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Chain Restaurants Push Healthier Fare - WSJ.com

We knew it had to happen.

Chain restaurants are started to watch the portions.

I predict more and more restaurants will switch to healthier menus and gain more customers as a result.

The rightsizing of America has begun.

Chain Restaurants Push Healthier Fare - WSJ.com

Fast food fresh and green

Will America support a fast-food restaurant using local fresh ingredients, and a place designed to be green?

We hope so:

Amanda’s Feel Good Fresh (Fast) Food

Posted using ShareThis.

Unhealthy baseball habits strike out

First the designated batter. Then inter-league play. But now. Baseball players eating healthy. Where have you gone, Babe Ruth?

From the Wall Street Journal:

The doughnuts, fried chicken and candy bars that have long populated baseball's clubhouses—where players eat the majority of their meals—are being banished. Read more..

For Ohio schools ignorance is bliss

In Ohio the law mandates education down to the smallest detail. But when it comes to health education, especially good food choices, Ohio schools remain silent. Some think it's because you say the word "health" education and you are thinking about sex. And of course in Ohio, it's forbidden to talk about sex in schools. Who would have thought it's illegal to talk about obesity in Ohio's schools?

From Krista Ramsey in Cincinnati.com:

With health such a hot-potato topic, schools focused their attention elsewhere. The solar system is safe; so is tornadic activity, igneous rock and probably even greenhouse gases.

But the care and construction of the human body doesn't come up much. In fact, educators say words such as body and lifestyle choices are buzzwords that set off alarms. Start talking about this body business, and sooner or later somebody's going to mention s-e-x.

So to spare adults that controversy, Ohio schoolchildren have been shortchanged on information about nutrition, contagious disease, basic anatomy, mental health and responsible habits.

And we wonder why they can't see that Blazing Hot Cheetos and a Mountain Dew are not a reasonable lunch.

Fat chance: obesity will cost you $1,400 every year

Today, it is estimated that $79,438 million dollars is spent due to obesity in the United States. With the projected increase in obesity levels, this will increase to $343,866 million dollars in 2018 or about ($1,425 dollars per adult in the United States.

Find out how your state ranks according to UnitedHealth Foundation: Obesity by State.

No need for abortions in Oklahoma

I'm always amazed by the ironic.

Isn't ironic that the Republicans opposing health care represent the least healthy state?

Isn't ironic that the states opposing abortions the most have the highest infant mortality rate?

In Oklahoma it's OK to be Republican and unhealthy:

Oklahoma ranks 49th in the nation in the health outcomes of its citizens — ahead of only Mississippi — and 5,320 lives are lost each year because the state does not meet the national average in health outcomes, officials said as they unveiled the Oklahoma Health Improvement Plan.

"We find that unacceptable," said Barry L. Smith, president of the Oklahoma State Board of Health.

And it's not just fat Republicans dying early, it's innocent Independents:

Nationally, 6.6 out of every 1,000 newborns die before they reach their first birthday, but in Oklahoma the ratio is 8.8 per 1,000 newborns, Crain said.

The cynic in me would say let the Republicans have their way. In the end there will be a lot less of them.

Are Americans food illiterate?

I recognize there are several paths to tackling a complex problem of American obesity. Here are several interesting points of view.

The Economist magazine recently debated whether governments should take a stronger role in guiding food and nutrition choices.

Kelly Brownell, Professor of Psychology at Yale University argues, three major food issues face the world. Local, national, and global governing authorities must take bold and innovative action to avoid catastrophic health consequences, political upheaval, and political and financial instability around the globe. Read more...

Of course on the opposition is Melanie Leech Director General of the Food and Drink Federation.

She counters that the food and drink industry shares society's concerns about the health of the nation, particularly rising obesity levels, and it is committed to playing a positive role in responding to this vital debate.

...the government is often not best placed to deliver such strategies. Its priority should be to develop a stable long-term policy and regulatory framework which harnesses rather than impedes both the wealth of knowledge the industry has about consumer needs and behaviour, and the power of industry and other players to invest and innovate to deliver the strategic objectives. Read more...

The cynical public -- especially the British public -- has a different view of American obesity: Let them eat cake. Here's a recent post.

Dear Sir,

"46% of the U.S. population are functionally illiterate"

If people are realy [sic] so dumb, shouldn't we let natural selection deal with them, for improvement of the future of the species? Eating himself to death is much more pleasant than being eaten by sabre-toothed tiger.

No calories for this pizza

Just hard to believe.

Customers are complaining to California Pizza about putting calorie information on the menus. So immediately California Pizza is taking that information off the menu.

Read Twirlit.com:

California Pizza Kitchen, a Los Angeles based pizza and pasta chain, has been voluntarily listing their calorie counts since July 1, but recently dropped the extra information after customers complained. The information is available on the website, so technically they are still in compliance–for now.

In an article for the LA Times, Larry Flax, co-chief executive at CPK said, “You have to look at the restaurant business as entertainment. Why make the customer feel guilty?” He then went on to say that “people kept getting mad” because they didn’t understand that a state law mandates that chain restaurants provide this type of information to customers.

Healthy enough to graduate from college?

Should you have to be healthy to graduate from college? Lincoln University says, yes!

From CNN.com:

Students at Lincoln University with a body mass index of 30 or above, reflective of obesity, must take a fitness course that meets three hours per week. Those who are assigned to the class but do not complete it cannot graduate.

Now that the first class to have this requirement imposed is nearing graduation day -- students who entered in the fall of 2006 -- the school faces criticism from both students and outsiders about the fitness class policy.

One of those students is Tiana Lawson, 21, whose recent editorial in the student paper has drawn national attention to the issue. Lawson wrote in The Lincolnian that she would be more understanding if the requirement applied to everyone. She thinks all students, not just those with a high BMI, should have to take the class. Read more...

Perfect Health Storm

The perfect storm has started. Throw together fast foods, processed sugar, and 21st century super-sized portions and what do you get? Obesity, hypertension and heart disease spinning out of control and the result is a trillion dollar health-care headache.

From the New York Times:

A study in the January-February 2009 issue of the journal Health Affairs concluded that 75 percent of the country’s $2.5 trillion in health care spending has to do with four increasingly prevalent chronic diseases: obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Most cases of these diseases, the report stated, are preventable because they are caused by behaviors like poor diets, inadequate exercise and smoking.

Obesity alone threatens to overwhelm the system. In a recent study, Kenneth Thorpe, chairman of the department of health policy and management at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, found that if trends continued, annual health care costs related to obesity would total $344 billion by 2018, or more than 20 percent of total health care spending. (It now accounts for 9 percent.)

Dr. Thorpe also said that if the incidence of obesity fell to its 1987 level, it would free enough money to cover the nation’s uninsured population

What's one thing companies can do to stop the spiraling costs?

In home offices around Boston, a shoestring operation of three full-time employees is working on an unusual answer to that question. As the wrangling over trillion-dollar price tags continues on Capitol Hill, a start-up company called the Full Yield is undertaking its own version of health care reform by using a simple, low-tech premise: Eat healthier food and you’ll become healthier

.

Read more on how your company can help you become healthier.

Too fat to fail

Our health system is about to fail because of obesity. USA Today reports fat will cost Americans $344 billion dollars.

If Americans continue to pack on pounds, obesity will cost the USA about $344 billion in medical-related expenses by 2018, eating up about 21% of health-care spending, says the first analysis to estimate the future medical costs of excess weight.

"Obesity is going to be a leading driver in rising health-care costs," says Kenneth Thorpe, chairman of the department of health policy and management at Emory University in Atlanta. Thorpe did this special analysis on obesity for America's Health Rankings, the 20th annual assessment of the nation's health on a state-by-state basis.

"There is a tsunami of chronic preventable disease about to be unleashed into our medical-care system which is increasingly unaffordable," says Reed Tuckson of United Health Foundation, sponsor of the report with the American Public Health Association and Partnership for Prevention. Read more...

Go outside to hear heart attacks

Drive through any neighborhood. Listen for the sounds of children playing. Can't hear anything. Then you are listening to future heart attacks.

"Now you can drive through entire neighborhoods where you know there are a lot of young kids there and hardly see any of them out," says Russell Pate, an American Heart Association spokesman.

Pate and other childhood obesity experts say more American youths are becoming obese because so many are addicted to television, video games, testing and fast food.

Obesity experts say the rise in childhood obesity isn't new.

The prevalence of overweight children and adolescents between ages 6 and 19 has tripled since 1970, a 2007 New England Journal of Medicine study found.

"Our study suggests that more of these young adults will have heart disease when they are 35-50 years old, resulting in more hospitalizations, medical procedures, need for chronic medications, missed work days and shortened life expectancy," said Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, lead author of the study. Read more on CNN.com...

Are kids smarter than a restaurant owner?

Are kids too sophisticated for restaurants? And are restaurants too unhealthy for kids?

The Boston Globe points out in today's edition that our kids are much more knowledgeable and adventurous than ever before. But look at the kid's menu at any restaurant: it's full of chicken nuggets, spaghetti and grilled cheese.

My picky-eating son often skips the kid's menu. In Newport he ordered the lobster. On the Cape it's calamari. In our home town it's mussel Gorgonzola.

Let's outlaw those damn chicken nuggets, and get real food on the kid's menu.

The obvious problem with children’s menus is their nutritional value. Offerings are often high in fat, sodium, and sugar. “Most kids’ menus don’t even come with a vegetable,’’ says Allison Lauretti, lead clinical psychologist in the Optimal Weight for Life Program at Children’s Hospital Boston, which evaluates and treats children who are overweight. “When we go out to dinner, we have to order a vegetable off the regular menu to give to the kids.’’ Read more...

Hide your eyes: The High Price of Cheap Food

Don't look away. I know you are eating your Sunday breakfast. But do you know how expensive that slice of bacon is? What about that hamburger this afternoon? And the steak tonight?

What does it take to raise cheap bad food in America?

Time Magazine gets real and tells you the truth. Don't look away; you need to read this.

Somewhere in Iowa, a pig is being raised in a confined pen, packed in so tightly with other swine that their curly tails have been chopped off so they won't bite one another. To prevent him from getting sick in such close quarters, he is dosed with antibiotics. The waste produced by the pig and his thousands of pen mates on the factory farm where they live goes into manure lagoons that blanket neighboring communities with air pollution and a stomach-churning stench. He's fed on American corn that was grown with the help of government subsidies and millions of tons of chemical fertilizer. When the pig is slaughtered, at about 5 months of age, he'll become sausage or bacon that will sell cheap, feeding an American addiction to meat that has contributed to an obesity epidemic currently afflicting more than two-thirds of the population.

Read more: Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food

How fast foods screws up good food

So you have been reading this blog, and you are ready to stop eating those fat-laden Whoppers and skip the lard-fried potatoes. You order a veggie burger. It's got to be better for you than a beef burger.

That's the not the case at Rudy Tuesday's.

Order a Veggie Burger at Rudy Tuesday's and heads-up heart attack: The mixture of rice, black beans, and vegetables comes top with Swiss cheese and 53 grams of total fat. At a whooping 952 calories, that's more than a Whopper! At 952 calories that's half a man's calorie allotment for the entire day. A veggie burger!?

I'm not sure we can trust any fast food restaurants with our health. And this is the industry that doesn't want to post fat or calorie information. Now you know why.

Another Lie: Lose weight through exercise

There's a big lie around food. The lie is: Fast food isn't bad for you. Hamburgers aren't bad for you. Coke isn't bad for you. 1,500-calorie salads are not bad for you. YOU just need to exercise more. Instead of taking the elevator, walk up the steps. Walk 30 minutes a day. Get off the couch.

Well, it's a lie, and there continues to be science proving that lie.

The only way to lose weight, the only way to stop obesity in this country is to reduce portions, reduce calories, reduce the "bad" types of food you eat.

In the NY Times today, a new study by the University of Colorado School of Medicine, describes how exercise alone does help you with weight control.

But few people, an overwhelming body of research shows, achieve significant weight loss with exercise alone, not without changing their eating habits. A new study from scientists at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver offers some reasons why.

“The message of our work is really simple,” although not agreeable to hear, Melanson said. “It all comes down to energy balance,” or, as you might have guessed, calories in and calories out. People “are only burning 200 or 300 calories” in a typical 30-minute exercise session, Melanson points out. “You replace that with one bottle of Gatorade.” more...

This is the message McDonald's, Coca-Cola, the corn syrup lobby and LA Fitness doesn't want you to ever read, let alone believe.

Food fight is unfair

It's not even a fair food fight. Consumer companies want your kids to be as fat as possible, and they don't care about the consequences.

Soda in the high schools, fast food restaurants on college campus, and of course, before you arrive at school, the companies have you hopped up on sugar.

A new study confirms what savvy consumers have long suspected: Most breakfast cereals advertised to kids are chockfull of sugar and low on fiber.

In fact, cereals marketed to kids have 85% more sugar, 65% less fiber and 60% more sodium than those aimed at adults, according to the report from Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. Read more at USAtoday.com.

And the cereals with the most sugar are advertised the most to our children. When will the parents of America wake up and stop these companies? Right now 30 percent of all children in 30 states are obese. Will we remove these cereals from the grocery shelves? When the rate reaches 40 percent in 40 states? 50 percent in 50 states? 100 percent???

Cereals with the poorest nutrition ratings that are advertised to kids:

1. Reese's Puffs
2. Corn Pops
3. Lucky Charms
4. Cinnamon Toast Crunch
4. Cap'n Crunch (tied)
6. Trix
6. Froot Loops (tied)
6. Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles (tied)
9. Cocoa Puffs
10. Cookie Crisp

The new tobacco -- soda

What's wrong with a Coke once a day? Plenty, according to a recent UCLA study, "Bubbling Over: Soda Consumption and Its Link to Obesity in California". Each additional daily serving of soda increases a child’s chance risk for obesity by 60%.

There's nothing wrong with soda, according to the CEO of Coke-Cola, Muhtar Kent in the Wall Street Journal. Americans should "enjoy the simple pleasure of a Coca-Cola." He says TV and video games are the real problems.

Never mind that before the obesity crisis, Coke-Cola could only be bought in 6.5 ounce bottles with real cane sugar (88 calories). Now a small Classic Coke from Burger King is 491 calories with highly processed high fructose corn syrup.

The study tells the story: "Portion sizes have also increased from an average serving size of 6.5 fl oz (88 calories)in the 1950s, to 12 fl oz (150 calories), 20 fl oz (266 calories), and even larger portion sizes common today. The average serving size of soft drinks in fast food restaurants in 2002 was 23 fl oz (299 calories), with some chains now commonly selling soft drinks in 32 to 64 fl oz portions (416 to 832 calories, respectively)."

I remember when Coke was a nickel. In California sugary soda costs $21 billion every year.

From the study: "Each year in California, overweight and obesity cost families, employers, the health care industry and the government $21 billion. California spends more public and private money on the health consequences of obesity than any other state."

Here's some more sickening facts from Ron Eade and the Ottawa Citizen, read the entire column.

1. Over 10.7 million Californians over the age of one drink at least one soda a day (or other sugar-sweetened beverage).

2. 41% of children ages 2-11 drink at least one soda or other sugar-sweetened beverage every day.

3. That number goes up to 62% of adolescents ages 12-17.

4. Only 1 in 4 adults drinks pop though.

5. Adults who do drink one or more sodas or other sugar-sweetened beverages each day are 27% more likely to be overweight or obese.

6. The average American consumes 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day, vs the recommended 5-9. That 200-400% more than recommended.

7. If you think that’s a high number, just one 20 fl oz single use bottle of soda has 17 teaspoons of sugar.

8. Almost half of the additional calories growth in our diet since the 1970’s come from soda.

9. Each American consumes an average of 50 gallons of sugar sweetened soft drinks per year.

10. Soda is the #1 source of added sugar in the American Diet.

11. Two thirds of all High Fructose Corn Syrup goes into soft drinks.

12. The average size of a soda increased from 6.5 oz in the 1950’s to 16.2 oz today (149% increase!)

Plan for health

You are not alone. Everyone has trouble staying away from cheap, unhealthy, fatty & salty fast foods.

The key to healthy, non-obese producing foods is just a little planning. Not much, just a little.

The Boston Globe reports on sticking to the outside aisles of supermarkets. For me, I never go into the middle of the supermarket. Fruits and veggies are on one side of the store, and dairy products are on the other.

Take a look at this article and see if at least once a week you can plan a healthy meal for your family.

For years, Rachael Scanlon found the glut of fast food restaurants in Framingham almost too convenient. Pizza, hearty subs, and all kinds of Chinese take-out appeared regularly on the family dinner table when she lacked the time or inspiration to cook.

But the calories, cost, and monotony of these dinners drove her to reconsider this lifestyle. Even with “value meals,’’ as many restaurants call them, eating out regularly can add up quickly, from $20 to $30 for a family of four. More...