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.

When an article begins with …

“If you’ve ever found yourself not just wanting but needing a gooey slice of pizza, you know what it’s like to crave food.”

… you just know you want need to read it! Take a bite out of your cravings describes the irresistible urge that certain foods present to us and the complex chemical reactions that decide how we deal with these urges.

Did you know that Food Cravings …

• need not indicate a nutritional deficit? (people with enough sodium in their regular diets could still crave salty foods)
• activate three regions of the brain: the hippocampus, insula and caudate, three areas also reported to be involved in drug cravings?
• could simply be hormonal as indicated in a study on college-aged women?

For more, simply read the article and understand your food cravings.

Here are the week’s top health and fitness stories:

1. Middle class fuelling child obesity: Middle-class mothers who work are more likely to have obese children than mothers with poorer families, according to alarming new research published this week.
2. Private gym for teens aims to address obesity: Welcome to Overtime Fitness Inc., one of the nation’s only private gyms for teens.
3. Curry Spice Chemical Could Curb Alzheimer’s: A chemical found in curry (turmeric) may help the immune system clear away brain plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease, a new study suggests.
4. Intensive Vegetable-Fruit Diet Shows No Effect on Breast Cancer Return: Hopes that a diet low in fat and chock-full of fruit and vegetables might prevent the return of breast cancer have been dashed by a seven-year experiment in more than 3,000 women.
5. Fast food brands hit kids online: Fast food brands are getting around laws banning the promotion of unhealthy snacks online, research suggests.
6. 75 percent of Americans overweight by 2015: If people keep gaining weight at the current rate, fat will be the norm by 2015, with 75 percent of U.S. adults overweight and 41 percent obese, U.S. researchers predicted on Wednesday.
7. Hummus in the school cafeteria?: The dynamo treat? Single-serve portions of hummus and it may be coming to a school cafeteria near you.
8. Healthy weight link to longevity: Keeping a healthy weight may help people live longer by limiting brain exposure to insulin, say US scientists.
9. No love handles now? Just wait: How do you feel about gaining 10 to 20 pounds? Researchers say most Americans probably will within the next 10 years if they continue their current exercise and eating habits.
10. Take a bite out of your cravings: If you’ve ever found yourself not just wanting but needing a gooey slice of pizza, you know what it’s like to crave food.
11. Health: ‘Good Carbs’ Yield Newfound Benefits: Researchers are now linking bad carbs, said to rate high on the ‘glycemic index’, with health problems as dissimilar as acne and eye diseases.
12. Weight Training for Heart Disease: It’s no longer a no-no. Moderate weight training offers big benefits to people with heart disease, the American Heart Association says.
13. Hunger ‘links asthma and obesity’: Researchers say they may have worked out why the obese are more prone to asthma than those of normal weight.

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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The TV ads look simply amazing: a woman sitting on the floor and eating her cereal and explaining how easy it is for her to stay healthy. The secret, you ask? Why, she simply stuffs herself with Kellogg’s so-called “SmartStart” cereal every morning and she is sure to stop heart-disease right on its tracks.

Well, not so fast. Although Kellogg’s is one of a limited number of top “Breakfast Brands” like Quaker, General Mills or Kashi, it still lags far behind the rest in terms of healthful ingredients and is one of the biggest users of artificial sweeteners and trans fats in its products. Read on to know what these harmful artificial ingredients are and how they could be doing the heart more harm than good …

First take a look at the Kellogg’s Smart Start Healthy Heart Cereal’s Ingredient List and Nutrition Information: (adapted from the official website):

Isn’t it amazing that after everything you’ve heard and read about trans fats being bad for you and even recent news that High Fructose Corn Syrup being bad for your arteries, Kellogg’s continues to thumb its nose at you and other consumers and includes these ingredients in their high profile products. Note the presence of partially-hydrogenated soybean oil in the oat clusters and remember 0g trans-fat simply means that trans fats are between 0 and 0.5g. More than one serving a day and you are already increasing your risk for the heart-problems associated with trans fat consumption.

Also, while the good news is that SmartStart contains a very good fiber profile (5g total with both soluble and insoluble parts) and a healthy quantity (7g) of protein, watch out for the insulin rush as 17g of sugar invade your bloodstream from just one serving. It’s no surprise really since we have sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, molasses, honey, malt, corn syrup, polydextrose (you didn’t know that was a sweetener, now, did you?!), cinnamon and vanilla-flavor (count them - that’s 9!) all contributing to the product’s sweetness! Since when did we need this kind of a tongue-melter first thing in the morning?

It’s high time Kellogg’s stopped taking consumers for granted. It’s no surprise that all the women featured in the SmartStart website are holding onto their hearts (for dear life, I presume!) Fitness Mantra wishes their hearts the best of luck. If they are “Smart”, they will “Start” by dumping this cereal and grabbing some good old fashioned oatmeal or Cheerios and top it with a few nuts and berries. Now that is a breakfast that will actually do your heart some good!

Technorati Tags: Kellogg’s, SmartStart, breakfast, cereal

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