Archive for the ‘Obesity’ tag
Junk Food for Kids
A study from the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that was released in 2008 showed that around a third of children were overweight, about a sixth were obese, and just over ten percent were extremely obese.
Meanwhile, the junk food companies have taken to pretending to claim they want children to make healthier food choices (as long as it’s one of their ‘healthier’ products of course).
Examples of such ‘healthy’ choices include diet soda, and packets of reduced fat chips!
The junk food manufacturers spend as much as ten billion dollars annually to get kids to eat junk food, meanwhile either promoting it as healthier choices, or minimizing the effects its consumption might have.
The purpose of all this advertising, is of course, to persuade kids they’d love to eat this stuff, which often isn’t hard to do, and also persuade parents that the ‘reduced fat’ version is somehow actually healthy for junior. The best thing many parents can do is to re-educate themselves on what foods are truly beneficial to their children, and then educate their children about this. It can truly be an uphill battle, when the junk food manufacturers, for all their clever words, really only have their bottom line as their concern, not kids health.
Is Obesity In Your Genes?
Professor Mike Gibney of the new Institute of Food and Health at University College, Dublin thinks it could well be.
He has taken the statistics and turned them around to show that most people are not in fact obese. Why is this? Did they live in a different area, go to different schools or eat different food to their obese counterparts?
No.
Studies on indentical twins have shown that they show huge overlap in their tastes, and also the amounts of food they eat, and the rate at which they eat it.
People aren’t simply choosing food based on income or a lack of education, but on similar choices to other family members, and not simply those they live with.
Professor Gibney also feels that physical exercise is important, and that we need to move our environments to encourage that.
Desks could be arrnage so that users can stand at them for periods of time, instead of being constantly seated, and also there could be communal exercise bikes in offices for example.
If food scientists have been finding so many ways to make more and more profits for food manufacturers at the expense of the consumer, then perhaps it’s time for science to work the other way around, and for the benefit of those that are actually eating the end product.
eyebee
