Is Home Cooking Really the Mount Everest of Parenthood?

nonplussed by NYTimes column: "we'll cook our own meals for a week!" makes it sound like climbing Everest. http://t.co/yJeNGseYGE

— Maryn McKenna (@marynmck) June 16, 2013

That's the very appropriate question in a sense being asked by author and journalist Maryn McKenna in response to a recent piece in the New York Times' Motherlode column where KJ Dell'Antonia, inspired by the work of folks like Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman, vowed to, for one whole week, eschew processed in place of home cooked.

I wholeheartedly agree with Maryn - the fact that one week of home cooking is seen as sufficiently challenging to warrant a New York Times Motherlode column is proof positive that when it comes to healthy living, society is well and fully broken.

Bring back home economics!

Parental "No" Files: Historical Landmarks Edition (you gotta see this to believe it)

Everything that's wrong with society's constant need to shower kids with sugar encapsulated in one ad,

"During the War of 1812 young kids entered Fort York full of courage strength and pride. This weekend they'll leave full of cookies, cake and candy"

Worse than the event itself is the fact that its establishment likely didn't give anyone at the Fort York Foundation even a moment's pause - that's how normalized this practice has become.

[Thanks to Family Food Project's Edie Shaw-Ewald and blog reader Christine Hepburn for both taking the time to send me copies.]

Saturday Stories: Photoshop, Soda Bans and Darwin

Photo from Civil Eats' piece linked below

A photo collection of celebrities before and after Photoshop. (Make sure you scroll right to the end to see Taylor Lautner's shot.)

Kristin Wartman on Civil Eats with a piece on soda and freedom that observes, "When Beyoncé tells us what to drink we listen; when Bloomberg does, there’s outrage."

An oldie but a goodie - Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins' open letter to Prince Charles in which he dances with Darwin. My favourite line of the piece has to be this one, "It may sound paradoxical, but if we want to sustain the planet into the future, the first thing we must do is stop taking advice from nature. Nature is a short-term Darwinian profiteer."

[And if you don't follow me on Twitter or Facebook, here's my more recent US News and World Report piece on whether or not we really need to refuel kids after "exercise"]

Ever Wonder What Dogs Think?

Ze Frank does.

And today's Funny Friday are his thoughts therein in Sad Dog Diaries.

Have a great weekend!

(Email subscribers, head to the blog to watch)

Gadget Review: My Month with BodyMedia's LINK Armband

My past 28 days of use summary

A month ago the kind folks from BodyMedia sent me one of their LINK armbands to test drive. I was excited as I'm clearly into collecting and quantifying data - for instance I haven't missed an entry in my food diary for over 2 years and regularly log my workouts on Fitocracy.

I was curious to see if having access to real time activity data would change my own exercise behaviours.

For me the short answer is probably not. I did love the information I got from the LINK, I checked it regularly, but more to see how much I'd done rather than to push myself to do more. I also questioned the data some.

As far as what the LINK tracks it covers calories it thinks you burned, calories you tell it you ate, how long it thinks you were moderately or vigorously active, how many steps it thinks you took and how long it thinks you slept.

My iPhone summary for a particularly active day....and then the chicken wings got me

The LINK armband (it's the one the The Biggest Loser contestants use) sits just above your bicep via a stretchy band with a velcro fastening. It's not water proof so you've got to take it off in the shower and the band does get sweaty with vigorous workouts (but is washable). The other issue I had with it was as a shirt and tie wearing guy. I found it tough to put back on without taking off my shirt.

Tough to put on without taking off shirt

I have to admit, I notice wearing it. When I loosen it to the point of not feeling it periodically I will lose the connection to my arm (it sounds a few notes to say it's signing off) and keeping it tight I definitely feel it all day long and every once and a while the area in contact with the skin gets a bit itchy.

Following the data is easy if you have a Bluetooth enabled Smartphone whereby you simply press a button on the armband and your data will then stream live to your phone. You can also use your phone to upload your data to the website tracker.

Food wise I'm not using their food diary. Instead the LINK syncs with myfitnesspal (my current tracker) which is quite convenient. What I don't find convenient however is that communication is two way in that the LINK tells myfitnesspal that I've burned calories and myfitnesspal then tries to tell me to eat more to make up for them. For folks using a LINK in the context of weight management, this may well inspire, "because I exercised" over-indulgences.

As far as the data's accuracy, I personally think it's overestimating some. While I do workout an average of 4-6x weekly, I'm convinced it sometimes tracks my typing as activity. Apparently I'm not the only one thinking this way as Gretchen Reynold's NYTs piece yesterday speaking to the accuracy of a whole pile of these sorts of monitors references the armband that overestimated typing too.

The price for the unit seems quite fair in and around $100 depending on the retailer, but I am a bit surprised by the monthly fee for the website and app. My understanding is that the website will only provide you with very basic information without a subscription while the app won't work at all. Given the now highly competitive landscape of exercise trackers, and with this one being slightly less wieldy consequent to the armband (rather than a bracelet or something pocketable), I'd expect they'd be better off throwing in as many free bells and whistles as possible.

All in all I'm not sure if this gets my buy recommendation. I say I'm not sure because to be fair, I haven't tried out any other trackers. I think I'd be more comfortable recommending if it weren't for the subscription fees as all of my other complains and issues were minor.

That's my month long data summary up above - now if someone could just teach me how to sleep better.

Is Coca-Cola's Latest Calorie Dictionary Ad Purposely Deceptive?

You be the judge.

Below is the embedded copy of Coca-Cola's most recent anti-obesity advertisement. It's called, "Calorie Dictionary".

Watching Calorie Dictionary the inference is that it's incredibly easy to burn off the calories of a Coke.

They show various activities and then their apparent calorie counts. They also, at the beginning, note that the calorie values are for 5 minutes of the activity shown. Clearly though Coca-Cola expects the brief mention of 5 minutes to be forgotten as the bulk of their portrayed activities in real life are only momentary, like hugging a friend, falling, jumping out of a tree, or zipping up a dress which according to Coca-Cola respectively burn 7, 18, 11 and 12 calories. Seems to me that the message Coca-Cola is trying to hammer home is that calories are way easier to burn than you thought and that if you just move a teeny little bit, you can easily burn off their sugar water. Too bad it's not a truthful one.

According to the commercial if you spend 50 minutes (divided into 5 minute blocks) hugging people, swinging a sledgehammer, climbing fences, falling off mechanical bulls, jumping out of trees, running, shouting, lifting young children onto your back, diving to the ground, and zipping up a dress then you too will burn the number of calories you'd find in a 13.5 oz bottle of Coca-Cola.

Such nonsense, and more to the point, want to know what's way easier? Not drinking them.

(And if you wanted to burn off the much more ubiquitous 20oz bottle you'll need to combine 75 minutes worth of 7.5 minute blocks of those same ridiculous examples.)



So what say you? Purposely deceptive or a helpful part of the "solution"?

Could Truly Terrifying Rise in Anti-psychotic Meds for Children be Fueling Childhood Obesity?

Of all of the drug related causes of obesity out there perhaps none is more powerful than the gain associated with anti-psychotics. In adults gains of literally dozens of pounds are regularly seen.

A recent story by Postmedia's Sharon Kirkey on a new study out of BC to be published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry reports that in Canada, despite a total lack of evidence suggesting their safety in children (and moreover an almost total lack of studies involving children at all), since just 1996 second generation child anti-psychotic use has quadrupled.

While there's no singular cause for obesity, for children prescribed these meds obesity may come close to an inevitability. If your young child is currently on anti-psychotic meds, especially if they're on them for sleep, please consider making an appointment with your prescriber to discuss if there aren't in fact alternatives available.

Parental "No" Files: High School Track Meets

Today's guest post comes from University of Manitoba's Dr. Joyce Slater who last week dropped her 14 year old son off at a high school track meet. Judging from her email if you want your kids eating healthfully you'll either need to say "No" you can't go to the meet, or pack a lunch.

Hi Yoni - here’s another one from the “children’s foodscape”.

This morning I dropped my son off at his track meet and as we were entering the field, I noticed the “buffet” set up for the kids for the day.

The picture’s not great, but it does show the large chip display behind the sport drinks and 500ml+ juices. The red bucket had the traditional soft drinks, and on the far left were large chocolate milks. And yes, there was a flat of water bottles. Mains were “hotdogs” and “cheese dogs”. Desserts were chocolate bars, gummy candies and a cooler of cream “treats” (dairy group!!).

I expressed my dismay to which my son said “but there’s fruit and water!” I said that tiny bowl of fruit in the centre is dwarfed by all the other junk, and its main purpose is to say “hey, we have some healthy food so we’re covered off!” - to which he agreed. He also said he didn’t want the water because it was a waste of plastic. He did, however, work me down to a plain hotdog (he wanted the cheese dog - at 9:30 a.m.!)

Now, I’m not volunteering at the snack stand, and I applaud any busy parent or teacher who gives their time in the community for things my children benefit from. But talk about a mixed message we are giving our kids! Manitoba has one of the most progressive school nutrition policies in the country - guess it doesn’t apply to school track meets.

Joyce Slater
Winnipeg

Saturday Stories: Cancer, Paleo, Cardboard Boxes and a Must Read

Reuters health report Debra Sherman was recently diagnosed with terminal stage 4 lung cancer. She's started a blog to discuss her experiences.

Lots of folks questioning the paleo narrative lately - here's an interesting piece from Scientific American. (Of course even were the narrative totally BS, I'd venture most folks' paleo diets are exceedingly healthful given the emphasis on actual cooking.)

The BBC explains why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes (and perhaps why they have one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world).

A must read by Kasey Edwards, "When your mother says she's fat"

I Dare You Not to Love this Video

Today's Funny Friday is the greatest cover ever of the Beatles' Don't Let Me Down.

Have a great weekend!

(email subscribers head to the blog to watch)