The shape of things

Hope everyone had a great and relaxing weekend. Here are some interesting articles I've found in the health-news world that I thought you may be interested in:

Don't use the D word to overweight teens - a new study found that teens who are overweight and are told to "diet" or who are teased by family and friends resort to eating disorder tactics like bingeing and purging. The researchers suggested that parents of overweight children should not tell their kids to diet since it's a stigmatizing word - instead they should promote a balanced lifestyle and start cooking some healthy family meals.

Confused about what to eat to lower cancer risk? Read this! - Self put together a list of tried and true foods that will lower your cancer risk (and won't change every other month with new research). Want to lower your risk? Eat HIGH fiber anything, a lot of Vitamin D and calcium and cruciferous veggies (like broccoli, brussel sprouts and kale).

Which jobs rank highest in rates of depression? Child care workers and elderly-care workers. Coming in at a close second is food-service workers. Another interesting finding was that those people who worked full time (in any industry) were less likely to be depressed. Read the article for some more interesting information.

Found a couple of interesting articles in the food and diet arena:

1. The Skinny on Spicy Foods: growing up in South Louisiana this article really hit home. It features several reasons why spicy foods are good for you. The good for you spices include red pepper, turmeric, curry and spices in chiles. 

Adding spices to your diet can curb hunger, strengthen muscles, boost your brainpower and improve mood, new research shows. Plus, you get instant big-time flavor for a few calories and nearly zero fat.

 Ready to reap the spicy benefits? Use these recipes that include those spices: Hot Pepper Chicken, Middle Eastern Lamb Burgers, Wolfgang Puck's curried Chicken Satay, and Jambasta.

 

2.  Can Drinking water make you skinny? Nope, sorry. Although it benefits every cell in your body, hydrates your skin, and improves your mood - but it doesn't help you lose weight.

Women's magazines and diet gurus have long promised that if you gulp a lot of water, you'll feel full and eat less, and the pounds will melt away. If only it were that easy. Unfortunately, that's one of the biggest diet myths out there.

But just because it won't make you skinny, still drink it! Especially if you replace water for your sugary-calorie-laden drinks like soda or fruit juice - then it could actually help you lose weight because you'll be taking in less calories.  

1. Eat one serving of whole grains a day and slash your risk for high blood pressure. The more whole grains you eat, the less risk you have. Read more about it.

My tip: When you're buying "whole-grain" products (like bread) make sure the first ingredient is WHOLE grains. Not "enriched whole grain"

2. We love our bottled water for its convenience and for the quality - but what is it doing to our environment? Read about how bottled water is now considered an "environmental villian"

My tip: Buy a Nalgene bottle (or some other water container) and use it instead of bottled water. If you want fresh filtered water get a Brita filter instead of buying Dasani.  

3. Training for a 10K or 5K? Make sure you add a lot of easy-runs to your training schedule. This recent study found that the runners who did mostly "easy runs" improved their times in a 10k significantly more than those who did "hard tempo runs." Read more.

My tip: If you're training for a race make sure you keep those easy runs in your training. It may seem better to run fast all the time, but this study shows that those long, steady easy runs are just as valuable.

4. Smoothie Joints are FINALLY starting to cut calories. A recent trend in the smoothie-industry is creating fruitful concoctions with less calories. Not sure if you're aware of this but those smoothies typically have a lot of sugar in them meaning a lot of calories. Based on consumer demand, the top smoothies chains (Jamba Juice, Smoothie King, Freshens) are creating smoothies for those of us who don't want to replace two meals with the creamy drinks. Read more here.  

My tip: Always, always, always check the nutrition info before ordering a smoothie. You could be shocked at what these "seemingly healthy" drinks contain. (For example a Banana Berry Jamba Juice smoothie has 450 calories, 1 g fat, 106 g carbs, Smoothie king's Banana Boat has 520 calories, 14 g fat and 93 g carbs) If these are one of your favorites order one and ask to put it in two cups - share with a friend or put the other in the freezer for later. 

(Was out of the office yesterday, hence no post, I'll make it up to you though!)

Today I found a bunch of great news in terms of food and diet information. I'm going to do this post in a "brief format" therefore we can cover all the info quickly.

1. Burger King will now use trans-fat free oil in all of their restaurants. Before they were only using trans-fat free oil in only hundreds of their 7,000+ restaurants. Great news. I don't personally eat at burger king, but for those who do, it won't be as much of a "waiting for a heart attack" now. Just watch those portions!

2. Seems like every few weeks we get yet another reason to keep on sipping that glass of wine a night - from preventing cancer, maintaining health and solving a bad case of diarrhea. New research found that wine is also good for your teeth and throat. Wine not only fights germs that cause dental plaque as well as sore throats. Drink up!

3. Well, whoever came up with the 100 calorie pack is most likely sitting on an exotic island sipping mojitos and basking in the fortune of her good idea. (I assume it's a woman.) These 100 calorie packs have only been around for three years and they have already surpassed the $20 million a year mark! Wow. I know I love them.

4. This is an interesting article about willpower and dieting. The author laments the fact that today obesity is seen as an environmental and social problem (with solving the problem by being like NYC and posting calorie counts or other "social answers"). Whatever happened to solving the problem on an individual basis with good ole' willpower guiding you to it?

5. This one is via Kyra. According to hungry-girl.com, today is Pina Colada Day. (I want their calendar, it's much more interesting than mine). Anyway, if you've never checked out this site, today is a great day to do it. Basically hungry-girl finds foods/drinks that we love (but that hate our waistline) and she comes up with recipes to make the item more diet and health-friendly. Today's item? You guessed it - a pina colada. She uses sugar free syrup and a packet of splenda but it saves you a whoppin' 400 calories! Yeah, I'll go sugar free any day.

I've found some more interesting health news that works best in the "brief" format.

1. The first one I'll feature is definitely my favorite: Wine may curb cavities! This study was done by Italian researchers, go figure... us Italians like our wine, right? Well now there may be yet another reason to keep drinking that one glass a night. Read the article for more info.
   
   
2. If you're one of the millions of Americans who suffer from chronic constipation, going to the drug store to get laxatives isn't the best way to treat your problem. Getting enough fluid in your body is way more important. This article outlines how much fluid is needed and why water could be the answer to your ailment.
   
   
3. Want to stop smoking? Need to lower your blood pressure? Want to start exercising more? New research shows that by tackling all these problems at once, you might have a better chance at successfully changing your behavior. Read about it here.
   
   
4. Pregnant? Eat your Omega-3s (found in fish like salmon, sardine, and tuna and fish oil) and it may hike your baby's IQ. It's funny though, because I though pregnant women should limit fish intake because of mercury levels?

And now this is just adorable. I saw it on FitSugar. Look at the picture below and guess who is happy with themselves for putting in a great workout... (Click on the picture to find out who it is!)

Find out who it is here. 

I found some interesting health-related articles today. I'll post briefly about a few of them:

1. Doctors now say that there are symptoms that point to ovarian cancer (in the past they thought you couldn't detect the cancer until later stages). If you or any of our loved ones experience these symptoms daily for a few weeks, please go to the doctor. Read an article about it.

Experts say these health problems may be symptoms of ovarian cancer:

• Bloating
• Pelvic or abdominal pain
• Difficulty eating or feeling full quickly
• Feeling a frequent or urgent need to urinate

2. This past weekend a teenager died of an overdose of muscle cream - the scariest part is that she didn't ingest it orally, she just used too much on her leg muscles following a grueling cross country training regime. Some doctors and experts are urging the FDA to require "BenGay" and "IcyHot" to have stronger labels that warn of this overdose (this is the first death they've ever documented from muscle cream). Currently the labels only say to stop using them if "condition worsens or symptoms persist for more than seven days." Read about it here.

 

3. An expert panel calls for pediatricians to stop using "fuzzy language" with obese children. The panel made recommendations that children and their family should be told that they have a medical condition and it is called obesity and the doctors should work with the families to help the children get to a healthy weight.

I agree. We need to stop sugar-coating this epidemic. If kids and their parents aren't told of the risks involved of being obese, they will continue to be obese into adulthood - most likely. This paragraph from the article was pretty shocking:

• "About 17 percent of U.S. children are obese and one-third are overweight, using the committee's recommended definitions. Those numbers are rising, putting children at risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol problems and other ailments more commonly found in adults" Read the article here.

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