Nutrition and Health News

One challenge for casual dieters trying to maintain a healthy, balanced food plan is the disconnect between “portions” and “servings” in many packaged and prepared food items. Increasing efficiency in food production and manufacturing, combined with consumers looking for a “better deal”, and the business economics of “supersizing” food sales, has led to a general increase in food portion sizes.

A “portion” can be thought of as the amount of a specific food you choose to eat for dinner, snack, or other eating occasion. Portions, of course can be bigger or smaller than the recommended food servings.

One of the challenges of maintaining a healthy eating plan while eating out is the relative absence of any nutrition labeling information. While it’s unlikely that a comprehensive labeling plan can be implemented for traditional cook-to-order restaurants, there is some support gathering for requiring nutrition information for menus at major chain restaurants, where the entrees and other menu items are already standardized. McDonald’s, the fast food chain, is already planning to add nutrition labels on its food packaging.

A study published in the September/October issue of the Journal of Nutrition, Education, and Behavior demonstrates a link between large portion sizes and overeating. In the study, researchers gave 158 moviegoers either medium (4.2-ounce) or large (8.4-ounce) tubs of popcorn that was either fresh or 14 days old. As expected, the 14-day-old popcorn was described with such remarks as “stale” and “it was terrible.”

Researchers found people ate 34% more stale popcorn if it was served in a big bucket than those given the same stale popcorn in medium-sized containers.

A recent study indicates that adolescent girls who carry excess weight around the middle and who have high levels of harmful triglycerides are at increased risk of developing the so-called metabolic syndrome — a cluster of heart disease and diabetes risk factors such as excess body weight, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and high cholesterol levels.

In contrast, transient preadolescent central adiposity was not found to be associated with metabolic syndrome later in life.

This suggests that pre-adolescent girls who are obese or overweight can reduce their chance of developing metabolic syndrome as an adult if they are able to adjust their body composition to a healthier range through exercise and fat loss, rather than remaining obese through their teen years.

Don’t try this at home…

Sonya Thomas, 37, who weighs just 105 pounds (47.5 kg), beat seven men in the annual Thanksgiving Invitational: a race to eat a 10-pound (4.5-kg) turkey.

Turkey gobbled up in 12 minutes (CNN / Reuters, November 23, 2005)

Tags: nutrition, diet, binge eating, thanksgiving