Performance Chocolate Bars?

So apparently now Hershey's is marketing OhHenry! bars as performance enhancing.

Their new bar, OhHenry! Pro is being promoted for both its protein content and its consequent great fit as a sports enhancement.

Television commercials have folks eating OhHenry! Pro bars suddenly gaining great strength and agility and of course are aimed at teens with their music and content (skateboarding and cycling).

So what is in this rocket propelled chocolate bar?

320 Calories, 21grams of fat (6grams saturated), 5 teaspoons of sugar and 12 grams of protein.

Or to put it differently, pretty much exactly the same stuff as is in a regular Oh Henry! bar just with double the protein.

Wanna know some secrets?

Protein won't make you fast.

Calories will eventually make you slow.

Hershey's marketers apparently lack scruples.

[Hat tip to Rob our fitness director for bringing me a bar]

Did Big Milk Lie to the FTC?

"You don't have to be a hero to feel invincible. That's why I drink milk. The protein helps build muscle and some studies suggest teens who choose it tend to be leaner. Cheers to that"

So I don't know if you remember, but I sure do - the FTC challenged Big Milk to prove their weight loss claims and of course since the studies Big Milk based their claims off of were all pretty much relegated to very small experiments done out of a lab funded by Big Milk where the professor involved has an actual patent on weight loss claims related to milk consumption, Big Milk reported that they would back off the weight loss advertising until the claims were in fact more substantiated.

That was back in May and then Lydia Parnes, the Director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection reported milk producers and processors had agreed to change the advertisements,

"until further research provides stronger, more conclusive evidence of an association between dairy consumption and weight loss."

Now I suppose the word "leaner" may be a means to circumvent the FTC's concerns, but frankly to me the word leaner certainly still implies weight loss.

I read the medical literature pretty carefully and milk is no where near being proven to be a helpful weight loss aid and furthermore no where near being proven to possess any magical lean body mass increasing properties.

Once again, shame on you Big Milk.

FTC, where the heck are you guys in terms of following up on these ridiculously misleading and scientifically unfounded claims and advertisments - advertisements that now directly target children and teens?

Should you send your child to Weight Watchers?

In the comments on the Fat Camp post yesterday was the question, "Why not send a child to Weight Watchers?".

There's some overlap between Fat Camp and Weight Watchers and it has to do with the attitudes and thoughts cultivated in children who have been effectively told they're too fat and that they must lose weight, and that they need professional help.

Putting aside the question of whether or not Weight Watchers or Fat Camps teach healthy weight management practices, my belief is that for most children instead of cultivating healthy behaviours, Fat Camps, Weight Watchers and other direct weight loss interventions end up cultivating tremendously negative emotions, guilt, self-doubt, low self-esteem, sadness, and in most cases, ultimately failure.

My belief quite simply is that unless the child has a major weight related medical condition that requires treatment, that weight loss education should be relegated to the parents and not to the child.

Furthermore I'd state that any weight loss intervention for children that does not explicitly involve the parents is ill informed and worth avoiding.

To illustrate some of what I'm talking about, Rudd Sound Bites back in June posted a fantastic essay by Marjorie Galler who herself had once attended Fat Camp. The essay is a fantastic glimpse into what goes on at Fat Camp. It's a must read - click here.

Any readers out there go to Weight Watchers (or other weight loss program) when they were kids? Any of you remember how it made you feel and whether or not it fostered healthy attitudes and behaviours about weight? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

Generation XXL Documentary Review

Don't ever say I don't listen to my readers.

Long term reader Geordie asked me last week if I could watch the documentary Generation XXL and comment therein - here are my thoughts.

The documentary is about a group of children from Nova Scotia being sent to a sort of short term fat camp - only it's not exactly a fat camp and I'll get to that a bit later.

The documentary starts with their current lifestyles and from the beginning it's obvious that their environments' are far from ideal food and weight wise.

Of the 4 featured children, Kat, Greg, Raya and Vincent, 3 explicitly reported not eating breakfast.

Kat's mother when confronted by Kat who said she was not supportive pointed out that since Kat was 12 she had been paying for and taking her to Weight Watchers meetings. This same parent in an earlier scene spends time harping on Kat's choice of french fries as opposed to salad.

Vincent goes for dinner at his father's house and either for a snack or for dinner his father made 6 Pillsbury dough puffs and sat down with Vincent to eat them.

Greg's mother comes home and it's dark outside and Greg hasn't had dinner yet and presumably is pretty darn hungry.

Raya's mother admits to providing her with whatever foods she wants and that she herself has a difficult time with food in terms of using it for comfort and pleasure. There's also a great scene of a school dance for Raya where on the dance floor is an at least 8 foot tall poster of what I can only presume to be a dance sponsor featuring 3 gigantic O'Henry chocolate bars.

So the kids get packed up and off to a place called the, "Fit Intervention Program" which according to the Generation XXL website,

"Its primary goal is to create a context that supports overall healthy living that nurtures individual strength."

It's definitely not a typical fat camp as from the documentary it became quite clear the goal of this immersive short term experience for the kids was not weight loss, but rather self-esteem building.

They were taught to cook by chefs, did art therapy course, did have some food instruction (and unfortunately were taught Canada's Food Guide) and were instructed to exercise.

I had mixed feelings about the camp experience. They did not appear to have been taught anything at all about weight management, though that may be due to editing. I mean if you're already getting sent to a place to discuss the impact of weight on yourself as a person, you should probably be taught about calories, hunger prevention and such, but really, I didn't see any of this. They were also seen by an exercise specialist who provided them with pedometers and the unreasonable goal of trying to get 12,000 steps per day. A much better goal would have been to encourage them to get as many steps as they could enjoy so they wouldn't feel like failures when they resumed their real lives and didn't see numbers approaching 12,000.

I absolutely detested the part of the movie where they spent time giving the kids scary articles about risks of weight on cardiovascular disease and cancer. These kids felt plenty of guilt on their own about their weight before being hit with the articles, and given that there was no apparent weight management instructions provided to them other than follow the Food Guide and walk like crazy, I felt the scare tactics were really counter productive and unnecessary.

What I loved about the camp experience was the fact that the kids were really forced to confront how their weight has made them feel but in a manner that empowered them to try to break free from the notion that their weight defines them.

I think the most grievous omission of the camp experience was that it was for the kids and not the parents. Kat's mother should have been taught that the absolute worst thing she could do for Kat would be to ride her about her food and that sending a child to Weight Watchers may well have long term impact on that child's relationship with weight, self esteem and body image. Vincent's dad should have been taught about calories and healthy eating. Raya's mom could have been taught about the role of hunger prevention in reducing the drive to eat for comfort and Greg's mom could have been taught about the importance of eating regularity.

All of the parents should have been taught to live the lives they want their children to live.

By not addressing these kids' parents, and by not really providing the kids with any real weight management tools at best this camp experience provided the kids with improved self esteem and a new outlook on life, but at worst served as the basis for yet another major weight related disappointment.

If I were to be involved in a camp like this it would be with the explicit requirement of a parallel camp for parents where they're taught how to lead by example rather than by criticism or edict.

At the end of the documentary we're given a few telling glimpses into how little these kids learned about actual weight management.

Greg got a job, lost 10lbs and then reported while grabbing his stomach,

"I might have to get liposuction to get this out"

Vincent blamed habit and said that he's not going to change.

Kat lost 8.2lbs and reported being discouraged because she hasn't lost as much as she'd hoped. She then told the camera she's going to live off frozen fruit juice ice cubes and watermelon for the summer while her mother stood by apparently silently approving.

I give the documentary a B+ because it was compelling to watch, but the content as far as helping these kids out I'd give a D.

Dancing with the King

Ok, so it's a bit creepy.

Jib Jab, a longstanding web animation site has created a means to animate you.

My brother-in-law says that watching my video creeped him out.

It made me laugh.

Just click on the link at the bottom of this post and you can creep out your own brothers-in-law.

One note - when "creating" my video I realized that there's a dramatic shortage of female fast food mascots - I couldn't think of any. What's up with that? The only one I could think of was the little girl from Wendy's but then again, they never use her to sell food.

Have a great weekend!


Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!

"How to get fat without even trying"

The media is awash about different causes of obesity. Just last week we were bombarded with reports on how diet foods cause childhood obesity. While I was planning to talk about how ridiculously the media handled that particular story, instead I've found something else that I thought was more worth posting. It's Peter Jennings' fantastic 2004 report "How to get fat without even trying", on the role North American governments and the food industry play in the explosive growth of obesity.

Thanks to Dr. Marion Nestle who is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University whose fantastic book Food Politics apparently inspired Peter Jennings to do the piece and thanks to Dr. Nestle as well for posting a link to the piece on her fabulous blog two days ago.

It's a long video (10 mins).

It's not funny.

It's a great watch.

Heart and Stroke's heart-on for refined white flour, ground beef and salt

Here's another example of why you shouldn't blindly trust the Heart and Stroke's Health Check to steer you to "healthy" choices.

Stouffer's meat lasagna!

Given it's new status as a Health Check'ed item that would mean that according to the Heart and Stroke's dietitians refined white flour + ground beef + almost a day's worth of sodium = super-duper healthy!

What? You think there's something not particularly healthy about refined white flours? Could it be their clear cut contribution to the development of metabolic syndrome and diabetes? Beef not good for you? Carcinogenic? Increases the risk of diabetes? Salt increase blood pressure? Increased blood pressure increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes?

You'd think that perhaps the dietitians of the Heart and Stroke Foundation would know these facts - after all, they're dietitians and they work for the Heart and Stroke Foundation and doubtlessly they should know all about the dietary contributions to heart disease and stroke, right?

Apparently not.

Stouffer's Meat Lasagna where the flour is "semolina wheat flour" (white, white, white), the beef is "cooked ground beef" (wanna bet it wasn't extra lean ground beef?), and the sodium content is 950mg, a short hop away from what a recent Heart and Stroke Foundation press release recommended as a total daily allowance of 1,260mg now has a Health Check.

I know, I know, it's probably better than non-health checked lasagnas, but to endorse an unhealthy option as healthy simply because it's healthier than some other options doesn't make it a healthy choice and certainly shouldn't buy it an explicit endorsement from the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Stouffer's of course is milking it for all it's worth on the product's webpage,

"Look for the Health Check logo on STOUFFER'S meals – it's like shopping with a dietitian from the Heart and Stroke Foundation."

and

"Enjoy all the taste that’s made STOUFFER’S Lasagna the #1 selling lasagna in Canada for the past year – especially now it’s got the Health Check mark."

I can't really blame them, after all they paid the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Health Check good money to apparently sell out.

Fat March: TV Review

Monday nights there's a new obesity reality show on ABC called, "Fat March".

The premise is simple. 12 obese Americans join two personal trainers and "march" 570 miles trying to lose weight. There's money involved of course. $1.2 million dollars to be split 12 ways at the end. The catch? Anytime a person is voted off or quits everyone's prize money goes down by $10,000.

So how do I summarize this monstrosity?

Take every stereotype you can think of about overweight and obesity, roll it into one, mix it with two wooden, idiotic trainers, shake, add inappropriate exercise and voila both you and the cast members get to go to the hospital. You, for your new found brain damage and the cast members for the myriad of injuries the show has cultivated.

Yesterday's episode had marchers calling each other derogatory obesity slurs, had a big plate of doughnuts that the marchers were supposed to "resist", had one marcher try to eat a doughnut off the ground, had shots emphasizing how whiny, lazy and will-less the marchers were, had the second of thus far two emergency room visits due to poorly designed exercise and over-training, had marchers whinging about how much they missed food and eating, and had a preview of future weeks' episodes where at least one more of the marchers is taken to hospital and told that he'll need knee surgery.

What upsets me more is the fact that the show is setting the marchers up for failure. They are being taught a ridiculously non-sustainable lifestyle and are being given the expectation that they'll lose weight, get rich, go home and stay skinny when in reality they're just on a crash diet where the word crash is quite apropos - people tend to get injured in crashes.

Unless these marchers plan to keep marching for 4-8 hours a day and continue adhering to a blindly restrictive low calorie diet, the weight they lose will come back as soon as they revert back to their old lifestyles which I would predict will happen the very moment the show is over because the lifestyle the show has given them no one in their right mind would want to live.

Bottom line: The show is awful. It will not only not help educate you in means to manage weight but it will promote all that is wrong about "dieting" as truth and do so with cameras whose jobs it apparently is to perpetuate and exploit cultural obesity stereotypes.

I give it an F.

How much weight will you lose with a gastric bypass?

I'm not a surgeon and therefore I don't perform gastric bypasses, but I sure get that question a lot from folks who are interested in having one.

Came across an interesting report on a paper that was presented by Dr. Daniel Leslie at the 89th meeting of the Endocrine Society. The paper reported on a number of variables that predicted bariatric surgical success and they came up with an "equation" that you simply plug into to answer the question of how much weight a gastric bypass patient can expect to lose.

Ready for it? Here's the equation,

"Weight loss in lbs = [(age in years) x -1.79] + [(preoperative weight in lbs) x 0.36] + [(1 if patient if African-American, 0 if European-American) x -16.56] + [(1 for peripheral weight distribution, 0 for central) x 7.45] + [(1 for type 2 diabetes, 0 for no diabetes) x -7.28] + [(1 for obstructive sleep apnea, 0 for no sleep apnea) x 7.15] + 106.63"

Of course there are many other variables.

Basically the surgery provides patients with a tremendous anatomical advantage for weight loss. The average patient's weight loss may be describable on the basis of the equation, but you need not be an average patient.

What the equation doesn't and cannot account for are the personal intangibles. The changes a person makes to their lifestyle will also have a tremendous impact on their weight loss. Some patients tend to take gastric bypass as a fresh start of sorts and get more involved in things like exercise and healthy eating. In my experience, those patients tend to lose more.

Just in case you've forgotten my take on bariatric surgery I'll remind you. I tend to call it, "a fabulous last resort".

UPDATE: My original post was off by a factor of 100, the new equation ought to work

Toughest Interview Ever

Today for Funny Friday is the toughest interview ever.

I learned two things from this video:

1. What the word Scombridae means
2. Pre-interviews are good ideas for television producers

Have a great weekend!

Horseman of the Nutritional Apocalypse

I had no idea that this existed.

A patient of mine returned from a trip to Syracuse where she kept on getting asked the following question when she ordered meals in restaurants,

"Would you like that smothered?"

She didn't know what the waiters were talking about so she of course asked what "smothered" meant.

Apparently smothered means that for an additional dollar or so you can have your whole meal "smothered" in smokey bacon, fresh sauteed mushrooms & Monterey Jack cheese.

At Fresno's this privilege will cost your $1.19 extra.

And yet people go on and on about the "mystery" of why the world is gaining weight so quickly.

Any readers out there with smothering stories?

Tim Horton's Liquid Big Mac

A Big Mac has 540 calories, 10 grams of saturated fat and 0.5 grams of trans fat.

What wonderful new Tim Horton's beverage has more calories, more saturated fat and more trans fat than the Big Mac?

The winner is, Tim Hortons 18oz Butter Caramel Iced Capp Supreme!

With 560 calories, 17 grams of saturated fat and 1 gram of trans fat it's a tall, cold glass of why it is we absolutely need calories posted on menu boards.

Hat tip to CSPI for raising the red flag.

A Calorie's a Calorie, or is it?

Certainly that's what we preach. A calorie's a calorie - if you were to eat the exact same number of calories daily it wouldn't matter where those calories came from they'd have the same effect on your weight.

Or would they?

I'm very comfortable saying I'm wrong, and while I'm not quite willing to do that in the a calorie is a calorie case yet, I'm a bit closer today due to an article I read yesterday in the journal Obesity.

The article looked at 42 green monkeys who were followed for 6 years. They were fed one of two diets that were designed to "maintain" their study starting weight by providing them each with 70 Calories per kg of green monkey weight. What varied in these diets was the percentage of fat that came from trans fats with one group of monkeys getting 8% of their fat from trans fat sources while the other group had less than 1% of fat from trans fat sources.

Otherwise, the sample diets were pretty much the same.

The results were surprising. The trans fat group's weight increased by roughly 7% while the other group gained less than 2% with the trans fat group having gained more fat intra-abdominally (the less healthy place to gain it). The researchers also found that post meal insulin levels in the trans fat group were 3x higher than in the non-trans fat group and there was a reduction seen in tissue biopsy of the trans fat group's insulin receptors' abilities to trigger a response.

The authors conclude that trans fats are in fact independently associated with both weight gain and the preferential distribution of weight intra-abdominally resulting in an impairment of glucose tolerance which in turn is of course a risk factor for the development of type II diabetes.

This was definitely a neat study and while I'm not yet ready to stop telling people a calorie's a calorie, I'm eager to see some studies that try to tease out whether this is applicable to humans or just to green monkeys.

To be sure however, this study is yet one more piece of damning evidence against the inclusion of trans-fat in our diets.

Do-it-yourself Gatorade

Can't take the credit for this one - it's from a guy whose got a blog named "Yaniverse" but unfortunately he's apparently locked his blog to registered users only.

Ages ago I bookmarked a do-it-yourself recipe that he posted for a Gatorade/Energy Drink substitute. Thanks to the magic of the internet, even though my recipe link no longer worked, I was able to find it online in someone's Google notebook.

First I'll give you his recipe (makes roughly 2L) and then some brief comments:

2 Tea Bags
6 level teaspoon sugar (24 grams)
A pinch of salt (0.5 grams)
2 oz lemon juice (about 55 grams)
30 oz boiling water

Contains:
100 calories
200 mg Sodium
60mg of Potassium (from the lemon juice)
Caffeine varies, est 100mg-200mg caffeine (depending on the tea used and infusion duration)

Estimated Cost:
Lemon juice: $0.10
2 Tea Bags: $0.06
Sugar, Salt, water, etc: negligible

I know, my first reaction was, "Isn't that just tea?", and frankly it is, but the thing is, you don't need to buy fancy calorie laden energy drinks to help with sports hydration just like you don't have to buy fancy energy bars either - a whole wheat tortilla, smeared with some peanut butter and wrapped around a banana's a cheap and delicious alternative to a Powerbar anyday.

If I remember correctly from Yani's readers' comments (before he locked his blog), obviously the type of tea matters dramatically in regards to taste and according to Yani, you can double the lemon juice if you want. I would suspect that if it's not sweet enough, you can either increase the sugar or add some Splenda - if your activity is longer than 45 minutes straight it may be worth adding more sugar as your body will need the fuel.

Yani, if you're reading, I'd love to link and credit you more formally, but I couldn't figure out how to find you through Blogger.

Update: Thanks to eagle-eyed reader Robert who calculated that 0.5grams of salt would contain roughly 200mg of sodium. Have changed the above to reflect same.

Conan meets Industrial Light and Magic

Wow, a lot of angry posts this week.

To try to sooth my frayed nerves I did some Conan surfing on youtube and found a great clip of him visiting George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic (the special effects folks).

If you've never seen C3P0 drunk, it may be a worthwhile click.

Have a great weekend!

(New subscribers to my email feed - if you want to see the clip apparently you have to visit the blog)

Eat Stupid!

My readers in Ontario may be familiar with the Eat Smart! Ontario's Healthy Restaurant Program.

I think it should be called, "Eat Stupid!".

Here's what their website says it's for,

"Through its "Award of Excellence" program, Eat Smart! Ontario’s Healthy Restaurant Program offers recognition to Ontario restaurants that meet exceptional standards in nutrition, food safety and smoke-free dining. This program was developed in partnership with the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care; Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario; Canadian Cancer Society (Ontario Division); Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs; local public health units; heart health programs; the food service industry and consumers."

So what do you think most folks will think about the restaurants who meet the Eat Smart! criteria? I think most folks will think they're healthy restaurants to go to - restaurants whose health is endorsed by folks like the Heart and Stroke Foundation and our government's Ministry of Health.

In fact, that's what the Eat Smart! people themselves say will happen in their own promotion of their website,

"In addition to the free promotion available to you and your establishment, there are other important benefits:

You will strengthen your image in your community as a health-conscious restaurant.

You will belong to a province-wide program endorsed by both the Canadian Cancer Society (Ontario Division) and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario."

So why am I calling it Eat Stupid!? Isn't this a great idea?

Nope.

Let's go through the basic criteria for being included as an Eat Smart! restaurant and being endorsed by the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Ministry of Health:

It requires that on the menu, anywhere, regardless of what else is on the menu, that:

1. There is a single whole grain product OR a source of fibre and all comers need apply: 400 Calories bagels, 450 Calorie "low fat" (read high sugar) muffins, pizza crust (they actually think pizza crust qualifies?), pancakes, cereal, pasta, rice.... basically anything.
2. There are at least 6 choices of vegetable or fruit. Including, amazingly, vegetable sandwich toppings (the lettuce or tomato on my sandwich counts as a vegetable?) and juice count too.
3. Milk is available as a beverage
4. There are 1-3 meat options cooked in a "healthy" way which basically includes every manner of cooking with the exception of deep frying. That would therefore include carcinogenic broiling and trans-fat creating pan frying.
5. The availability of a "healthier" dessert choice yet frozen yogurt, milk puddings, "low fat" muffins, crepes and waffles count and I certainly wouldn't count any of those as particularly "healthy".
6. If a children's menu is offered, milk and juice must be options and there has to be a vegetable or fruit included.

As a consequence any restaurant who bothers to apply for Eat Smart will at least meet the "nutritional" needs assessment, which is why restaurants such as Denny's, Kelsey's Manchu Wok, Mexicali Rosas, Montana's, Lone Star, Red Lobster, and East Side Marios all have joined Eat Smart!.

What this means for the restaurants is that they get to brag about how healthy they are (they get a decal for the door and I believe brochures for inside), they get included on the Eat Smart! brochure that's often handed out by well-intentioned but misinformed health professionals, they get a tacit endorsement by folks like the Heart and Stroke Foundation, and they get to push their high calorie, high sodium, high fat, nutritionally deficient food at you under the guise of health because you see, Eat Smart! doesn't bother to identify the items on the menus that it thought were healthy and actually when you get right down to it, Eat Smart!'s criteria don't even require the availability of healthy meals, just the availability, somewhere on the menu, of healthy ingredients.

Canadians need to be steered to specifically healthy menu choices, not to restaurants where in their kitchens somewhere or other there is a healthy food or two.

The fact that Denny's serves milk, uses parsley, lettuce and tomatoes as garnishes and places an orange wedge as an accompaniment does not make their Fabulous French Toast Platter replete with 1261 calories, 30grams of saturated fat and 2,495mg of sodium a healthy choice.

What a clear cut example of where best intentions are definitely not good enough and maybe even worse than nothing.

McCarrots?

No, McCarrots don't exist, but if they did, you're kids would be more likely to eat them.

In a study published this month in the Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine we can see proof of the vulnerability of children to advertising.

The study had children taste 5 pairs of identical foods and beverages in packaging from McDonald's and in matched but unbranded packaging and were then asked which one tasted better.

Bet you can see where this is going.

The participants by the way were between the ages of 3 and 5 years old. The foods were McDonald's hamburgers, McDonald's fries, a Chicken McNugget, 3 ounces of 1% milk and baby carrots.

Yes, even carrots wrapped up in McDonald's wrappers were rated as tasting better by this group of children.

As far as I'm concerned there should absolutely be a ban on advertising targeting children and given a child's proven inability to discern truth from advertising that ban should extend beyond simply junk food advertisers but rather to all advertisers. This elegant study certainly confirms that need.

It also makes me wish McDonald's sold baby carrots.

The Primary Cause of Obesity

I'm constantly amazed by quotes detailing how complicated it is to pinpoint blame in the obesity epidemic. In my mind, it's the treatment that's complicated, while the problem, well I think it's pretty obvious.

As everyone on the planet knows, the world is getting heavier - fast. So what's changed?

Have our genetics changed in the past 100 years? Of course not.

Is there a terrible virus, bacteria, fungus or parasite that we can blame? Nope.

Is it genetically modified crops, or pesticides or us using the air conditioner more frequently? Good grief no.

So what's changed in the past 100 years? For lack of a better term - our foodscape.

Sure genetics, hormones, learned behaviours and maybe even the temperature you set your thermostat on have a bearing on weight, so do thousands of other variables, but without any question whatsoever the environment is to blame.

I read an article yesterday in a Big Food tradezine that had a fabulous quote by a food marketing big wig named Harry Balzer (I swear I didn't make up the name),

"Americans now use restaurants like their parents traditionally used grocery stores"

This particular article looked at how our use of restaurants has changed in the past 50 years. It stated:

Americans spend 48 percent of their food dollars on restaurant fare, up from 25% 50 years ago.

The average American ate 208 meals prepared outside the home last year.

Americans gobbled down an average 127 to-go meals per person in 2006, compared with 81 eaten inside a restaurant.

To live in 2007 and maintain a healthy body weight while eating out an average of 208 meals outside of the home would border on the impossible. The calories associated with restaurant portions and foods are ridiculously high and while certainly it is possible to make some healthy or lower calorie restaurant choices, eating out 4 times per week, you're almost certainly going to make quite a few that are less than ideal. Furthermore you're also going to train your eye to expect the restaurant sized portions that we have seen evolve over the past 4 decades.

Now I'm not blaming solely restaurants, I'm blaming food in general because that is what has changed - how we eat has changed, where we eat has changed, what we eat has changed, how often we eat has changed, and why we eat has changed.

Rich Rojko, a manager at the high end Ruth's Chris steakhouse chain that now offers takeout had this to say,

"Eating has become something that people do while they're doing something else."

Indeed.

Don't Eat at Wendy's Part II

Imagine my surprise.

Wendy's, the fast food chain that is refusing to comply with New York city's new calorie disclosure requirements, the chain that insults the intelligence of consumers by reporting that their online nutritional posting of calories applies to everywhere but New York and who apparently feels you're too stupid to understand a menu board that includes calories and prices, has apparently also refused to comply with New York's trans-fat free laws.

Last week the Center for Science in the Public Interest released a report detailing their study of New York fries. Through an independent laboratory analysis they demonstrated that McDonald's fries were virtually trans-fat free, Burger King's had 3.3grams and Wendy's topped their charts at 3.7grams - almost twice the daily recommended limit.

CSPI does give credit where credit is due and reports that the fries in New York, even those from Wendy's, are lower than the trans-fat content of fries fried by Wendy's in every other city in North America, but where CSPI has difficulty is the claims made by Wendy's website,

"Depending on the serving size, trans fats in French fry offerings will range from zero to 0.5 grams."

So basically Wendy's lies to you and apparently thinks you're stupid.

Stop giving them your money.

Mmmmmm Catnip

Sorry for the late posting. Probably will be late on Monday too.

Today for Funny Friday - Catnip.

Have a great weekend!

Don't eat at Wendy's

Regular readers here will know that in NYC Big Food is fighting legislation requiring them to put calories on menu boards.

Regular readers will also know one of Big Food's "arguments" is that it's toooooooo complicated to put calories on menu boards in a manner that would be both easy for consumers to understand and in a manner that wouldn't clog up the boards.

As part of the case, the Center for Science in the Public Interest had its artists create a rendition of what a Wendy's menu board might look like with calories on it. Click the picture above and you tell me if it's too complicated or too cluttered.

Anyhow, Wendy's sent out cease and desist letters to the court and CSPI stating that CSPI is misrepresenting their menu and breaking trademarks by providing it to the court.

This is the same Wendy's who has a ridiculous disclaimer on their own website that states that their Calorie information is not available in NYC with the hope that this will allow them to slime their way through a wormhole in the existing legislation that limits required calorie menu board laws to those restaurants who have pre-existing nutritional information,

"We regret that Wendy's cannot provide product calorie information to residents or customers in New York City. The New York City Department of Health passed a regulation requiring restaurants that already provide calorie information to post product calories on their menu boards -- using the same type size as the product listing.

We fully support the intent of this regulation; however, since most of our food is made-to-order, there isn't enough room on our existing menu boards to comply with the regulation. We have for years provided complete nutritional information on posters inside the restaurant and on our website. To continue to provide caloric information to residents and customers of our New York City restaurants on our website and on our nutritional posters would subject us to this regulation. As a result, we will no longer provide caloric information to residents and customers of our New York City restaurants."

I love the made to order argument as well given that Subway has already complied with the regulation and they're as made to order as you get in fast food. Talk about misrepresenting!

My recommendation - vote with your mouth. There are plenty of fast food outfits out there. Stop giving your money to one that apparently thinks you're stupid (too stupid apparently to discern between the price and the calories on a menu item), tries to weasel it's way out of adhering to the law and then tries to legally muscle out the non-profit good guys.

Don't eat at Wendy's.

(To see more "doctored" and "misrepresented" menus, including Starbucks and McDonald's at CSPI head over here.)

Attention Government of Guyana

Anyone out there know anyone high up in the Guyanese government? They need some help.

According to the Guyanese Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, obesity is becoming a problem over there. An article in the Stabroek News has Dr. Ramsammy quoted regarding their new crisis as well as provides some context for it.

Context wise, turns out just as in North America, it is abnormal in Guyana for someone to have a healthy body weight with 53% of the population being overweight or obese. The survey also revealed that in urban areas 68% of the populace ate out daily.

Their survey also looked at calories. Apparently the Guyanese' average daily caloric intake is 2,849, up from 2,269 in 1963.

Perhaps not so surprisingly given what seems to be a global culture of fear surrounding the talk of calories the Guyanese government's response to their new found crisis is to ignore the calories and instead to promote two things:

1. Increased physical fitness
2. Consuming more than 400grams of fruit and vegetables daily

Um, Minister of Health Ramsammy, do you have an inkling how much exercise a person would have to do to burn the additional 600 or so Calories a day they're now consuming? That's of course also assuming that the estimates are correct, and given that 68% of your urban population eat out daily, and that restaurant food is pretty much always underestimated calorically, that's a stretch. So back to the question, 600 Calories burned = how much exercise?

Well, for mild exercise (walking, gardening etc) it'd be anywhere between 2 and 3 hours daily. Moderate exercise up to 2 hours and intense exercise between 1 and 1.5 hours daily.

Shame though that in your recommendations you've actually suggested to the population that they should strive in fact to eat more not less. Did you know that fruit had calories in it too?

If there were a way to buy obesity futures in Guyana, I'd be calling my broker as I type.

The World's Most Dangerous Pizza

I can't seem to get enough of this pizza as this is now my third (and I hope last) blog post on it. post.

Regular readers will remember the sausage stuffed crust scary looking pizza from Japan. Below is a commercial advertising it.

Well along comes a blog I've not been to before, Fitsugar, that with the help of a translator put together a caloric estimate for this beast.

Ready for it?

Per slice, 646 Calories and 1,344mg of sodium (5,164 Calories for the whole pizza and a perhaps literally brain swelling 10,752 grams of sodium).

Feel free to peruse their calculations here

Does Kellogg's think you're Stupid?

So here is the Nutrition Facts label from Kellogg's original flavour Special K cereal.

It says a serving contains 110 Calories and is 1.25 cups in size. (click it if you need to make it bigger)


Now let's look at the Nutrition Facts label from Kellogg's new Special K Fruit and Yogurt Flavour.

It says a serving contains 120 Calories, but now it's only 0.75 cups in size.



It's examples like this that drive home just how lax, misleading and easily exploitable our current labeling laws are.

Clearly here Kellogg's wants consumers to think that their wonderful new flavour has only 10 more calories than original Special K, when in fact by volume it has almost double the calories (81% more calories per cup of the Fruit and Yogurt flavour).

Let me ask you, how difficult would it be for Health Canada to push for legislation that for instance for cereals would require all cereals have a standard 1 cup serving size label representation? Of course, this is only one example - misleading labeling is everywhere, mainly because Big Food's able to get away with it and because most folks don't take the time to read labels carefully or to compare.

Shame on you Kellogg's for what to me looks like your obvious attempt at deception, and shame on you Canadian government for not having laws that would prevent this type of overt label deception.

So You Wanna be a Goalie?

It's hot in Ottawa. Sticky too.

So today for Funny Friday, I've got a clip to cool you off.

Steve Carell teaches you what it takes to become a great goalie.

Have a great weekend!

Obesity is "socially contagious"

The media will be all over this one.

A study came out today in the New England Journal of Medicine that showed that over a 30 year period people's weights were strongly influenced by the weights of their friends and spouses.

The study followed over 12,000 folks and mapped their weights against their "social networks".

Their research states:

If your spouse becomes obese, your chance of becoming obese rises by 37%

If your adult sibling becomes obese, your chance of becoming obese rises by 40%

If you're a man and your male friend becomes obese, your chance of becoming obese rises by 100%

Don't worry if your neighbours are obese

Don't worry if your opposite sexed friend is obese

Don't worry if you're a woman and your female friends become obese

It's actually a beautifully put together study - from the writing, to the methodology, to the gorgeous diagrams and slick video on the New England Journal website that demonstrates the social march of obesity over time.

So is it important? Does it tell us anything we don't already know?

I don't think so.

Friendships and marriages tend to be forged over commonalities, over shared pleasures.

What am I getting at?

Marathon running teetotaling vegans are far more likely to be friends with marathon running teetotaling vegans than they are with sedentary, beer swilling carnivores and they're probably alot less likely to marry them too.

I think what this study proves beautifully is that lifestyle dramatically impacts upon weight and that friends and spouses dramatically impact upon lifestyles.

So does this study help with prevention and treatment?

The authors think so,

"The relevance of social influence also suggests that it may be possible to harness this same force to slow the spread of obesity. Network phenomena might be exploited to spread positive health behaviors"

I guess what they're getting at is that skinniness may also be socially contagious if harnessed by social networks. Good news is, if the researchers want to, they can simply apply their same statistics and formulae to examine the effects of weight loss in social networks....only problem there is that sustainable weight loss for the most part is a pretty elusive beast.

Bottom line - your friends and spouses likely share your lifestyle more than your neighbours and coworkers, and your lifestyle obviously has a dramatic effect on your weight.

What this study should spur you to do is examine how you spend time with your friends and family. If socializing means going out to dinner all the time or hitting the bars, maybe you can suggest trying some less calorie dense, or even some calorie burning activities.

What this study should not spur you to do is put a sign outside your door that says, "You must be this thin to be my friend".

Another Dubious Honour for Obesity

Saw a press release from the Canadian Liver Foundation yesterday.

Obesity has overtaken alcohol as the number one cause of liver disease in Canada.

Over 1.4 million Canadians apparently have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease or NAFLD.

15% of obese children have NAFLD.

NAFLD can of course progress to non-alcoholic steato-hepatitis or NASH.

NASH can progress to cirrhosis.

Cirrhosis can progress to death.

Sorry, can't think of anything funny to say today.

Will Diet Coke make you fat?

Splashed over headlines and sound bites today will be articles and reports telling you that a new study suggests that if you drink any soft drinks, even diet ones, that your risk of developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and obesity rises dramatically.

Scary stuff, maybe you should immediately pitch your diet coke stash.

Don't throw out it out yet.

So this study, published yesterday in Circulation, looked at over 6,000 folks and their soft drink consumption with the authors reporting that they controlled for age, sex, physical activity index, smoking, saturated fat consumption, trans fat consumption, fiber, magnesium, total calories and glycemic index in asking whether or not consuming soft drinks (diet or otherwise) raised the risk of developing metabolic syndrome (the constellation of symptoms listed above).

The authors concluded,

"In middle-aged adults, soft drink consumption is associated with a higher prevalence and incidence of multiple metabolic risk factors"

and they found this to be true regardless of whether the soft drinks were of the regular or diet variety.

Problem is, there are too many inconsistencies and omissions in this study for it to have any value. Let's go through some of them:

They don't tell us how they tracked calories. They mention controlling for calories in their abstract but then fail to mention in their methodology how exactly they determined how many calories folks in this study were consuming. That's quite an important methodologic piece as if it turns out that folks who drink soft drinks (diet or otherwise) tend to consume more calories, it'll matter how they tracked calories since it's calories that lead to weight gain and weight that leads to metabolic syndrome.

The calories they did track are inaccurate. They reported that folks who drank no soft drinks consumed on average 1,800 calories daily and those drinking 2 or more daily 2000 or so Calories. In what alternate universe is the average per capita consumption of calories in America 1,800-2,000 calories daily? According to the USDA, the average American consumes around 2,700 calories daily and even back in 1970 was still higher than the calories reported in this study. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations actually thinks the average American consumes around 3,770 calories daily. Clearly if this study's calorie models are flawed, with calorie models based off of reported dietary intakes than dietary intakes are flawed in which case the conclusions aren't valid.

The authors did not control for type of carbohydrates. They kind of did, indirectly, by controlling for glycemic index, but frankly a more valuable control would be for whole grain consumption as its consumption has been shown quite conclusively to minimize the risk of developing metabolic syndrome while the converse is true from refined carbohydrates (the white stuff)

The authors did not control for sodium intake which of course would impact on the development of hypertension (one of the criteria above). Here actually is an argument that might be applicable as many diet beverages do still have salt in them

The authors did not control for meals out. If would certainly seem plausible to me that the folks drinking more soft drinks (diet or otherwise) are the folks eating out more regularly. Meals out have more calories and as a whole more dietary salt, less healthy fats and more refined carbohydrates - all of which contribute to metabolic syndrome development.

The authors could not come up with any commonality to explain the fact that diet soft drink consumption and regular soft drink consumption led to the same outcomes. Unfortunately, without commonality what they've failed to prove is causality and instead have proved association. They did mention "sweetness" of the beverages as a possibility leading people to consume more, but if you remember back to my criticisms on the study's calorie models, they concluded that in fact calories were not statistically different between groups. As well, if they did want to blame sweetness, another control would have to be juice consumption, because if both high fructose corn syrup and aspartame can have the same effect, so too should plain old fructose.

So to sum up, the study's calorie models are flawed at best, the authors didn't control for known confounding variables that have in fact been proven to be contributors to metabolic syndrome and they admit that they can't think of any similarities between diet soft drinks and regular soft drinks that would explain their results.

The ABA (the American Beverage Association) came out with a statement of their own and amazingly, I agree with their conclusions more than this study's.

The ABA states,

"This study doesn't prove any link between soft drinks and increased risk of heart disease. Its assertions defy the existing body of scientific evidence as well as common sense. Even the researchers acknowledge that their study can't support a link."

I couldn't (and didn't) say it better myself.

You may now enjoy your Diet Cokes.

Goodbye Supersize, Hello Hugo-size

In 2004, following the public backlash after the release of the movie Supersize Me, McDonald's discontinued their practice of promoting Supersized portions.

Well guess what? Starting this summer there's a new McDonald's Supersize in town and it's called Hugo.

A Hugo sized soft drink costs only 89cents, is 42oz in size (for us Canadians that means 1.25 litres) and contains over 400 Calories and 31.5 teaspoons of sugar.

Dayna Proud, a McDonald's spokesperson when cornered by the New York Times had this to say about the Hugo,

"People, I believe, tend to drink more during the summer"

and when asked if it were comparable with prior Supersized promotions stated,

"That’s not what this is about, you have to put it in context with the rest of our menu."

Certainly from the ad above, that context is meant to be to buy it alongside an ice cream sunday.

And why Hugo? Because it's meant to make you huge? Because it's so large it makes you want to give people hugs? Because of that character on Lost?

Lastly I wonder if McDonald's will offer apologies to all the Hugos of America whose respective "friends" and bullies now have a wonderful new way to make fun of them.

People will buy anything

Today's Funny Friday post was born in the 80s.

It's a clip from a workout video by Green Childers called Body Flex II.

I'm thinking of buying it myself - laughing's great for your abs.

Have a great weekend!

Big Food's Useless Gesture

Yesterday was awash with news reports of how Big Food is voluntarily planning to decrease advertising targeting children.

They're trying to throw government a bone so as to allow the government an easy out as to why they're not going to legislate any reforms.

So what has Big Food offered?

Well certainly not a blanket ban. Instead it's a company by company, product by product, voluntary (and therefore reversible and unenforcible) series of changes. And apparently it's a ban on advertising during children's shows, but not "family" shows like American Idol which according to a report in the New York Times is watched by 2.1 million children between the ages of 6-11.

For a complete list of the companies involved and their pledges, click here.

Pepsi-Co will only market two products to children - Baked cheetos and Gatorade. McDonald's will only advertise two type of Happy Meals one with four Chicken McNuggets, apple dippers with caramel dip and low-fat white milk, or one with a hamburger, apple dippers and milk. General Mills will stop marketing its Twix cereal, but Cocoa Puffs will remain A-OK to target to kids.

Let's see. Cocoa Puffs for breakfast, baked cheetos for a snack, four Chicken McNuggets, apple dippers with caramel dip and low-fat white milk for lunch, some gatorade while playing XBOX and then for dinner - maybe that rising crust pizza that was advertised last night on American Idol.

What a healthy day.

Thank you Big Food - you guys sure are a big help.

Should we ditch nutrition in schools?

That's what a recent non-scientific study conducted by the Associated Press would suggest.

In the study the AP examined 57 nutrition education programs conducted at schools and of them, only 4 showed anything even remotely resembling a positive result.

Some programs offered kids free fruits and vegetables, others gave prizes to students who ate fruits and vegetables, and most simply provided more in depth nutritional education. All programs were rather time and/or resource intensive.

Sounds discouraging, right? Kids will be kids and just won't change, right?

Maybe. However I can't help but wonder if the problem isn't with the kids, but rather with the programs. I've had the misfortune of being involved in the planning of some of these programs. I say "misfortune" because certainly in the cases where I've been involved the organizers involved in the programs' designs were often a hodge-podge of very well intentioned, but not necessarily expert folks who always want to promote the same old tired, overly simplistic and clearly useless messages of:

Eat more fruits and vegetables

Eat less fast food

Exercise more

Watch less TV

Play fewer video games

Eat less fat

If I was setting up school nutrition curricula, certainly the one thing I would ensure was front and centre was the concept of energy. Calories. People are afraid of talking about calories. I've often heard folks express concern that if we teach kids about calories, we'll promote eating disorders. Never mind that there's never been a study that suggests that teaching calories leads to any sort of disordered eating behaviour; never mind that by teaching calories you could argue you're providing kids with minimum calorie targets thereby perhaps reducing anorexic risks; and never mind of course that calories that are the currency of weight. It's only in calorie blind world where low-fat muffins, fruit juice and smoothies are healthy choices. Teach kids how many calories they need and how to find them and perhaps they'll make different choices.

Don't believe me?

It worked in Pennsylvania with zero additional guidance. Four schools there simply posted calories on their cafeteria menu board and then tracked cafeteria purchases and low and behold, immediately kids started choosing the lower calorie options - the study was published here in the Journal of Child Nutrition and Management. A followup study showed that when you combined school nutrition programs with point of sale nutrition information, students were happier with the school nutrition programs as a whole.

Schooling aside, regular readers of my blog will know that my belief is that the best way to combat childhood obesity is to walk the walk which is why when I counsel parents of overweight or obese children I always provide them with the same message,

"Live the way you want your children to live and then hope for the best"

As far as I'm concerned, the bigger problem here is the fact that adults aren't taught what's healthy or how to maintain a healthy body weight and consequently they're unable to walk the walk for their children. That's also why it's such a horrible shame that the Canadian government decided to put out a Food Guide that spent more time promoting industry in Canada than promoting an evidence-based approach to healthy eating with clear and useful guidance on weight management. I guess for now we should all just keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't take the government another 15 years to revise this one.

A Weight Loss Cult?

It's called the Weigh Down Workshop and since 1986 it has been held in over 30,000 locations around the world. Even more remarkable is the fact that out of this God based diet has grown an actual evangelical church.

I'll get back to the church in a moment, but first let me help you with the question, "How will God help me lose weight?"

Well according to the Weigh Down website,

"God is broken hearted over the fact that so many of His children have learned to run to the food instead of to Him for comfort, companionship, and acceptance."

"God does not care about what we eat, so we should no longer feel self-righteous about following any man-made rules. Instead, what God cares about is how much we eat; He cares very much about - and is displeased with - overindulgence."

"Typical diets have not worked because everyone is using man-made rules instead of God’s rules. God has never asked anyone to eat food off of a list, count fat exchanges, or take an appetite suppressant! Weigh Down doesn’t have any of those things. What we DO have is a future-a future to be filled and fulfilled. Hunger will be filled and appetites will be under control, given to God."

Ok, a little weird that these folks feel that God cares how much I eat, but to ask God to help them with weight loss, what's wrong with that?

Nothing.

Interestingly however, the Weigh Down Workshop actually spawned a church called the Remnant Fellowship (130 worldwide and growing) and on the Remnant Fellowship website they describe the role of the Weigh Down workshop as,

"The Weigh Down Workshop Productions creates the Bible material for its members and is the evangelistic arm to these Churches that are now scattered across the USA, Canada, Europe and Australia."

Now I'm no cult expert, but Rick Ross is and The Rick Ross Institute has a collection of articles regarding the Remanant Fellowship including some which detail how the church apparently teaches that over eaters court eternal damnation.

Oh, and did I mention that the Church was featured prominently in the beating death of an 8 year old by two of its members? Apparently the Church is a big fan of corporal punishment for children. They funded the defense of the two parishioners Joseph and Sonya Smith who were each given life plus 30 years for the death of their son who prosecutors said was kept locked in a wooden box and confined to a closet for hours at a time before he died in October 2003 from a blow to the head. The Church has stuck by the convicted parents and have set up a website to help pay for their appeal.

So let me get this straight, their version of God hates over eaters and damns them to an eternity burning in the fires hell but has a soft spot for child abuse?

I think I like my version better.

Stupidest Treadmill Ever

If you ever feel a need to look patently ridiculous, you need look no further than this treadmill by Oooms.

Called the Rollator, walking on it causes its wheels to turn thereby propelling you forward. What this means of course is that you can only use it outdoors and you can use it to get from one place to another.

You know what else does that?

Walking.

A video of this sublimely stupid product below.

Dizzy Boxing - my new Favourite Sport

This week has seen an influx of new subscribers to my blog thanks in part to its being picked up by CTV's Mednews Express blog (they grab the posts they want).

For those of you new here, Fridays are my day off indignation. Around here Fridays become "Funny Fridays" where usually I find some bizarre clip from YouTube to brighten up your day.

Email subscribers, you've got to log on to the blog itself to watch the video.

So without further ado, here's a video of perhaps my new favourite sport. It's called dizzy boxing and here's how you play. Get spun by a giant machine in a circle for a while, get released and run down a narrow plank towards your opponent (who for good measure, is wearing a dress), try to hit your opponent without falling off the plank because if you do you should know, the water surrounding you below is scalding hot. If you do fall off, hurry out of the water because just outside of the pool is a big bowl of ice that you can jump in.

I think we should petition the Olympics for inclusion.

Have a great weekend!

Are Antioxidants Dangerous?

Since the late 1980s antioxidants have been heralded as molecules that are dramatically important to our health. Multivitamins shout their antioxidant concentrations on their labels and food and beverages are promoted based on their antioxidant properties.

Antioxidants work by neutralizing free radicals, the byproducts of oxidative stress in the body - put simply, they are supposed to be working to protect us by neutralizing dangerous and damaging molecules that have been touted as being theoretical culprits in a myriad of disease processes.

This week a study was pre-released by the Annals of Internal Medicine that looked at the long term effects of selenium supplementation on the risk of developing diabetes. The reason researchers chose selenium is because it's a potent antioxidant and oxidative stress has been proposed as an important mechanism in the development of insulin resistance and diabetes and therefore researchers postulated that if they provided folks with more protection against oxidative stress, it might translate into protection against diabetes.

What the researchers found was that the more selenium provided to the study patients, the greater their risk (yes, I did say greater) of developing diabetes.

So what's going on here? I thought it was supposed to lower risk.

What's going on here is further proof that common sense does not dictate treatment response and that our bodies are big black boxes that don't always behave as predicted.

Interestingly that can be said about a few other heavily promoted antioxidants.

Beta-carotene, once expected to be a contender at reducing the risk of cancer development was actually shown to increase the risk and rate of lung cancer growth in Finnish smokers.

Vitamin E, once expected to help reduce the risk of heart disease, Alzheimer's, cancer and more, was shown in fact to be associated with increased rates of all cause mortality and increased risk of congestive heart failure.

At the end of the day, I'm not suggesting you should immediately stop your antioxidant containing multivitamin. The risks we're talking about here are far from astronomical and there may indeed be benefits to other disease processes. I do however think that consumers need to bear in mind that we really don't have nearly the understanding that folks think we have in terms of how individual micronutrients impact on our health and simply because something theoretically sounds healthy, doesn't make it a smart choice.

My recommendation is to remember that while we might still lack data about the individual components of food, where we've got a great deal of data is about food itself. Diets higher in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and fish and lower in red meats, refined carbohydrates and salts indeed have been shown to reduce the burden of chronic disease.

Focus on your food, not on your vitamins.

Menu Board Calories Arrive in New York

On July 1st, a new regulation passed by the New York Board of Health required chain restaurants to put calories on menu boards. The menu board above is the first to comply and not too surprisingly it comes from Subway, a chain that has long since been banking on nutritional disclosure.

The food industry as a whole however is not as welcoming of this regulation as Subway and in fact most chains are refusing to comply and in fact are busy suing the city in federal court.

In Canada a similar law was rejected by the House last year during its second reading following massive pressure by the food and restaurant industries to reject it.

If passed it would have certainly necessitated significant menu changes when shocked Canadians would have demanded lower calorie options as it doesn’t take a degree in dietetics to recognize that many of the foods that are out there have absolutely astronomical numbers of calories in them.

Back in 2005 I participated in a Think Tank on obesity in Toronto and I asked Sherry MacLauchlan, the Manager of Government Relations for McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada what McDonald’s position on menu board calories were and she responded that McDonald’s felt it would be too confusing to have all those numbers on the menu boards and that they would be impossible to read and navigate through.

It’s an argument that clearly has trickled over to the States as well and the Center for Science in the Public Interest has a great exhibit on it that includes a legal brief from Dunkin’ Donuts regarding New York City’s new regulations that included a mock menu board proving how difficult it would be to fit in calories (see below).


Indeed, in that mock up it is quite difficult.

The Health Department’s in house graphic artist caught wind of this and immediately whipped together a mock up of his own (see below)



Looks pretty easy to follow to me.

The restaurant industry is running scared because at the end of the day, industry, unlike government, responds to demand. In this case the demand will be for lower calorie items that actually taste good. For the industry that’s going to translate into money spent on research and development, and eventually for us it will hopefully be one more step towards a shrinking nation.

For the food industry, ignorance is business, for the public it might be bliss, but for your weight - ignorance is risk.

The Baconator

Heart attack waiting to happen.

6 strips of hickory smoked bacon, 1/2lb of beef, 2 slices of cheese, mayonnaise and a giant bun.

830 Calories, 50% of calories directly from fat, 2.5gr of trans fat and 1,920mg of sodium.

(Add a medium fries and a medium coke (a combo) and you're up to 1,470 calories, 71 grams of fat and 2,350mg of sodium.)

The Baconator

Thanks Wendy's.

How to Choose a Weight Loss Program

So let's say you have decided you want to try to lose some weight and that you've also decided that you'd like some help - who should you call?

Unfortunately I know of no country that regulates the weight loss industry. I say unfortunately because literally for centuries, weight loss scams and snake oil salesmen have been commonplace.

Some programs have celebrity endorsements - of course that doesn't mean that the celebrity has used the program or products. Just last week Rachel Hunter, new spokesperson for Slimfast admitted to Newsweek that she'd never even tried any and in fact the closest she could come to saying that she might try their product (though certainly her weight does not carry with it much in the way of medical risk) was this statement,

"I'm kind of more than willing to try their product."

Currently I'm working on a short set of questions to ask when considering a weight loss program based on some simple truths and principles regarding weight loss. As soon as they're done, I'll post them up here, but until then, there's a very extensive checklist/fill in the blanks document published by the FTC which you can print out and bring with you to any weight loss program you consider.

Some for sures:

1. Don't join a program that makes you pay up front and doesn't offer refunds
2. Don't join a program that makes you sign a contract or guarantees your weight loss
3. Don't join a program that requires the purchase of products of supplements
4. Don't join a program that has you eating fewer than 1,200 calories daily
5. Don't join a program that can't explain their success rates through a maintenance period.

To print up the FTC's checklist, click here.

Please Don't Let my Daughters Turn Out Like This

This one's another clip that's been floating around a long time.

It's so over the top I do wonder if it was staged.

It's about a teenager who's surprised by her family with her new Saab convertible as a birthday gift.

I should take this time too to wish our trainer Kelly a belated Happy Birthday and hope that this year affords her the time to train to the point of being faster than my wife.

Have a great weekend!

Is Avandia Safe?

If you're a diabetic and on a medication called Avandia (Rosiglitazone) and you read the news you're probably pretty scared. A few weeks ago a study came out in the New England Journal of Medicine that concluded, via a meta-analysis of other studies, that taking Avandia increased the risk of severe cardiovascular disease or death from cardiovascular causes by 8%.

I read the meta-analysis and I'll be honest, my knowledge of medical statistics was insufficient to truly decide how scary this all was. I chose to start taking my patients off Avandia and putting them on other medications figuring that until the issue is more firmly established one way or the other, I'd err on the side of caution.

This week the New England Journal of Medicine invited a diabetologist, a cardiovascular epidemiologist, and a drug-safety expert to give their opinions on the study and their views are available on the New England Journal's website for free here (scroll down to the editorial content and click on the free full text links).

Their conclusions?

Same as mine (but with their knowledge of statistics and study design backing them up) - given that there is certainly uncertainty regarding Avandia's safety and that alternative drugs for diabetics are readily available, it would seem prudent to consider switching patients off Avandia.

If you're a patient taking Avandia I would not recommend stopping it on your own. Go and see your physician and discuss it with them. If you were to stop it on your own without an alternative your sugars may climb dramatically high which certainly carries with it far more established and dramatic risks than staying on the Avandia for the extra few days it may take you to set up your appointment with your doctor.

Big Milk Hasn't Backed off Weight Loss Claims

Big Milk is still promoting the ridiculous concept that drinking 24 ounces of milk (the caloric equivalent of 27lbs a year of skim, 37lbs a year of 2% or 43lbs a year of chocolate milk) will magically help you lose weight.

If you remember, back in May Big Milk (specifically the National Dairy Council in the States), admitted that there was insufficient evidence to suggest that milk consumption has any benefit in weight control, and in response to pressure from the Federal Trade Commission agreed to back off on those advertisements.

Well it's now two months later and their obscene website is still up and running and going strong. The entire site is dedicated to the premise that milk causes weight loss as they state,

"The current body of research supporting dairy's role in weight management includes randomized clinical trials (considered the "gold standard" of science), observational, animal and cellular studies conducted by leading research institutions throughout the country."

This post is for the benefit of my American readers - if you'd like to petition the FTC to actually do something, please complain.

Click here to be linked to the FTC's online complaint form.

No Marijuana Weight Loss Drug Yet

So last week Sanofi-Aventis pulled their marijuana receptor based drug rimonabant from the FDA's application process.

It seemed that the drug, widely touted as the next great thing in medical weight loss, worked alright as a weight loss aid but had the nasty habit of inducing psychic side effects including suicidal ideation.

Rather than risk getting rejected from the FDA (I imagine that would hurt sales in the EU where the drug is in fact approved), Sanofi pulled the application.

Sanofi had sunk a tremendous amount of money into the research and development of the drug and shares dropped close to 5% on the news.

Sanofi had predicted over $3 billion per year of global sales of the drug and spent tremendous amounts of money marketing it even before its eventual non release in the States. I remember they were the only booth at the last Obesity Society conference with red carpets, plasma screen televisions, slick handouts and for some odd reason, frozen yogurt bars.

Bottom line here, while certainly I'd welcome a weight loss medication that was safe, effective with little in the way of side effects, it doesn't appear that we're too much closer.

Help Wanted

So no formal post today (it's a long weekend in Canada) but I thought I'd use the blog to advertise a job working with me and the other folks over at the Bariatric Medical Institute located in Ottawa, Ontario Canada.

Our great front desk person has decided to go back to school and consequently we've got an opening.

Knowing that I have a fair number of readers in Ottawa I thought I'd advertise the position here.

It's a full time position.

Here's our ad from the paper,

"We are looking for someone who loves working with people, is great at multi-tasking, is a team player and thrives off of challenge and responsibility. Our professional, holistic and unique medical office is looking for an office Administrator/Receptionist to join our team and our extremely positive and upbeat work environment. You will be responsible for answering 3 very busy lines, booking appointments, dealing with payments and most importantly playing an important role in overall patient relations.

Working with us you will have access to a full gym facility as well as shower and change rooms. Physical activity and healthy living are the primary focus of our work and therefore we view your active lifestyle as a great asset.

Our offered salary is highly competitive and includes a generous benefits package while the position has ample room for growth into an office management position.

We look forward to meeting with you."

If you or someone you know might be interested please send or have them send their resume to jobs(at)bmimedical.ca.

Thank you!