Welcome to del.icio.us Friday, your once-a-week health news update. You can also stay updated with the latest in fitness news by subscribing separately to the Fitness Mantra del.icio.us feed.

This week, a heartening story about school cafeterias around the nation making an excellent a turn for the better caught my eye.

The education section of CNN carries a story, “Carrots in, fries out in school cafeterias“, which tells of how more and more cafeterias are making healthful choices available to school children and, more interestingly, how it’s now considered hip to refuse junkfood!

This story is especially relevant in the current context of childhood obesity (another story of the week, “Obesity may complicate surgery in children” shows how early these problems can surface).

The school cafeteria looks radically different from those of his parents’ generation, and it appears many kids aren’t turning their noses up at the new offerings. In fact, according to a survey of food service directors, french fries are decreasing in popularity and interest in carrots is skyrocketing.

Here are the top health stories for this week:

1. Obesity may complicate surgery in children: A new study suggests that nearly one-third of children undergoing surgery are overweight or obese, placing them at increased risk of experiencing complications associated with the surgery.
2. Kids walk to battle obesity: If you come across fifth-graders in Mesa next month, odds are good they’ll be walking, running or doing whatever they can to bump up the count on their new pedometers.
3. Trans fat fight: Heart of the matter: Do you know how many grams of trans fats you were just consuming? No? That’s a shame.
4. Crisco Latest to Reduce Trans Fats: Crisco is getting a new formula after 95 years in America’s pantries that nearly eliminates artery-clogging trans fats.
5. No Trans Fat Does Not Mean No Worry: Experts warn that despite the crackdown on trans fat, consumers must still be careful about what they eat. The problem with removing trans fat, they point out, is that saturated animal fats may be taking their place.
6. From 500 pounds to a new and rewarding life: I was 34 and had always struggled with my weight, but for 15 years, I had allowed it to get out of control. I ate as if it were my hobby. I was unable to do the simplest physical activity. I made excuses to avoid having to go out in public, for fear of be
7. Trans fat labeling can be misleading: As it stands right now, food manufacturers are allowed to list zero grams of trans fat on the Nutrition Facts panel if the product contains less than 0.5 gram in each serving. But I think that’s very misleading.
8. UK schools “must tell parents” if children are obese: Primary schools should inform parents if their children are overweight or obese, an influential group of MPs said on Thursday.
9. Can fruit help you lose weight?: Add strawberries and grapefruit to your watermelon, and watch the scale inch to the left.
10. Pedometers for ‘deprived’ pupils: Children who attend primary schools in deprived areas of England are to be given pedometers in an attempt to encourage them to be more active.
11. Fibre ‘lowers breast cancer risk’: Pre-menopausal women who eat large amounts of fibre could halve their breast cancer risk, a UK study has suggested.
12. High School Football Players Too Fat?: High school football players may not be just big and strong; a lot of them are overweight or obese, an Iowa study shows.
13. 8 Reasons You Could Be Sabotaging Your Diet: It turns out that sneaky hidden sources may be keeping your hunger on overdrive.
14. To Get Anywhere, First Pick a Destination: “The basic issues are: What do you want to get out of it? Why do you want to exercise?”
15. Why We Eat When The Heat Is On: “It’s an ongoing battle for me. . . . Food not only placates, but it also allows me to procrastinate.”
16. Calling the Flock To God, Away From the Fridge: Saving souls is serious business for Annandale pastor Steve Reynolds. So is losing weight.
17. Carrots in, fries out in school cafeterias: “I eat carrots or apples every day,” said 10-year-old Alan Espino. He said he didn’t notice that the bun holding his all-beef hot dog was whole wheat.
18. Good Heart Health Habits Should Start in Childhood: If more parents instilled heart-healthy habits from the time their children were toddlers, they could greatly reduce their kids’ risk of future problems.

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Have a good weekend!

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Being healthy and fit.

The very concept seems so personal and unique to an individual. When you are in excellent physical condition, there are certain completely individual benefits that you alone will reap: You will have more energy to perform your everyday tasks, you will look and almost certainly feel younger than your age, your clothes will fit better, you are likely to live longer, your life insurance costs will be low and … the list is endless.

So does that mean that a healthy person only benefits himself? Consequently, does that mean one need not care whether other people are healthy or not? I got around to thinking about this while working out last week and realized that it wasn’t true.

Your being healthy affects not only you but those around you as well and so there are a few reasons why you certainly need to care about whether others are healthy or not.

1. Health Care Costs and Medical Insurance: Hypothesize this: Starting from tomorrow all your friends in your zip-code area vow to keep about 5 cars gap between themselves and the car in front, always obey the speed limit and completely ban all distractions while driving. What are the chances your car-insurance premiums will drop within a year? Pretty good I would say. So you would agree that it helps to educate your friends about certain things and their following certain “rules” would benefit you as well. Well, health is no different: with more healthy people and fewer cases of preventable heart disease, adult onset diabetes and various other obesity-related illnesses, the cost of medical insurance and health-care is guaranteed to decrease.
2. Longer, more enjoyable relationships and experiences with the people you love and care about: Let’s face it: Life is no fun when the people you really want to enjoy it with are not in the prime of health. The more healthy your near and dear ones are, the longer and more enjoyable will be the life-experiences you share with them (and they with you). While it seems selfish, you are really doing them a much larger favor than yourself!
3. More healthful choices at the places you like to eat: Think of all the eating spots that you would love to see offer more healthful choices: restaurants, your workplace cafeteria or the vending machine down the hall. With increased awareness of the benefits of staying healthy and fit, people in charge of food establishments will begin to offer better choices everywhere and you will be a big beneficiary of this positive change.
   
4. A more symbiotic and productive work environment: With healthier coworkers your workplace can be transformed into a more productive environment; You can plan tasks knowing they have a higher rate of success because your healthy coworkers will not only be less likely to fall ill or get injured but they will also be more focussed at work and consequently, more productive, all leading to a healthy and efficient workplace. If you are a company owner, a stakeholder or even just a project manager, then I need not even begin to elaborate this point, as you probably already know down to dollars and cents, the cost of having an employee call in sick.

As you can see, it pays high dividends to be concerned about the health of people around you. It’s a small world and sooner or later you will benefit even from the good health of others.

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