Welcome to “FitnessMantra Weekend”, your once-a-week health news update. As always you can also stay updated with the latest in fitness news by subscribing separately to the Fitness Mantra del.icio.us feed.

An acute problem these days is the number of commercials shown during children’s shows that feature sugar and fat-loaded products (usually promoted by some of the characters from the very show the kids were watching thus blurring the lines between the show and the commercial.

Children’s TV ads loaded with junk food proclaims the MSNBC news article about this topic:

“The vast majority of the foods that kids see advertised on television today are for products that nutritionists would tell us they need to be eating less of, not more of, if we’re going to get a handle on childhood obesity,” said Vicki Rideout of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which conducts health research.

The researchers monitored 13 television networks and found that children between teh ages of 8 and 12 saw almost 21 food-related commercials a day. And just what kinds of foods were these?

Of food ads that targeted children, 34 percent were for candy and snacks, 29 percent for cereal, 10 percent for beverages, 10 percent for fast food, 4 percent for dairy products, 4 percent for prepared food and the rest for breads and pastries and dine-in restaurants.

Yes you read that right: number of messages about fresh fruits and vegetables: zero. Read the full article to learn a few more shocking statistics. How do you solve this problem in your home? How do you respond when kids come up to you asking for a particular cereal or candy believing that the food has to be good because their favorite cartoon character is endorsing it? Do share your thoughts in the comments area.

The week’s top health and fitness stories follow:

1. Beyond Snack Packs: 22 Healthy Munchies: How Healthy Are 100-Calorie Snack Packs? And what alternatives could one turn to?
2. Diabetes Linked to Parkinson’s Disease: Having diabetes may increase the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.
3. Exercise prevents repetitive strain injury: An active lifestyle outside of work may help protect against work-related repetitive strain injury, a Canadian study found.
4. Got a Fat Tooth?: Make way, sweet tooth; scientists believe we reach for the greasy french fries, creamy premium ice creams, butter, and other fatty foods because of a different culprit — the “fat tooth.”
5. High BMI has pros, cons in prostate cancer: A high body mass index (BMI) does not increase the risk of developing prostate cancer, but once the disease occurs, a high BMI is associated with a greater risk of dying from the cancer, researchers report.
6. Sedentary behavior linked to high blood sugar: People who tend to be sedentary — as indicated by the amount of time they spend watching television — are likely to have high levels of glucose in their blood, even though they may not be diabetic.
7. Children’s TV ads loaded with junk food: In a child’s buffet of food commercials, more than 40 percent of the dishes are candy, snacks and fast food. Nowhere to be found: fresh fruit, vegetables, poultry or seafood.
8. Portion control ‘the way to healthier eating’: SMALLER size packs of chocolate, crisps and other foods should be encouraged to help people eat more healthily, the official food watchdog said yesterday.
9. Dodge Type 2 Diabetes With Extra Dairy and Activity!: Key lifestyle components to reduce the risk of diabetes include a moderate-calorie, lower-fat diet that supports weight loss coupled with increased physical activity. Beyond that, recent research indicates that dairy products may offer additional diabetes
10. Obesity shortens kids’ life spans: The childhood obesity “epidemic” is so disturbing that today’s children will become the first generation in some time to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents, a new report says.
11. High Trans Fat Intake Triples Heart Disease Risk: Women who eat diets rich in unhealthy trans fats have three times the risk of heart disease as those with the lowest intake, a new study finds.
12. Healthy pizza not a half-baked idea: It’s the junk food junkie’s wildest dream come true - pizza as health food.
13. Sally Squires - Can a Healthy Snack Be Tasty?: Question is: How do the fairly-good-for-you [snack] items taste?
14. Longer journeys to school drive obesity: According to the research from Loughborough’s School of Sport and Exercise Science - which didn’t look at diet - one of the biggest causes of young people’s sedentary lifestyles was the growth in the amount of time they spent in the car.
15. ‘Good fat’ diet OK for heart attack: A Mediterranean-style diet high in olive oil and other healthy fats is just as good as the classic American Heart Association low-fat diet for the 8 million Americans who have suffered a heart attack and want to prevent a repeat, new research sugges
16. Blueberries tackle bowel cancer: A compound in blueberries may be good for preventing bowel cancer, US scientists believe.

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Technorati Tags: health, fitness, health news, fitness news, health links, fitness links, del.icio.us

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Welcome to “FitnessMantra Weekend”, your once-a-week health news update. As always you can also stay updated with the latest in fitness news by subscribing separately to the Fitness Mantra del.icio.us feed.

Fitness-wise it was a quieter week than usual over the news wires, but that does not reduce the importance of certain stories, especially the BBC feature that talks about how a Fat scan shows up ‘true’ obesity. It talks about a new indicator called Body Volume Index(BVI) that is now being measured in human beings and it goes back to the old Body Mass Index vs Body Fat Percentage as a means to determine if a person is obese or not. (You can read more about what each indicator means in one of my previous posts). This BBC article describes it best when it says:

Currently, doctors gauge fatness with a calculation of body mass index (BMI). But BMI is flawed - people with lots of muscle are considered overweight. Instead of relying on weight and height measurements, as BMI does, the [newly developed 3d] scan takes into account body shape and how much fat a person carries.

I have previously mentioned my similar disillusionment with using Body Mass Index which I feel is an inaccurate indicator of whether a person is obese and this belief is only further vindicated when I read such stories:

One human guinea pig who has tested the BVI scanner is 19-year-old rower Ashley Granger. He is 6ft 2ins (1.88m) tall and according to his BMI of 28 is at the top end of the overweight category, borderline obese.

His BVI scan correctly showed that he carries very little fat and that his weight is largely due to muscle. Fitness trainer Matt Roberts said: “Muscle weighs more than fat does. And you can hide away fat but be quite thin looking.

“So it’s important that we don’t just use BMI alone.”

Click To Enlarge (Image Source: Obesity Treatment Center)

So, while it’s still a quick and easy overweight-indicator for most average adults, Body Mass Index should not be used as the only indicator especially if you perform strength training regularly and have a strong reason to believe that a lot fo your weight could be from muscle rather than fat.

Health and fitness stories for this week follow:

1. Slimming for summer? Beware March madness: Swimsuit season is now closer than you think. That’s why March, not January, is the peak month for dieting, according to surveys.
2. Fortified foods: Too much of a good thing?: You’re in the grocery store shopping for a carton of orange juice for tomorrow’s breakfast and you’re faced with a decision: plain old juice or, for no extra cost, one fortified with bone-building calcium.
3. Fat scan shows up ‘true’ obesity: “Muscle weighs more than fat does. And you can hide away fat but be quite thin looking. “So it’s important that we don’t just use BMI alone.”
4. Exercise May Ease Menopause Symptoms: Menopausal women who exercise regularly appear to have a better quality of life than women who don’t, a new study shows.
5. Plant foods cut breast cancer risk: Postmenopausal women who eat healthy amounts of plant foods rich in estrogen-like compounds called lignans may reduce their risk of developing breast cancer, according to a new study.
6. Eating fruit may prevent colon cancer: People who eat a diet high in fruit and low in meat reduce their risk of developing colon cancer, researchers reported on Wednesday.
7. Chinese restaurant food unhealthy: The typical Chinese restaurant menu is a sea of nutritional no-nos, a consumer group has found.
8. High fat diet may up breast cancer risk: A large study of middle-age women with a wide range of fat in their diet shows that eating a high-fat diet raises the risk of developing invasive breast cancer.
9. Blood sugar ‘boosts cancer risk’: Women with high blood sugar levels are at an increased risk of developing cancer, a major European study finds.
10. Acids in Popular Sodas Erode Tooth Enamel: Root beer could be the safest soft drink for your teeth, new research suggests, but many other popular diet and sugared sodas are nearly as corrosive to dental enamel as battery acid.
11. Inactivity ‘costs NHS £1 billion’: Couch potato lifestyles cost the health service more than £1 billion a year, research suggests.
12. Produce Campaign Aims to Produce Better Health: Get ready for the juggler. That’s the icon that you’ll soon see on fruit, vegetables and the healthy products that contain them.
13. Secret to slim kids: 15 minutes of activity: Just 15 minutes a day of kicking around a ball or swimming might be enough to keep children from becoming obese, British and U.S. researchers said on Monday.
14. Warning over hidden salt in foods: People are making progress on cutting their salt intake but too many still forget to check for hidden salt in foods, campaigners warn.
15. States pushing online fitness programs: With obesity worsening across the nation, a growing number of states like Indiana are launching online initiatives to combat residents’ expanding waistlines.

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Have a great weekend!

Technorati Tags: health, fitness, health news, fitness news, health links, fitness links, del.icio.us, body mass index, body fat percentage, body volume index, bmi, bvi

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