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.

Now, if I asked you (or any other fitness-conscious person) how many calories you needed to consume everyday to maintain your weight, I am pretty sure you could rattle off the answer right away and you would probably be pretty close to the right answer.

But did you know that on average only11% of Americans would get this right? This and other diet disconnections are discussed in “Diet IQs disconnected from reality“, an MSNBC article that comes to this conclusion based on the results of the International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation’s second annual Food & Health Survey of 1000 adults.

Among the most striking “disconnects,” was knowledge about good and bad fats. While current guidelines recommend people consume more polyunsaturated fats, found in fish and some whole grain foods, and monounsaturated fats, found in nuts, avocados and vegetable oils, 42 percent of those surveyed said they were trying to eat fewer polyunsaturated fats and 38 percent reported trying to cut down on monounsaturated fats!

However, 70 percent of people said they were trying to cut down on saturated fat, more than last year’s 57 percent. Saturated fats are found in meats, dairy foods, and coconut and palm oils, among other sources, and have been tied to an increased risk off heart disease and stroke.

Also, while a high majority of those surveyed said they were physically active at least once a week for health benefits, only 44 percent said they “balanced diet and physical activity” for weight management, which is the direct concept of “calories in, calories out” - another big disconnect.

You can learn all about understanding calories and using that knowledge to your advantage from “5 links to calorie-conscious fitness“. While each of those links open in separate windows, check out some other interesting stories from this past week:

1. Half of EU Adults Overweight, Obese: More than half of adults in European Union nations are obese or overweight and the young are increasingly making Europe a fat continent, the EU’s top public health official said Wednesday.
2. Ice cream craving? Treats to feel good about: With temperatures on the rise and the days growing longer, it gets harder to resist buying an ice cream cone or throwing a pint of Ben & Jerry’s into the grocery cart.
3. Fitness boot camps taking it to the parks: Fitness boot camps have grown in popularity as people look for a way to enjoy the outdoors while avoiding the hassle of the gym and the cost of a personal trainer.
4. Making Meals a Family Affair: Most parents look for ways to give their children an edge, but many miss an easy and often inexpensive recipe for success: eating together.
5. Regular exercise increases “good” cholesterol: Regular exercise appears to modestly increase levels of high-density lipoprotein, or “good,” cholesterol.
6. Doubts over obesity pill claims: Some of the health benefits claimed for a new weight loss drug may not be justified, say experts.
7. Soy Nuts Lower Blood Pressure in Postmenopausal Women: Soy nuts may help lower blood pressure in postmenopausal women, a new U.S. study finds.
8. Junk food ads increasing on kids’ shows: A new Federal Trade Commission study found that half of the ads for junk food, sugary cereals and soft drinks are on children’s programs, double the number 30 years ago.
9. Lazy ‘can be encouraged to move’: However, advice had to be tailored to individual needs - adopting a “one size fits all” policy would not be as effective …
10. Diet IQs disconnected from reality: Ninety percent of Americans say breakfast is an important part of a healthy diet, but just 49 percent manage to eat breakfast every day, a new survey shows.
11. Air hostesses told to shed weight: An Indian court has ruled against a group of female flight attendants who were grounded from the national airline for being overweight.
12. Shake your way to fitness - or brain damage?: What if you could burn fat while shaking a martini? Actually, it’s your body that shakes like a martini on a new type of fitness machine that’s generating lots of buzz and celebrity use.
13. New Jersey starting agency to battle obesity: New Jersey’s health department is escalating the battle against the bulge by starting a new Office of Nutrition and Fitness to better coordinate programs to prevent obesity.

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Have a great weekend!

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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.

While not a very busy week health-news wise there were four obesity-related news items. Normally that would not be surprising because each week, researchers come up with newly discovered direct consequences of being overweight (like this week’s story about how Asthma Takes Tougher Toll on the Obese). But there are also two items that, while they are related to obesity, do not describe a direct consequence of the excess weight itself but rather of, what I can only describe as, its “side-effects”.

First Overweight people get less out of exercise describes how among 687 adults who embarked on a 12-week regimen of strength training, although all participants gained strength and muscle, the overweight/obese volunteers gained 4-17% less than their normal-weight co-participants. In a strong co-relation with the earlier post that taled about how obesity could be a function of genetics, researhers claimed that the differences in the results could also be genetic:

“People with overweight and obesity have alterations in skeletal muscle structure and function compared to those who are normal weight that could also contribute to variability in the exercise response,” they wrote.

The story above could still be be forgiven for being somewhat partially due to the actual excess weight itself (although it’s not an illness/ disability or disease that resulted). But, the second story I want to highlight has more to do with self-perception and acceptance (a more mental demand) than the excess weight. Severely Obese Women More Likely to Skip Cancer Scans says the Forbes article, even though obese women are more likely to be diagnosed with this deadly disease. Almost a year ago, news surfaced that Americans are too fat for X-Rays, and while one could be forgiven for assuming that there could be a similar reason preventing obese women from getting scans, it turns out that may not be the whole story:

Jeanne Ferrante, from New Jersey Medical School, plans to survey doctors to find out whether there are barriers that prevent severely obese women from being screened for cancer, such as a lack of proper equipment to examine severely obese patients.

She is also gathering information from patient focus groups, and has found that severely obese women feel embarrassed because of their weight.

“They don’t like to be examined. They don’t like to wear two gowns or have a scale inadequate to weigh them,” Ferrante said in a prepared statement.

Surely the second reason is far more serious.

People embarrassed to take their t-shirts off at the beach is one thing. Avoiding potentially life-saving scans because of a poor body-image and being conscious of one’s excess weight is simply way too dangerous. It could turn out that the mental effects of obesity might be as equally devastating as the physical!
Read on for more health and fitness stories from this week:

1. Snacking can be good for the elderly: Researchers say such snacking is OK - in fact, regular nibbling can be good for older people.
2. Coffee may cut risk of gout, study finds: If men ever needed a reason to justify that extra cup of coffee, here it is: four or more cups of coffee a day appear to reduce the risk of gout, Canadian researchers said on Friday.
3. Overweight people get less out of exercise: Overweight and obese people get less out of resistance training than leaner people do, researchers said on Friday in a study that suggests the overweight may have to try harder to get results.
4. How to feed and fuel young athletes: Parents typically love the attention to fitness that stems from their children playing sports, but they’re often uncertain about the best way to provide fuel and fluid for their young athletes.
5. Lift weights, stay young: Resistance training turns back the clock - literally making muscles younger through regular workouts, new research by an Australian scientist shows.
6. High-salt diet link to ulcer risk: The bug that causes stomach ulcers may be more likely to cause disease when exposed to high concentrations of salt, a US team of researchers has said.
7. For This Week, a Simple Challenge: Step It Up, and Add Some Calcium: Staying active can sometimes take creativity.
8. Asthma Takes Tougher Toll on the Obese: Severe, persistent asthma is more likely to strike obese individuals than people who are not overweight, U.S. researchers report.
9. Severely Obese Women More Likely to Skip Cancer Scans: Severely obese woman are more likely than other women to skip cancer screenings, even though being severely obese increases their risk of developing and dying of cancer.
10. Big trouble in little Puerto Rico: Obese kids: Studies show 26 percent of youngsters in Puerto Rico are obese, worse than on the U.S. mainland where the figure is estimated to be 18 percent.
11. Pre-birth apples ‘benefit babies’: Children of mothers who eat plenty of apples during pregnancy are less likely to develop asthma, research suggests.

Get the best health and fitness stories of the week in your RSS inbox.

Have a great weekend!

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

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