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.

Like Yogi Berra would say, “It’s deja vu all over again”! Last year, almost to the date, I reported that adult obesity increased in 31 states with Mississippi being the most unhealthy at 29.5% of adults obese and Colorado the healthiest with 16.9%. Fast forward one year and nothing much has changed at all! Trust For America, the non-profit, non-partisan organization which has made it its mission to prevent epidemics be it diabetes, cancer or even obesity, is back in the news again.

Their annual report “F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America” is out for 2007 (PDF - 2.06MB ) and surprisingly even the headline is the same: Obesity has increased in 31 states - again. And not a single state reduced its obesity rate. Ten of the top fifteen states are from the south and while various reasons can be offered for this (the Southerners loooove their gravy!), one cannot - and should not - shy away from the most probable of those reasons - poverty:

Poverty and obesity often go hand in hand, doctors say, because poor families stretch their budgets by buying cheaper, processed foods that have higher fat content and lower nutritional value.

- Why obesity is so high in the South

This correlation between poverty and obesity is also something I spoke about last year and not much has changed (if anything it has gotten worse - Mississippi is now past the 30% mark and at this rate a full third of its adults will likely be obese in a few short years!

CalorieLab has the whole gory scene on a map (smaller version on right). Click it for an enlarged view and more details from the CalorieLab website.

After you figure out where your state stands (my home-state of Connecticut ranks 46th with 20.1% of adults obese), check out these other top health and fitness stories of the week:

1. Tips to build muscles mass at any age: If you think 20 to 30 minutes of cardio a few days a week is all you need to keep your health in check over the next few decades, it’s time to wake up and smell the iron.
2. Meals Offer New Details To Digest: Loudoun County’s school cafeteria food is about to get a closer inspection from parents this year, as the school system publishes ingredients for every item on the menu.
3. Having a hot flash? Flaxseed can help: Flaxseed’s popularity is certainly heating up. A small study has found that eating the grain can decrease hot flashes in postmenopausal women.
4. High blood sugar ups death risk in leukemic: High blood sugar levels increase the rate of in-hospital deaths by nearly 40 percent in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
5. Diet starts Monday, right?: There’s something about weekends that sends caution - and calories - to the wind.
6. Why obesity is so high in the South: Mississippians need to skip the gravy, say no to the fried pickles and start taking brisk walks to fight an epidemic of obesity
7. Obesity rising across the United States, study finds: For the third straight year, Mississippi is the fattest state and Colorado the leanest, but the obesity rate is increasing everywhere, a new report says.
8. Treating mom’s diabetes may keep baby trim: The research found that the higher the mother’s blood sugar levels, the greater the child’s risk of being obese by age 5 to 7, even if the mother wasn’t diagnosed with diabetes.
9. Dunkin Donuts going zero grams trans fat: Dunkin’ planned to announce Monday that it has developed an alternative cooking oil and reformulated more than 50 menu items - doughnuts included.

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Have a great weekend!

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

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You’ve always heard that pictures speak a 1000 words, but the ones you are going to see today speak … 200 calories! Wisegeek, a site that claims to provide “clear answers for common questions”, has one of the most interesting and informative pages I have seen in a long time.

Ever wondered “What Do 200 Calories Look Like?” Just take a look at the page which displays 200 calories worth of a variety of foods ranging from (platefuls of) carrots and broccoli all the way to (miniscule amounts of) peanut-butter and canola oil.

I could write reams and reams or talk till I am blue in the face about things like Calorific Density, Volumetrics and how different foods carry different calorific payloads. But along comes a simple page describing it all visually - one that will open your eyes like no other.

The whole topic of volumetric seems to be quite popular in the weight-loss circuit right now (just last month I wrote about how Energy-Density And Volumetrics Can Help You Lose Weight) and this would be a good time to familiarize yourself with the concept. In a nutshell, Volumetrics focuses on encouraging dieters to eat more lower calorie-dense foods like fruits and vegetables while avoiding higher calorie-dense foods like sweets, cookies, pastries and doughnuts. Your stomach has a fixed volume and, as the author of the concept explains, you don’t feel full once you reach your calorie intake level for the meal - you feel full when your stomach feels full!

Just look at these two examples from the 200 Calories web-site and you’ll see what I mean:

Both those plates have 200 calories, but I don’t even have to begin to tell you which of those plates will make you feel full when you eat its contents (if you can even finish all those carrots in one sitting!). If you chose the muffin, you would be looking for more to eat because your stomach is not going to signal fullness to your brain after just 72g of food; but when you finish those 570g of carrots, trust me - your brain will know and you will stop - right at 200 calories, about where you want to be for a snack!

Once you look at What 200 Calories Look Like, you can read more about Volumetrics at WebMD’s “Volumetrics Eating Plan: What It Is” or get the book “The Volumetrics Eating Plan“.

Here’s to being less (calorie) dense about food!

Technorati Tags: health, fitness, nutrition, volumetrics diet, calorific density, weight loss

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