diet or low carb diet, used in the study was mostly vegetarian. Vegetarian? How Atkins is that? Two of the diets were calorie controlled at 1800 and 1500 (male to female). They were the AHA and the Mediterranean. All of the diets were free of processed or simple carbs, free of TFAs; two were low fat and high in fruits and vegetables. All persons lost weight. Now if you are a fan of Atkins and you read from this that Atkins is good, please note, this was a modified version it is not a classic Atkins diet.

EXERCISE: I want to put on my old personal trainer hat for a moment, while still wearing my health educator one, of course. After two people mentioned their exercise plans to me this week, I recalled an important message that needs to be repeated. Adding or changing an exercise routine is a lifestyle modification that should be made with some thought for the long run. It is important that one not go gang busters into their exercise program. For example, if one is not walking at all, they should not begin by walking every day. This is important for several reasons. One is that going too fast, too strong, can lead to burn out and or injury, two it is unnecessary and three it may lead to an early plateau. When the body is not used to doing an activity, for me it is swimming, starting with two or three times a week is the best. A month or so later you can add minutes (or laps) and or days. It should take you a year to get to five plus days a week. You will initially burn plenty of calories at your three day 30 minute walking or elliptical activity, etc. When your body gets used to it, THEN add minutes or days. When you get to a high level, like me and my running, then you have to add INTENSITY. All things in their time and you will have continued benefit and a nice lifelong habit of physical activity.

NYC: A friend forwarded an MSNBC article to me this week. It reports on the response to the NYC law on calorie content labeling in chain restaurants. It seems that the citizens of this glamorous city have gotten a few surprises with regard to their favorite foods. The article was very interesting and indeed, people are reconsidering their choices. The restaurant owners have noted that some of the low calorie items they have are selling out because more people are ordering them. Because of this change in consumer behavior, the restaurants will have incentive to either reduce calorie content or serving size. This law can be an effective tool for changing the environment that has contributed to this worldwide obesity epidemic. Wait, if it’s worldwide, does that make it a pandemic.

Kids Part 1: Physical activity. A study that lasted approximately six years and which was reported in JAMA this week shows that on average, 9 year olds are physically active for about three hours a day while 15 year olds are so for less than an hour a day. Why? Perhaps the social climate doesn’t promote it as fun, necessary or normal. The consequence is that around 33% of children are overweight. Many of these kids will later be classified as one of the 66% of overweight adults.

Kids Part2: Marketing. It isn’t just lack of activity but over consumption that adversely affects our kids. Another study, this one from Canada, discusses the marketing of high calorie foods to children. The researchers analyzed 367 products that were targeted to kids (i.e. cartoons, movies, etc) and found that only 11% of the foods advertised to children actually provided good nutrition. The standard for kids relates to maximum amounts of fat, sugar, salt and calories according to our Center for Science in the Public Interest. Rather shameful especially because the industry has said it did not need to be policed that it would take care of this itself. It was also noted in the study that some of the products falsely claimed that they were health promoting.

Tilapia: Well, I have read more about the study that is out of Wake Forest University regarding the adverse effects that can occur from the consumption of tilapia, specifically. The problem relates to the ratio of omega 3 fatty acids to omega 6. Though both are considered essential fatty acids, there is some debate over the omega 6 type being helpful. Salmon and trout are high in 3 and are the better fish. Tilapia is a low fat, low calorie, low mercury fish, but the risk for aggravation of inflammatory illnesses from consumption of this fish is evident. Heart disease is associated with inflammation. Oh the irony of that. Eat fish it will reduce your risk of heart disease, oh except when it increases it. Give me a break. And I loved tilapia. As do many people and that is the problem. Increased consumption of this fish was not what the health experts had in mind when they started advising us to eat more fish. In fact, someone quoted about this said that the tilapia was no worse than a hamburger, well, geez, that isn’t saying its healthy now is it. I am quite frustrated with this because I thought the good fish bad fish problem was related mercury and pcbs.

Be well and uh, don’t eat tilapia!