Simply Fit: Earlier this week I was watching TV with my Mother and a commercial from the IHOP restaurant chain aired. The ad was for a Simply Fit Parmesan scramble. I wanted to see if this was another of those tricks to make us think something was healthy when it really was not. I was able to find a lot of information about the menu items at IHOP because of the laws that require restaurant chains to post calorie content. Many of the items have over 1200 calories, some over 1500. Knowing that, the Simply Fit options that come in at 500 or below, do seem better. For the shock value alone, I encourage you to view this menu.
Portions, Expressions and Cues: I read a few research journal articles regarding obesity this week. One study measured the amount of calories consumed by persons in two groups. IN each group, individuals were asked to watch a TV show. Group one individuals were put in a room which had a bag of snack crackers that had 400 calories worth of crackers. Group two individuals had access to the same snack but with 4 individual bags of snacks with 100 calories each. None of the items were labeled. The only significant finding, (results that were considered to be better than chance differences), was that both groups thought they ate less calories than they did. Another study, (which I did not really appreciate) - compared three groups of persons, 40 persons per group. The groups were 5 year olds, 8 year olds and 20 year olds. The people saw pictures of foods that most people like and foods the most people dislike (they determined this through a previous study) - they also showed a normal weight person eating these foods and an overweight person eating these foods. That is NOT all - the two "eaters" were either making a happy face, disgusted face or neutral face. The point of the study was whether or not the facial expression, the size of the person or the food type, or any combination of these factors, made a person more or less likely to want to eat that food. The researchers wanted to see if children were influenced by the emotional state of the eater and/or the size of the eater more so or less so than adults. The researchers expected that the negative influence of an obese eater would increase over the age groups as older persons would have been exposed to negative stereotypes of the obese. I did not read the whole study because many of the findings were not significant and I did not believe in the premise of the study. I did however, wonder why it was taking place in France - I looked up the obesity stats for France and the rates are very low there. The other study was mentioned yesterday - whether or not people over eat or eat when not hungry in the presence of high fat foods.
Butter with that? There really is such thing as good fat - monounsaturated fats and omega 3s are often said to be heart healthy. Heart healthy does not mean calorie free and you can have too much of a good thing, but you should have some of this good thing. My mother works at a seafood restaurant and told me that people order grilled salmon (yeah! awesome good fat food) and then ask for melted butter to dip it in. WHAT??? Butter is not a heart healthy food, but more importantly, why would someone add fat to their fat?
When meat matters: Meat matters when you are a lion. I heard a story on a national news cast - but only caught the middle. There is a zoo - somewhere in the world - that is without funding. The staff has not been paid in weeks or months and animals are starving to death. The reporter stated that one or more of the lions died after being fed vegetables. I was really bothered by this story and I know that people in America and elsewhere, would THROW their money at this zoo - but I do not know what zoo it was and why they haven't asked for donations.
CHF: Yesterday after my Mom and I went to the movies and were waiting for our dinner table (you are getting my Mother's Day theme aren't you?) I came upon a woman who was promoting the bicycle ride across the country that is raising awareness and possibly money for the Children's Heart Foundation. I told her that I would put a link about this on my blog. This regards heart defects that are present from birth and not related to lifestyle factors. To keep my word, here is the link.
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