By TARA PARKER-POPE

New York Times, October 6, 2008

Most people are worried about the health of the economy. But does the economy also affect your health?

 It does, but not always in ways you might expect. The data on how an economic downturn influences an individual’s health are surprisingly mixed.

It’s clear that long-term economic gains lead to improvements in a population’s overall health, in developing and industrialized societies alike.

But whether the current economic slump will take a toll on your own health depends, in part, on your health habits when times are good. And economic studies suggest that people tend not to take care of themselves in boom times — drinking too much (especially before driving), dining on fat-laden restaurant meals and skipping exercise and doctors’ appointments because of work-related time commitments.

“The value of time is higher during good economic times,” said Grant Miller, an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford. “So people work more and do less of the things that are good for them, like cooking at home and exercising; and people experience more stress due to the rigors of hard work during booms.”

Similar patterns have been seen in some developing nations. Dr. Miller, who is studying the effects of fluctuating coffee prices on health in Colombia, says that even though falling prices are bad for the economy, they appear to improve health and mortality rates. When prices are low, laborers have more time to care for their children.

“When coffee prices suddenly rise, people work harder on their coffee plots and spend less time doing things around the home, including things that are good for their children,” he said. “Because the things that matter most for infant and child health in rural Colombia aren’t expensive, but require a substantial amount of time — such as breast-feeding, bringing clean water from far away, taking your child to a distant health clinic for free vaccinations — infant and child mortality rates rise.”

In this country, a similar effect appeared in the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression,according to a 2007 paper by Dr. Miller and colleagues in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The data seem to contradict research in the 1970s suggesting that in hard times there are more deaths from heart disease, cirrhosis, suicide and homicide, as well as more admissions to mental hospitals. But those findings have not been replicated, and several economists have pointed out flaws in the research.

In May 2000, the Quarterly Journal of Economics published a surprising paper called “Are Recessions Good for Your Health?” by Christopher J. Ruhm, professor of economics at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, based on an analysis measuring death rates and health behavior against economic shifts and jobless rates from 1972 to 1991.

Dr. Ruhm found that death rates declined sharply in the 1974 and 1982 recessions, and increased in the economic recovery of the 1980s. An increase of one percentage point in state unemployment rates correlated with a 0.5 percentage point decline in the death rate — or about 5 fewer deaths per 100,000 people. Over all, the death rate fell by more than 8 percent in the 20-year period of mostly economic decline, led by drops in heart disease and car crashes.

The economic downturn did appear to take a toll on factors having less to do with prevention and more to do with mental well-being and access to health care. For instance,cancer deaths rose 23 percent, and deaths from flu and pneumonia increased slightly. Suicides rose 2 percent, homicides 12 percent.

The issue that may matter most in an economic crisis is not related to jobs or income, but whether the slump widens the gap between rich and poor, and whether there is an adequate health safety net available to those who have lost their jobs and insurance.

During a decade of economic recession in Japan that began in the 1990s, people who were unemployed were twice as likely to be in poor health than those with secure jobs. During Peru’s severe economic crisis in the 1980s, infant mortality jumped 2.5 percentage points — about 17,000 more children who died as public health spending and social programs collapsed.

In August, researchers from the Free University of Amsterdam looked at health studies oftwins in Denmark. They found that individuals born in a recession were at higher risk for heart problems later in life and lived, on average, 15 months less than those born under better conditions.

Gerard J. van den Berg, an economics professor who was a co-author of the study, said babies in poor households suffered the most in a recession, because their families lacked access to good health care. Poor economic conditions can also cause stress that may interfere with parent bonding and childhood development, he said.

He noted that other studies had found that recessions can benefit babies by giving their parents more time at home.

“This scenario may be relevant for well-to-do families where one of the parents loses a job and the other still brings in enough money,” he said. “But in a crisis where the family may have to incur huge housing-cost losses and the household income is insufficient for adequate nutrition and health care, the adverse effects of being born in a recession seem much more relevant.”

In this country, there are already signs of the economy’s effect on health. In May, the market research firm Information Resources reported that 53 percent of consumers said they were cooking from scratch more than they did just six months before — in part, no doubt, because of the rising cost of prepared foods. At the same time, health insurancecosts are rising. With premiums and co-payments, the average employee with insurance pays nearly one-third of medical costs — about twice as much as four years ago, according to Paul H. Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.

In the United States, which unlike other industrialized nations lacks a national health plan, the looming recession may take a greater toll. About 46 million Americans lack health insurance, Dr. Keckley says, and even among the 179 million who have it, an estimated 1 in 7 would be bankrupted by a single health crisis.

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The economic downturn “is not good news for the health care industry,” he said. “There may be slivers of positive, but I view this as sobering.” 

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Rajiv Kumar, founder and chairman of Shape Up RI, announced today that Barbara Morse Silva, the Emmy Award-nominated health reporter for WJAR TV – NBC 10, has been named an honorary co-chair of the respected not-for-profit statewide wellness program.

 “We are proud that Barbara is joining Governor Donald Carcieri, Congressman Patrick Kennedy, First Lady Suzanne Carcieri, Representative Gordon Fox, Dr. Joseph Amaral, and WPRI-TV news anchor Karen Adams as a co-chair of our organization,” said Kumar.

 He went on to explain that, “Barbara, in her tenure as health reporter at Channel 10, has set the agenda for how the people of Rhode Island think about their health.  Her in-depth, eloquently presented reports on wellness issues continue to have a major positive impact on the people of our state.  She has been nominated for Emmy Awards three times, and she was a recipient of the American Heart Association’s First Annual Media Award for her series of report on the ‘Chain of Survival’ for heart attack victims.”

 Kumar added that Morse-Silva has been honored by the Rhode Island Black Nurses’ Association, Home and Hospice Care of Rhode Island, and the state’s Visiting Nurse Service, and remains active in the community and with a number of non-profit health organizations.

 “Barbara’s unwavering and tenacious commitment to good health for all Rhode Islanders mirrors the mission of Shape Up RI,” said Kumar.  “Her energy, creativity, and extraordinarily inspirational presence will prove invaluable to our efforts to encourage all Rhode Islanders to pursue a healthy lifestyle.”

Shape Up RI is a statewide exercise and weight loss challenge created by Kumar, a Brown Medical School student, who believes that the solution to our national obesity epidemic lies in the power of teamwork and peer support. This annual health campaign encourages Rhode Islanders to increase their physical activity and eat healthy. Participants compete on teams to see who can lose the most weight, log the most hours of physical activity, and walk the highest number of pedometer steps over a twelve week period. From January through May 2008, 12,012 Rhode Islanders from across the state competed on 1,300 teams and worked hard to pursue healthier lifestyles together. The outcome was astounding, with 39,000 pounds lost, 339,000 hours of exercise logged and 5.3 billion steps walked.

NBC 10 WJAR’s award-winning health and medical reporter Barbara Morse Silva reports in a Health Check report about Shape Up RI’s involvement with a local community center and bringing healthy walking habits to seniors. Video Link

By Steven Reinberg

HealthDay Reporter Thursday, July 17, 2008; 12:00 AM�

THURSDAY, July 17 (HealthDay News) — Despite wide-ranging efforts to encourage Americans to lose weight, the number of U.S. adults who are obese increased almost 2 percent between 2005 and 2007, a new report found.

In 2007, 25.6 percent of adults reported being obese, compared to 23.9 percent in 2005, according to the finding in the July 18 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’sMorbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.”The epidemic of adult obesity continues to rise in the United States, indicating that we need to step up our efforts at the national, state and local levels,” Dr. William Dietz, director of CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity, said in a news release. “We need to encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables, engage in more physical activity and reduce the consumption of high-calorie foods and sugar-sweetened beverages in order to maintain a healthy weight.”

 The percentage of adults who are obese varies by state and region, according to the report. For example, in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, 30 percent of the residents reported being obese, compared with 18.7 percent in Colorado, which had the lowest prevalence of obesity.Obesity was most prevalent in the South, with 27 percent of residents classified as obese.

In the Midwest, the number was 25.3 percent; in the Northeast, 23.3 percent; and in the West, 22.1 percent, according to the report.In terms of age, among those 50 to 59 years old, 31.7 percent of men and 30.2 percent of women were obese. For those 19 to 29, 19.1 percent of men and women were obese.Breaking the numbers down by race/ethnicity and sex, obesity prevalence was highest for non-Hispanic black women (39.0 percent), followed by non-Hispanic black men (32.1 percent).

Education levels play a role, too. For men, obesity prevalence was lowest among college graduates (22.1 percent) and highest among those with some college (29.5 percent) and a high school diploma (29.1 percent). For women, obesity prevalence was lowest among college graduates (17.9 percent) and highest among those with less than a high school diploma (32.6 percent).None of the states or the District of Columbia has met the “Healthy People 2010″ goal of reducing the prevalence of obesity to 15 percent or less, the CDC said.”Obesity is a major risk factor for a number of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. These diseases can be very costly for states and the country as a whole,” Deb Galuska, associate director for science at the CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity, said in a news release.

The CDC defines obesity as a body mass index (BMI, a ratio of weight to height) of 30 or above. An adult who is 5-feet, 9-inches tall is considered obese if he or she weighs 203 pounds.In compiling the data, the CDC used its Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which collected information on more than 350,000 adults through telephone interviews. The researchers calculated BMIs using information reported by survey participants.”These data from the CDC confirm that the epidemic of obesity continues to spread, whether looking at population trends in the short- or long-term,” said Howard D. Sesso, an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

The likelihood of America meeting the Healthy People 2010 objectives for obesity prevalence appears dim, Sesso said. “This report highlights the need not only to outright prevent the development of obesity over the life-course, but also to improve efforts to reduce body weight in those already classified as obese,” he said.

More information

For more on obesity, visit the CDC.SOURCES: Howard D. Sesso, Sc.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of medicine, Division of Preventive Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston; July 18, 2008, CDC,Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report

From BenefitNews

By Lydell C. Bridgeford

July 1, 2008

Employees with balanced diets have 10 times more energy, compared to workers with poor dietary habits, reports ComPsych Corp. in its 2008 Health & Productivity Index.

The index shows only 5% of employees with unbalanced diets had high levels of energy, while 50% of workers with balanced diets had high energy. “Energy is a key factor in productivity,” says Richard A. Chaifetz, chairman and CEO of ComPsych.

“Lack of energy is also one of the most common health-related complaints we hear from employees,” Chaifetz adds. “Given the connection between balanced diets and energy, organizations that promote healthy food as part of a comprehensive wellness program can expect to see a payoff in terms of productivity and performance.”

ComPsych, a Chicago-based provider of EAP and wellness programs, surveyed more than 1,000 employees across the United States from employers of all sizes and industries.

Key findings from the 2008 Health & Productivity Index include:

Among employees with healthy diets, 73% reported having high levels of productivity, compared to 24% of employees with poor dietary habits.

Fifty-one percent of ideal-weight employees had high morale, while less than half that amount – 25% - of very overweight employees had high morale levels.

Fifty-seven percent of healthy-weight employees reported high levels of productivity, while only 27% of very overweight employees reported being highly productive.

For a copy of the full report, send an e-mail to wellnessprograms@compsych.com.

Breakfast really could be the most important meal of the day when it comes to losing weight, claims a researcher.

BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7460729.stm 

Over several months, obese women who ate half their daily calories first thing fared better than those eating a much smaller amount.

US researcher Dr Daniela Jakubowicz told a San Francisco conference having a small breakfast could actually boost food cravings.

A UK expert said a big breakfast diet might simply be less boring.

Dr Jakubowicz, from Virginia Commonwealth University, has been recommending a hearty breakfast to her patients for 15 years.

She tested it against a low carbohydrate diet in a study of 96 obese and physically inactive women. This diet involved 1,085 calories a day - the majority of these coming from protein and fat.

Breakfast here was the smallest meal of the day - just 290 calories, with just seven grams of carbohydrates. Her “big breakfast” diet involved more calories - 1,240 - with a lower proportion of fat and more carbohydrates and protein. Breakfast here was 610 calories, with 58 grams of carbohydrates, while lunch and dinner were 395 and 235 calories respectively.

Four months on, the low-carb dieters appeared to be doing better, losing an average of 28 pounds to the 23 shed on the “big breakfast” diet. However, after eight months, the situation had reversed, with the low-carb dieters putting an average of 18 of those pounds back on, while the big breakfasters continued to lose weight, on average 16.5 pounds each. They lost a fifth of their total body weight on average, compared with less than 5% for the low-carb dieters.

Slower metabolism

Dr Jakubowicz reported that the big breakfasters said they felt less hungry, particularly in the mornings. She said: “Most weight loss studies have determined that a very low carbohydrate diet is not a good method to reduce weight. “It exacerbates the craving for carbohydrates and slows metabolism - as a result, after a short period of weight loss, there is a quick return to obesity.”

She said that the bigger breakfast helped by making people feel fuller during the day, and was healthier, because it allowed more fibre and fruit to be included.

Dr Alex Johnstone, from the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, said that other studies had shown that while low-carb diets were a “good tool” to reduce weight quickly, they were not a “diet for life”.

She said that the regaining of lost weight by these dieters could be more a sign of the relative monotony of the two diets, rather than their ability to necessarily reduce cravings.

“It could be that it is simply easier for people on a higher-carbohydrate diet to comply with it over a longer period.” 

A spokesman for the British Nutrition Foundation said there was evidence that a good-sized breakfast could help dieters. She said: “Research shows that eating breakfast can actually help people control their weight. “This is probably because when we don’t have breakfast we’re more likely to get hungry before lunch and snack on foods that are high in fat and sugar, such as biscuits, doughnuts or pastries.”

NYTimes.com - http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/boosting-health-with-local-food/

June 6, 2008,  9:27 am

The local food movement typically has been about improving the health of the planet. Buying locally means less fuel burned to transport food, which means less pollution.

But now researchers are trying to find out if eating locally farmed food is also better for your health.

A team of researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received a grant to study the public health impact of moving toward a local, sustainable food system. An increasingly vocal local food movement calls for consumers to try to buy and eat foods produced within 100 miles of their homes.

So far, there’s not real evidence that eating locally farmed food is better for you. But there are many reasons to think it might be. By definition, locally farmed food is not going to come from large commercial food companies, so people who eat locally aren’t going to consume as much processed food, which typically contains lots of refined carbohydrates, sugar, fat and preservatives.

By focusing your diet on products grown and raised within 100 miles of your home, you will likely end up eating more fruits and vegetables as well. Shopping for fruits and vegetables at farmers’ markets is also pleasurable and may lead to more variety in your diet. Eating local often means you can meet the people who produce your food, and you can also ask questions about pesticide use and farming methods.

The University of North Carolina study will last two years, and researchers say it will improve understanding of the health, environmental and economic issues associated with the local food trend. The study will look at the environmental benefits of transitioning to sustainable farming practices, determine whether there are nutritional and health benefits for consumers, and conduct an economic analysis of opportunities and barriers to local food systems.

“Among the most pressing public health problems in the U.S. today are obesity, environmental degradation and health disparities,” said Alice Ammerman, director of the U.N.C. Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. “Contributing in a big way to each of these problems is our current food system, with its heavy dependence on fossil fuels such as fertilizers, pesticides and gasoline for large-scale production and long distance transportation of often high-calorie, nutrient-poor food, from farm to processing facility to table.”

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Link to article  

People often ask Israel Vargas how he stays so thin. He’s 5 feet 11 and 156 pounds, and there’s a wistful tone in their question, a longing to be let in on his magical powers.

“I don’t think there are any secrets to it,” he says.

As he talks, he’s washing his pickup in front of the Phoenix home he shares with his parents and three brothers. Up since 6 a.m., he has just returned from four-wheeling. Still ahead are chores inside the house and in the yard and maybe a DJ gig at a party tonight.

Vargas, 19, is a community-college student and puts in about 50 hours a week doing electrical work.

“I can never stop and sit down,” he says. “I just can’t do it.”

And therein lies one of the “secrets” many naturally slim people and successful dieters have in common, traits even they don’t always recognize. Observe them for a while and you’re likely to notice it’s not just thin parents that have given them an advantage, but behaviors such as these:

They fidget

Thin people jiggle their knees, pace while talking on the phone and engage in other spontaneous physical activities that keep them as trim as structured exercise does.

Star Martin, 53, of Scottsdale, is up and down the stairs in her office building probably 10 times a day. She works on the fourth floor of the Safeway grocery chain’s accounting center and heads for the stairs because she doesn’t like sitting all day, she says.

In a 2005 study of NEAT, or non-exercise activity thermogenesis, physician James Levine and his research team at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., found that a person of normal weight sits 150 fewer minutes each day - and burns 350 more calories - than an obese person.

They exercise

Traditional exercise, especially in the morning, also is a big part of thin people’s daily routine.

Nedd Anderson, 22, rides his bike 3 miles to Mesa Community College every day, in addition to working out. Richard Wakefield, 68, of Tempe, starts his day with aerobics and weightlifting at a health club.

“You just get up and do it,” Wakefield says. “It’s what you do in the morning.”

The positive results of his and Anderson’s routines aren’t unusual. About 90 percent of successful dieters who were enrolled in the National Weight Control Registry exercise an hour a day, most often by walking, says NWCR co-investigator Suzanne Phelan.

The registry (www.nwcr.ws or 800-606-6927), based at Brown Medical School in Providence, R.I., is a database of almost 6,000 people who, on average, have lost 66 pounds and maintained the loss for 5 1/2 years.

They take responsibility

People who maintain a healthy weight after several diet attempts have assumed responsibility for themselves, says dietitian Anne Fletcher, author of Thin for Life: 10 Keys to Success From People Who Have Lost Weight and Kept It Off (Houghton Mifflin, 2003, $15 paperback). “They say, ‘I did it for me, not because somebody else was on my back.’ “

Similarly, Fletcher says, they understand it’s not selfish to take a day for themselves, to reward themselves with a manicure or a bubble bath and find pleasure in something other than food.

“They’ve learned that the relief food provides is short-lived,” she says.

They follow food rules

Establishing eating patterns - even if just for breakfast or lunch - helps keep people at healthy weights, says Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think (Bantam, 2007, $12 paperback).

That practice eliminates the internal debates as people face more than 200 food decisions every day, the question of whether to eat oatmeal or a cinnamon roll for breakfast or to order a salad or fries to accompany a fast-food burger.

“This is the good kind of mindless eating,” Wansink says. “You just never get in the habit of buying store-bought cookies, for example, or eating candy at the movie theater, so it’s not an issue.”

Other self-imposed food rules of the successful: Don’t take seconds, keep extra food out of easy reach and out of sight (in cupboards or opaque containers), avoid fast food and limit the number of choices.

That last habit helps them “avoid the buffet effect,” says Phelan, an assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown. “Basically, they’re pretty boring dieters. They don’t have a lot of variety in their diet (to tempt them to overeat), and they don’t change things up a lot.”

They eat breakfast

Almost 80 percent of NWCR members eat breakfast every day, usually cereal with skim milk and fruit. Slim people usually don’t skip other meals either, Phelan says, and they often enjoy two between-meal snacks. They’ve learned that letting themselves become hungry leads to overeating and bad food choices. But they keep portion sizes reasonable and concentrate on low-calorie, low-fat foods.

They don’t deprive selves

Thin people satisfy themselves with a small portion of a high-quality food they really like, taking time to savor it without distractions from TV or a book. Weight Watchers of Arizona says feeling deprived is one of the most common reasons dieters overindulge and have difficulty recovering from relapses.

They’re motivated

People who control their weight over the long-term tend to be more conscious of their health than their appearance. Martin, the Scottsdale woman, has varied from her high-school weight of 120 pounds by no more than five pounds over the years.

“My mother died of a heart attack at age 48, which has been my primary incentive to work on the areas over which I have control,” she says. Martin has now outlived her mother by five years.

They watch little TV

The average American watches 28 hours of TV a week, but weight maintainers in the NWCR registry watch fewer than 10 hours. They aren’t necessarily spending the extra time exercising, Phelan says, but they might be avoiding the snacking that often goes along with being a couch potato.

They monitor themselves

Successful dieters keep track of the food they eat and are ready with a specific action plan when the inevitable setback occurs, says dietitian Elizabeth Somer, author of 10 Habits That Mess Up a Woman’s Diet (McGraw Hill, 2006, $16.95).

Seventy-five percent of NWCR members weigh themselves at least once a week, so they can quickly nip a small weight gain in the bud.

They listen to cues

Thin people are likely to stop eating when they feel full or almost full, Wansink’s Mindless Eating research found. But heavier people rely on external cues, such as when the TV show they’re watching is over, to tell them to stop eating.

They stay upbeat

Unhappy people are more likely than happy people to reach for ice cream or potato chips for comfort, while people who maintain a healthy weight have learned to handle stress or down moods by calling a friend or going to the Y, dietitian-author Fletcher says.

Tiffany Weis, 40, of Mesa, credits a good circle of associates for helping to keep her positive, motivated and fit.

“I have consciously surrounded myself with uplifting, supportive people, which has made a huge difference for staying on track,” she says.

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By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ Providence Phoenix

April 2, 2008 4:55:04 PM

Many of us may think about increasing our intake of olive oil just by pouring a bit more on our salads. Dr. Mary Flynn, a nutritionist at Miriam Hospital, is an enthusiastic advocate for using olive oil whenever and wherever you can in your cooking. During a workshop sponsored last week by Shape UP RI, she pointed out how flavorful and satisfying a stir-fried rice or pasta dish of fresh or frozen vegetables becomes when plenty of olive oil is used in the sauté.

She described using olive oil in baking (the flavor doesn’t come through), as a dip for fresh bread instead of margarine or butter, and as the oil of choice when doing any frying, even eggs, French toast or pancakes.

As she talked about her work with women who have had breast cancer, Flynn stir-fried chopped celery, mushrooms, and spinach in olive oil before adding cooked brown rice to the mixture. She noted that “vegetarian meals taste okay, but they don’t always taste great and they leave people feeling hungry.”

Flynn emphasized that adding four tablespoons of olive oil per day to a plant-based diet makes it more satisfying.

“This is not a low-fat diet,” she noted. “But the recipes are big and bulky with grains and vegetables.”

She touted the practice of using frozen vegetables — “because they’re always there” — and even canned, for tomatoes and beans. She said that most people who didn’

t like spinach or broccoli as a child have never tried it again, but when they cook those veggies with plenty of olive oil, they are delighted by them. She praised whole grains and whole-grain pasta as having more flavor, allowing smaller portions to quench appetites.

And she listed some of the direct health benefits of olive oil: “It makes insulin work better. It breaks up clots, reduces inflammation, reduces blood pressure. One of the studies showed that the more olive oil you have, the less likely you are to get breast cancer.”

Flynn explained that she became interested in the results of the “seven-country study” (Finland, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the US, Yugoslavia) in the mid-’80s that showed the dramatic results of eating a diet rich in olive oil and red wine, and low in meat. Flynn prefers to call it “flesh,” to make it sound less appetizing, and she stressed that this category includes chicken and fish, not just “red meat.”

“Our need for protein has been exaggerated — you get some protein from the starch and the vegetables, and you gain weight if you have too much protein,” Flynn explained. “Red meat is related to cancer, especially if it’s blackened. It’s like nicotine; it starts cancers. Grilled veggies don’t have that same carcinogenic property.”

Flynn also said that “eggs and dairy are okay — there’s no relation to disease” and “there’s nothing wrong with butter.” She pointed out that “wine calories work different than juice calories — with juice, there’s an increase in weight, but with wine, there’s not. With wine, there’s less heart disease. Red wine is healthy because of the red skins, and red wine from the East Coast has the most salicylic acid in it, the active ingredient in aspirin.”

So, the Italians, Greeks, and French must have been onto something, with bottles of red wine refilled at the local taverna and eggs deep-fried in olive oil.

“I think of olive oil as a medicinal food,” Flynn concluded. “Hunger and appetite are different, but if you put fat into things in the meal, most people aren’t hungry.”

And most people at last week’s workshop polished off the plates of brown rice with veggies and plenty of olive oil that capped the presentation. Say goodbye to “flesh”and low-fat diets; say hello to extra virgin olive oil with lots of veggies.

Shade Up RI, the weight-loss/exercise/nutrition program, was launched in the winter of 2006, the brainchild of Brown University medical student Rajiv Kumar, who was concerned about the obesity epidemic in America. This year’s 12-week program began February 4 and will wrap up with a Wellness Fair on May 10. Flynn will repeat her workshop, “The Wonders of Olive Oil,” on April 9 from 6 to 7 pm at the Education Exchange, Room 214, Stedman Government Center, Wakefield.

Check shapeupri.org for more information about the program and for recipes from Dr. Flynn

By MIKE STOBBE 

AP Medical Writer ATLANTA (AP) - If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, then Mars is a land where the refrigerators are stocked with meat and frozen pizza and Venus has a bounty of yogurt, fruits and vegetables, a new study suggests.The study of eating habits of adults _ called the most extensive of its kind _ was a telephone survey of 14,000 Americans. It confirmed conventional wisdom that most men eat more meat than women, and women eat more fruits and vegetables.But there were a few surprising exceptions: Men were much more likely to eat asparagus, brussels sprouts, peas and peanuts. They also were bigger consumers of frozen pizzas, frozen hamburgers and frozen Mexican dinners.Women are more likely than men to eat eggs, yogurt and fresh hamburgers.Men also showed a little more of an appetite for runny eggs and undercooked hamburgers _ two foods that health experts say carry a higher chance of contamination that can make you sick.Women were more likely than men to eat only one risky food, raw alfalfa sprouts, which in the past 15 years have been linked to outbreaks of food poisoning.The survey was done in 10 states, a collaboration between state and federal health officials. The results were presented Wednesday by Dr. Beletshachew Shiferaw, an Oregon health official, at a meeting of infectious disease experts in Atlanta.Shiferaw said she could not explain some of the odder findings, like why men eat more asparagus than women.The survey may help health educators better target public health messages about healthy eating, she said.Earlier this week at the same meeting, federal researchers reported that the proportion of foodborne illness outbreaks linked to leafy green vegetables has been growing.The researchers analyzed 10,000 foodborne outbreaks from 1973 through 2006. Leafy greens were blamed for about 2 percent of outbreaks in the first 10 years, 4 percent in the second decade and 6 percent in the third.That rise far outpaced the percentage increases in how many greens Americans ate during that time, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers.___On the Net:International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases: http://www.iceid.orgCopyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 

By ELIZABETH LEECox News Service

If you’re reading this over a bowl of bran cereal with raisins and skim milk, feeling smug about your healthy diet, well, maybe you shouldn’t be so sure of yourself.

What about those added sugars hidden in the cereal? Will you eat any more fruit for the rest of the day? And how does that big slice of stuffed-crust pizza on the lunch menu fit into a balanced diet?

Starting this week, you can get answers online from a free, interactive planner designed to help Americans eat more healthfully. The program, called MyPyramid Menu Planner, lets you evaluate up to a week’s worth of meals and snacks. It’s at www.mypyramid.gov.

It’s like a customized diet adviser, calculating calorie needs and a balanced eating plan based on weight, height, age and activity level. MyPyramid, the consumer guide to federal nutritional advice, provides the foundation. 

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“As an audience member at Saturday’s Shape Up RI kick-off (and first-time participant in the program), I’d like to thank Dr. Katz for the inspirational speech. By the show of hands among the 900+ participants in the room, we are in overwhelming numbers parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents. We have a right to be concerned about the direction of our nation’s health and the future of our nation’s children.

I’m grateful that Rajiv Kumar made the Shape Up RI program possible, and that folks like me (captain of a terrific team of eight!) are finally getting involved. What struck me most was Dr. Katz’s quote by anthropologist Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” He then concluded his keynote speech with a plea to shape up ourselves, shape up Rhode Island, and shape up the world. It will take baby steps to get there, but it can be done!

I’ve racked up a good 3,000 steps toward that goal this morning alone, and I appreciate the motivation of people like Dr. Katz and Rajiv Kumar who envision and end to our couch-potato society.”

Thanks for the generous comments by HigherEdHero on Prevention Magazine’s blog, March 4, 2008

Why Don’t The French Get As Fat As Americans, Considering All The Baguettes, Wine, Cheese, Pate And Pastries They Eat?
18 Feb 2008  

Because they use internal cues — such as no longer feeling hungry — to stop eating, reports a new Cornell study. Americans, on the other hand, tend to use external cues — such as whether their plate is clean, they have run out of their beverage or the TV show they’re watching is over.

“Furthermore, we have found that the heavier a person is — French or American — the more they rely on external cues to tell them to stop eating and the less they rely on whether they felt full,” said senior author Brian Wansink, the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab in the Department of Applied Economics and Management, now on leave to serve as executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion until January 2009.

The new study, an analysis of questionnaires from 133 Parisians and 145 Chicagoans about how they decide when to stop eating, is being published in the journal Obesity and is being presented this later month at an the Winter Marketing Educators conference.

“Over-relying on external cues to stop eating a meal may prove useful in offering a partial explanation of why body mass index [a calculation based on the relationship of weight to height] varies across people and potentially across cultures,” said co-author Collin Payne, a Cornell postdoctoral researcher. He stressed that further studies should following up with smoking behavior and socio-economic differences as well. “Relying on internal cues for meal cessation, rather than on external cues, may improve eating patterns in the long term.

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Wansink, author of “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think,” also conducted the study with Pierre Chandon, a marketing professor at INSEAD, an international business school in France.

World Leaders Challenged To Agree A Global Pact On Obesity And Healthy Nutrition At AAAS Conference In Boston
19 Feb 2008  

Obesity must be tackled in the same way as climate change with world leaders agreeing to vital steps to transform the environment that is making us fat, a leading international nutritional scientist warned. (Sunday Feb 17 2008)

Speaking to the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, Prof Philip James said that governments, industry and all sectors of society need to ‘buy in’ to the global strategies essential to combat the devastating health consequences of the obesity epidemic.

There was a tremendous synergy between the measures and urgency needed to tackle climate change the focus of this year’s World Health Day on April 7 and the pressing need to transform the environment for diet and physical activity.

“We need to prioritise world agricultural production to make the best use of our limited resources, to increase the supply of locally sourced fresh foods particularly fruit and vegetables. Climate change will inevitably impact on agricultural production everywhere, affecting both water supply and the variety and quality of crops that can be grown in different parts of the world.

“Much of the present high calorie density food production has a massive carbon footprint and requires wasteful amounts of energy and water. If we are to feed the world 8 billion people in just 20 years time with a healthy diet, we need to deliver a rescue plan for the planet not just to address global warming, but to ensure we have sufficient healthy food to feed everyone.”

Click here to read more.

Please join us for “The Economics of Obesity,” an informative, free lecture and discussion of the looming costs and consequences of this growing epidemic on our personal financial health and on our nation.

The Economics of Obesity
Dr. John H. Cawley
Associate Professor, College of Human Ecology, Cornell University

Thursday, February 28, 2008, 12 noon to 1 p.m.
Rhode Island Hospital, George Auditorium

SIGN UP: shapeupri.org (click on CALENDAR) or call (401) 421-0608

Please respond soon as seating for this free event is limited to 175.

All attendees are eligible to win a one year membership to Gold’s Gym!

On SparkRecipes.com you can:

• Calculate the nutritional values of your own recipes
• Edit recipes you have submitted
• Search for healthy recipes
• Browse by multiple categories, including meal type, ethnicity, and dietary needs
• Rate and comment on recipes
• Use your recipe box to access recipes you’ve submitted, rated, and added as a favorite

Click here to visit www.sparkrecipes.com today!

01:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 3, 2008
By Felice J. Freyer
The Providence Journal Journal Medical Writer

It’s only a matter of time before heart disease “joins acne as an adolescent rite of passage,” said Dr. David L. Katz, syndicated columnist, television correspondent and authority on nutrition and weight control. Already, Katz said, he knows of a 17-year-old who underwent a triple bypass surgery.

Katz, the keynote speaker at the Shape Up Rhode Island kickoff celebration yesterday, described the signposts pointing to this troubling future. Children are eating too much of the wrong foods and not getting enough physical activity. As a result, type 2 diabetes — formerly a disease of middle age — is becoming prevalent among children.

Diabetes is such a strong predictor of heart disease that doctors are now advised to assume that their diabetic patients also have cardiovascular problems. So, Katz explained, with type 2 diabetes afflicting children, heart disease must be next.

Katz doesn’t believe government figures that say one child in five is obese. Based on his own observations, he thinks about half of all children are too fat. Meanwhile, obesity has already taken a measurable toll on adults, to the point that recent reductions in heart-disease deaths are at risk of being reversed.

Katz was perhaps preaching to the choir yesterday. The several hundred people in the audience at the Providence Place Cinemas had all signed up for a fitness program that has attracted 11,000 people to its third season. Each participant joins a team for a 12-week competition in which teams try to lose the most weight, exercise the most hours, or log the most pedometer steps — or any combination of those.

But while everyone there already wanted to get in shape, Katz saw their goals in broader terms. “This is an incredible movement,” he said. “This is a public health mission of the very first order.”

He likened efforts to fight obesity to piling sandbags to repair a broken levee. It takes a lot of sandbags to hold back the water. Each Shape Up RI team throws down a sandbag, and influences everyone who knows them to do the same.

“Let them be inspired by your example,” Katz said, “and you just may end up shaping up the world.”

Shape Up RI was founded in 2006 by a Rajiv Kumar, a Brown University medical student who was concerned about the preventable illnesses linked to obesity. The first 12-week competition attracted 1,800 participants. Last year 7,000 participated. This year, 11,000 have signed up. Both Governor Carcieri and Health Director David R. Gifford appeared at yesterday’s kickoff event.

Ray Rickman, Shape Up RI senior consultant, said that this year, Shape Up has teams from every city and town in Rhode Island. “Little Block Island has three teams of 11 each,” he said.

Among those in the audience was Colleen McMichael, 39, of Cumberland, leader of a nine-member team from a mothers’ group in Cumberland. “Let’s get healthy,” she says she told her pals, “because pool season is coming.”

First-time participants in Shape Up RI, they’re competing in both the exercise and weight-loss divisions. McMichael hopes to lose 30 pounds through walking and working out with a kettlebell (a large, heavy ball with a handle), and she thinks the team members “will help motivate each other.”

We are getting ready for an exciting Opening Celebration on Saturday, February 2 at 11AM at Providence Place Showcase Cinemas.

CASTER’S BICYCLES & FITNESS has just donated an amazing grand door prize!

One lucky attendee will be randomly selected to receive the following gift:

A Specialized GLOBE Bicycle.

You can be the envy of your team by coming to the Opening Celebration and winning this exciting door prize! Our opening event is free to attend and open to the general public.

The donation is from CASTER’S BICYCLES & FITNESS. 
3480 Post Road
Warwick, RI  02886
401.739.0393   www.bikeri.com

We thank owner Reed Caster for his generosity to Shape Up RI and for making a contribution to help make Rhode Island a healthier place!

To learn more about Caster’s, please visit www.BikeRI.com

Here’s what Specialized has to say about their bike:

Riding and saving money while saving resources…now, that’s a better energy policy. You don’t need a scientific study to know that riding a bike feels fantastic. You’ve also figured out that riding a bike while your car sits idle in your driveway doesn’t only feel better, it also helps to battle some of the world’s biggest ills, including pollution, traffic congestion, obesity and energy consumption. So, we’ve designed the Globe to be fast-rolling, yet ergonomically friendly and stable.

Features:

The advice is as sound as it is familiar: avoid smoking, exercise, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, drink alcohol if you want (but not too much). Now researchers have figured out exactly how many years these habits will add to your life.

Stuart Goldenberg

An 11-year study, published Jan. 8 in PLoS Medicine, began with interviews of more than 25,000 men and women ages 45 to 79 in the English county of Norfolk. The researchers gathered information on health and illness, smoking, alcohol consumption and physical activity both in manual work and at leisure. The participants also had physical exams and blood tests to determine vitamin C levels as evidence of fruit and vegetable consumption.

Using this data, the researchers built a simple 0-to-4 scale that indicated how many of the four behaviors each person habitually engaged in — one point each for not smoking, exercising, drinking moderately and eating the proper amounts of fruits and vegetables.

The trend was unmistakable: with each added positive behavior, people lived longer. Those who scored 4 had about one-quarter the risk of dying of those who received a 0 — equivalent to living an additional 14 years. The trend was strongest for cardiovascular disease and cancer, but also significant for other causes.

“We’re not talking about extremes of behavior,” said Dr. Kay-Tee Khaw, the lead author and a professor of gerontology at the University of Cambridge, “but easy behaviors that most people can achieve.”