Bulging Brides trainer Nadeen Boman claims her show "encourages a guilt free attitude"

Readers of my blog may remember my post detailing the press release where the headline sounded alarm bells about Canadian women battling with body image and then proceeded to call on the Canadian women reading the press release to explore their own, "problem areas" and specifically look for,

"muffin tops to thunder thighs, from junk in the trunk to flabby arms"

I also referred to Nadeen Boman, she's the trainer quoted in the press release and the trainer on the Slice TV shows, "Bulging Brides" and, "The Last 10lbs Bootcamp".

Nadeen read my piece and left a thoughtful comment (scroll down through the linked post (it'll open in a new window) to get to the comment).

Now I've got nothing against Nadeen and she's certainly entitled to her opinion and her approach.

Me, I think Bulging Brides and The Last 10lbs Bootcamp encapsulate everything that's wrong about society and its approach to weight management, nutrition and healthy living.

I also think Nadeen's got a serious case of cognitive dissonance if she can in the same sentence no less, describe the existence of the show's "Aisle of Shame" as part of a process that "encourages a guilt-free attitude".

So now you know what Nadeen and I think - what do you think? Have you watched the show? Do you think it fosters a healthy attitude towards health and life in general? Leave us your comments, I'm sure we'll both be reading.

World's Stupidest Childhood Obesity Intervention Plan

Wow.

Anyone here familiar with the Greek myth of Milo? So the story goes,

"Milo of Croton was born in the sixth century B.C. in southern Italy, won the boys' wrestling Olympic Games in 540 B.C., and went on to victory in five consecutive Olympics.

Some modern athletic coaches consider Milo the father of resistance training, the process of lifting heavier and heavier weights to build strength. This stems from another legend: As a youth, Milo carried a newborn ox on his shoulders. As Milo grew, the ox grew; the load got heavier and Milo's muscles became stronger."

My guess is that the folks who work for Palos Sports a Chicago based sporting good distributor might have taken that myth literally.

Why?

Well last week they issued a press release detailing their,

"Operation Pull Your Own Weight"

Their premise?

I'll let their website do the talking (caplocks are theirs),

"1. Kids who can do pull-ups, ARE NEVER OBESE.

2. Using a Height Adjustable Pull Up Bar and Leg Assisted Pull Ups, (pulling and jumping at the same time) ALMOST ALL KIDS can develop the ability to do conventional pull-ups.

3. Which is to say, ALMOST ALL KIDS can naturally immunize themselves against obesity for a lifetime, without pills, shots, or fancy diets, by simply developing, and maintaining the ability to do pull ups."

Ummm, I think someone needs to help these folks with the principles of cause and effect.

Oh, and logic too.

Here's some comparably brilliant "logic" sure to blow Operation Pull your Own Weight guys' minds:

1. All astronauts are mammals.
2. Monkeys are mammals.
3. All astronauts are monkeys.

Ooooooooo, scary.

I'm guessing they call NASA the instant they read this.

By dumbing down obesity into an argument that includes a truism with misappropriated causality the individuals behind this effort do more harm than good.

Now normally I wouldn't bother posting about something like this. It's just so unbelievably stupid it almost isn't worth mention. Yet somehow this organization has managed to actually make noise with a piece having appeared in the Chicago Tribune...a positive piece no less. (if you want an entertaining read, head over to the piece and read the comments)

Oh, and if you're wondering what might be motivating these folks? They sell sporting goods equipment to schools and schoolyards for doing pull-ups.

[Hat tip to Travis from Obesity Panacea]

World's Greatest Office Chair (Humanscale Freedom Review)

Damn you Humanscale!

Damn you for making such a ridiculously comfortable chair.

Some brief background.

I've got a bad back. MRI shows disc herniations at L4-L5, L5-S1 and when it's "out" I'm a complete mess. I get shooting pain down my right leg and suffer with terrible muscle spasms in my lower back. I don't sleep well, I can't pick up my kids, exercise, etc.

It went "out" last June. By the fall I was desperate. I had another MRI to ensure there wasn't something growing in there and when that came back negative I decided it couldn't hurt to research my options in office ergonomics.

For anyone who's looked into their options for chairs and keyboard trays etc., you'll know that the options are not cheap.

My research online brought me to two chairs - the Humanscale Freedom and the Humanscale Liberty.

Contacting the company brought me to Mr. Joel Howey who kindly brought by one chair a week for test sits.

I opted for the Freedom, much to the chagrin of our Director of Operations who was nonplussed about spending nearly $1,000 on a chair. His measure of whether or not it was a good purchase was whether or not I ever opted to buy one for my home.

Fast forward to now. My back is back "in". I'm exercising again and completely functional. Yet whenever I work at home, and I mean literally every single time, within half an hour of sitting in my chair (an Obus Forme) I start getting shooting pain down my right leg and an hour of work usually translates to 2-4 hours of pain. I've adjusted it every which way I can think of to no avail.

So last week I shelled out my own dough to pick up another Humanscale Freedom. This weekend I worked away, pain free.

Damn you Humanscale for making the greatest chair on earth so darn expensive.

Worth every penny.

[If you're in the Ottawa region and would like to deal with an exemplary company and customer service representative feel free to contact Joel Howey at Jhowey@humanscale.com or call him on his cell at 613.218.3383. For further proof of just how good the service is, Joel was at my home on Saturday morning at 9:00am replacing a bolt that had disappeared during shipping - no charge. If his bosses are reading this, give him a raise!]

Irony thy names are Boston Pizza and Health Check

So a few weeks ago the second annual "Salt Lick Award" was announced.

The Salt Lick Award is the dubious honour conferred by the Canadian Stroke Network, the Canadian Obesity Network and the Advanced Foods and Materials Network to the producer of a food with an obscene amount of salt.

This year's award was given as a whole to the country's commercial pizza producers including Boston Pizza where it was reported in the Salt Lick press release,

"Two slices (284 grams total) of a large Rustic Italian pizza at Boston Pizza contain 2,580 mg of sodium"

(or about 1,000 mg more than an adult's daily recommended daily maximum)

Boston Pizza of course is a restaurant that's part of the ridiculous Heart and Stroke Foundation misinformation Health Check program whereby certain items on the menu are given a Health Check seal of approval including items containing as much as 1,220mg of sodium (the Thai chicken wrap) or almost a full day's worth.

So in essence Boston Pizza capitalizes on the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Health Check program to bring customers through the door, and the Heart and Stroke Foundation capitalizes on the dollars paid for by Boston Pizza for the endorsement along with the increased exposure. While you might want to make an argument that at least they'll have "healthier" choices if patrons order a Health Check'ed item, given how much sodium the Health Check program allows, a comparative analogy would be the Lung Association profiting off their endorsement of "light" cigarettes (if they're going to smoke anyway....).

Having far more experience that I'd care to admit in understanding how the Health Check program operates and the players behind, it I'd be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that when the Canadian Stroke Network and friends put out their Boston Pizza mentioning press release that someone from the Heart and Stroke Foundation called them to complain, as the bad press might affect the business of a Health Check participant.

And really, it is about business. Exhibit number two is the current promotion being put forth by Boston Pizza themselves whereby you can order heart shaped pizzas with some proceeds going to the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

I guess Boston Pizza's trying to protect its customer base by ensuring the dollars flow to an organization who supposedly is there to help prevent heart disease.

Ironic that the Heart and Stroke Foundation try to "prevent" it by encouraging unhealthy eating in restaurants.

[Want more irony? Here's the Heart and Stroke Foundation's own press release calling for a maximal daily sodium consumption of 1,500mg and here's one where the Foundation recommends that you eat out less frequently.]

The Fountain of Youth?

A rare non video Funny Friday.

A doctor on his morning walk noticed a very pretty older lady sitting on her front step smoking a cigar, so he walked up to her and said, 'I couldn't help noticing how happy you look! What is your secret?'

'I smoke ten cigars a day,' she said. 'Before I go to bed, I smoke a nice big joint. Apart from that, I drink a whole bottle of Jack Daniels every week, and eat only junk food. On weekends, I pop pills, get laid, and do no other
exercise at all.'

'That is absolutely amazing! How old are you?'

'Twenty-four,' she replied.

Have a great weekend!

[Hat tip to my friend and fellow Single Malt Book Club member David L.]

Denny's Free Superbowl Breakfast Slams 228,571 lbs onto American Waistlines

Here's how I figure:

2,000,000 people ate an almost 800 calorie breakfast.

For the sake of argument I'm assuming that such a breakfast will cause most who consumed it to have exceeded their daily calorie needs by at least 400 calories.

2,000,000 x 400 calories / 3500 calories per lb = 228,571 lbs.

Oh, and each free breakfast also provided the recipient with more than a day's worth of sodium (almost 10,000lbs of the stuff for the nation!).

Thanks?

How Real are Reality Weight Loss Shows?

Well if Bulging Brides is any indication, not so much.

Bulging Brides is a Canadian "reality" TV show that you guessed it, tries to help brides lose some weight pre-wedding.

According to this piece not only did the show misrepresent itself to a former participant, it also fabricated drama for the sake of the show.

Cathy Snow was originally recruited to be on a show she was told was entitled, "Buff Brides" and apparently was horrified when she learned that she was to be featured on a show that was actually called, "Bulging Brides",

"They portrayed me as an overindulgent pig, like all I do is eat my face out. They send you down the ‘aisle of shame’. They basically doubled what I ate and drank. They planted things in my cupboards. You know the whole time what’s happening. I’m a normal-sized person who eats a normal diet, but they need to make it good TV watching."

So what does the show have to say for itself?

Mea culpa according to one of the show's producers,

"The food diary, the ones [days] we choose to illustrate could be a worst-case scenario.…To be honest, we always pick the day where she’s like, ‘Oh my God! Did I eat that?’ If the audience thinks that’s what she eats for every meal, well...."

Snow reports that once everything was said and done she didn't regret her experience on Bulging Brides. She also reports gaining back the weight she'd lost. No shocker there given that the show's hosts and "experts" (note the sarcastic quotes), Tommy Europe and Nadeen Boman rely on the classically useless exercise-like-stink and eat-far-too-little short term diet.

Posted "portion sizes" don't influence actual portion sizes

In this month's Journal of the American Dietetic Association there's an elegant little paper that generates a none too surprising conclusion.

The paper details a randomized study whereby subjects were given a lunch meal which began with their being provided 0.5, 1.0 or 1.5 "portions" of pasta. They were then allowed to continue to eat as much pasta as they wanted following the preload consumption.

Guess what?

Being told you just ate 1.5 "portions" of pasta doesn't influence how much pasta you'll continue to eat afterwards or how full you'll feel.

According to the study subjects felt that the term "portion size" referred to the,

"standardised index of the nutritional content of a food/meal, rather than as an index by which to estimate personal food intake"

So you mean people don't eat a third of a cookie if that's what the bag's "serving size" states?

Improve your Body Image with Insults and Meal Replacement Bars?

Writing this blog has led to my inclusion in the press release launches of diet, weight and for some reason beauty related products.

Mostly they're ridiculous and honestly I question the wisdom of the folks who include me in their diet-centric mailings - did they ever bother to actually read my blog?

Anyhow, last week I received this press release. The headline read,

"Yikes! 1 of 3 Canadian Women Battling Body Image"

and I admit it did what a good headline ought to - it had me reading the next line.

I assumed of course it would be somehow related to a means to cultivate a healthier body image, or perhaps pointing me to a commentary on fat-ism.

Nope.

Instead I got this line,

"The mirror doesn’t lie. From muffin tops to thunder thighs, from junk in the trunk to flabby arms, Canadian women say they don’t like what they see."

So Canadian women - to improve your body image look for "problem areas" in the mirror, eat meal replacement bars and take nutritional and workout advice from Nadeen Boman - someone whose career has been built on berating womens' bodies and providing them with ridiculous, non-sustainable, workouts and diets.

Gee, I wonder why Canadian women battle body image issues? Could it be that press releases like this one and grotesque TV shows such as Nadeen Boman's Slice Networked Bulging Brides and The Last Ten Pounds Bootcamp contribute to the development of unhealthy body images in Canadian women?

Funny Friday: The Broken Escalator

Oh the horror!

Today's Funny Friday is a reenactment of the drama associated with a broken escalator.

Have a great weekend!



[Very belated posting and hat tip to loyal blog reader Jerry]

Have you eaten off a Weight Watchers menu over the past 4 years?

If it was at an Applebee's you might want to give Tara Kelly a call.

If you remember a few months back I blogged about the calorie labeling lawsuit that alleges misrepresented calorie counts at Applebee's restaurants from items off the Weight Watcher's menu whereby independent tests revealed some items to contain double the fat and calories posted.

Apparently now 4 separate law firms have launched class action lawsuits and a recent news story reported Gilbert Oshinsky lawyer Tara Kelly hopes to represent, "every person who has eaten from the Weight Watchers Menu in the last four years".

Given there are over 2,000 Applebee's in 49 states, 17 international countries and one U.S. territory, and lots of folks on Weight Watchers, I imagine Tara will be pretty busy.

The trial is scheduled for 2010.

Small Victory in Quebec in the Battle for your Children's Plates

Two days ago Saputo Inc., makers of the obscenely Heart and Stroke Foundation Health Check endorsed chocolate chip muffin and peddled by adorable Igor the Gorilla, pled guilty to 22 charges of targeting children with advertisements.

For my non-Quebec readers, Quebec is unique in Canada in that there's this rarely used set of laws established in 1980 that in fact bans advertising aimed at kids younger than 13.

Saputo Inc agreed to pay $44,000 in fines.

A pittance likely compared to the sales their campaign generated but at least a start.

Karine Vachon, a Saputo spokesperson had this to say about their Igor muffins, they're,

"healthier than other Vachon cakes"

which is kind of like bragging that eating your company's bacon is healthier than consuming pure lard.

Similar lawsuits are now moving forward versus McDonald's, Burger King and Lucky Charms maker General Mills.

What a shame these laws aren't shared by the rest of our country.

World's Stupidest School Food Policy?

Wow.

And here I thought that St. Andrew Elementary in Barrhaven's weekly ice-cream sandwiches for 6 year olds was a stupid plan.

This one takes the cake (almost literally).

Welcome to Mitchell High in the UK where if you show up for extra-classes you get rewarded with pizza and fish and chips!

But maybe they're crazy like foxes because guess what? Their pilot project's participants' grades were twice as good as the year before's controls.

Change4Life?

Spicoli would be proud.

[Congratulations to the two winners from yesterday's giveaway - Ashley and Natalie. To claim your prize pop me an email and I will then send you further instructions! Thanks to everyone who entered.]

Going Out of Business Sale

Git'mo of everything!

Today for Funny Friday is SNL's take on the closing of Guantanmo Bay.

(remember email subscribers need to head over to the blog itself to view).

Have a great weekend!



[Hat tip to Peter from the blog Obesity Panacea]

Are you eating North America's Least Healthy Breakfast Cereal?

Can't say I've ever heard of it.

Quaker Instant Grits Butter Flavor received a score of just 6/100 from NuVal (formerly known as ONQI), my favourite food rating scale.

Coming in a close second last was a more familiar name - Cap'n Crunch Sweetened Corn & Oat Cereal with a 10/100.

So what's the healthiest cereal according to NuVal? Another unknown for me - Hodgson Mill Unprocessed Wheat Bran (Millers Bran) which received a perfect score of 100 with Red River cereal a close second at 93.

This is why I love NuVal - it's incredibly easy to use. It takes 30 nutrients and 5 nutritional concepts and gives them to 11 of the world's leading nutritional scientists who then crunch them down in a weighted algorithm that spits out a rating between 1 and 100.

Healthiest sugary cereal? Kashi Golean Crunch Protein & Fiber Cereal Honey Almond Flax with a score of 40.

Most surprisingly unhealthy cereal? Cheerios with a score of 34.

Brain-dead simple to use.

Thanks NuVal!

The Lancet Hates the new UK Obesity Initiative

Can't say I blame them.

Change4Life, the new massive UK initiative to help with their obesity epidemic is being paid for by the very companies that helped bring them their problem.

Big Food's money is supposed to be spent on television advertisements, billboards, and posters with an aim of reducing childhood obesity rates by 2020.

Want to see how the money is being spent? Check out this television spot. Want to guess where my head's at as to whether spots like this will make one whit of difference?



Hopefully as this project grows messages will be more useful than the classically useless, "Eat less, exercise more" message this spot provides and while I'm sure there is some useful information on their website, I did also note their explicit recommendation to swap soft drinks for "unsweetened" fruit juices as part of a, "sugar swap".

Pssst, Change4Life people, there's just as much, if not more sugar in juice than in sodas!

[BTW - check out the neat new feature up above. It's the article from the Lancet as an embedded PDF, use the magnifying glass slider to read]

Quackery: The Amazing "Diet Guard"

Wow.

"Snack Proof your Mouth"

How will you do that?

You'll shove two plastic mouth guards into your mouth so that you can't chew.

So what if you end up talking with a slight lisp, after all boxers wear mouth guards and they're in great shape.

Super-stylish too.

What's not to love?

Only $99.99.

Frankenfood - Hot Beef Sundae Edition

Yup. Hot. Beef. Sundae.

Thanks to Matthew Stoller who snapped pics of one of the viler Frankenfoods I've ever seen.

The description reads,

"Golden mashed potatoes covered with a generous portion of our roasted and seasoned to perfection top round beef, then aged cheddar cheese, more golden mashed potatoes, smothered with our special beef gravy, more aged cheddar cheese, a slice of buttered toast and a cherry tomato on top."

You can get yours in Nebraska.

Men vs. Women vs. The Walk-in Closet

Sure it stereotypes men and women, but that doesn't mean it isn't funny.

Today's Funny Friday covers the differing priorities of the sexes.

Have a great weekend!

Badvertising: Anti-aging Yogurt puts the "sigh" in Acai

Yup, it's anti-aging.

Why?

Because of the miraculous Brazilian acai berry that contains "antioxidants".

According to Dairyland's Alive page, antioxidants,

"may help people sustain vitality as they become older and decrease the risk of age related health issues such as cancer, decreased immunity, and heart disease"

I can't imagine why doctors everywhere aren't prescribing this stuff.

Must be because we're afraid we'd go out of business.

Yup, that's got to be it.

This really puts the "sigh" in a-sigh-ee (the correct pronunciation of acai)

(Thank goodness all of my dietary health needs are covered by yogurts, juices and chips)

Badvertising: Chips are Vegetables, Right?

So after I eat my heart chips, I'm going to have a hearty serving of vegetables.

No stupid broccoli for me. Kiss my artichokes goodbye.

From now on I'm going to have Flat Earth Impossibly Good vegetable crisps.

I don't care that they're not whole grain because I'll get my whole grain from those Sun Chips.

I don't care that they've got piles of sodium and calories because there's a half a serving of real vegetables in every ounce.

Let's see....if I have 8 ounces a day that's like 4 "vegetables".

Of course it's also over 1000 calories and a day's worth of sodium.

Huzzah!

Badvertising: Heart Chips

Yup, I get all my whole grains from salty snack foods.

No stupid whole grain breads, pastas or cereals for me.

Those are for suckers.

I eat a bag of Sun Chips daily.

"Less salt than you think" has got to be good right?

Yup, one bag a day. I'm going to do my heart the favour of 21lbs of extra salty snack calories a year.

I bet they're really filling too!

Badvertising: Cholesterol Lowering Orange Juice

"What's not to love", the ad asks.

How about the 22lbs worth of OJ calories you'll have to drink per year to get the 12% reduction in LDL found in the Minute Maid funded study looking at this fortified OJ? No? Then how about the 76 cups of sugar you'd consume that year from the OJ. That's 38.5lbs of sugar by the way.

You think maybe, just maybe, drinking 22lbs of OJ calories and 76 cup fulls of sugar per year might have some negative health outcomes?

What's that? You're asking about those folks who already drink two glasses of OJ per day and that a straight swap's a good thing.

I suppose it would be.

Do you think maybe cutting out the 22lbs a year of juice and 76 cups of sugar altogether would be a better thing?

What's that? You're asking about the person with the healthy weight who's drinking two glasses of juice per day? It'd be good for them right?

Sure, 76 cups of sugar a year never hurt anybody, right?

[Calculation wise: 48grams of sugar per 2 cups of OJ x 365 days a year / 229grams of sugar per cup]

Are Taxis Cheaper than Hearses?

Dad, I know you've always wanted a hat tip so here you go.

Hat tip to my Dad for today's Funny Friday which proves cabbies are far more understanding than you might think.

Oh, and Happy Birthday Mom!

(new email subscribers, usually to see the videos you have to actually visit the blog which you can do by clicking here)

Renowned Dietitian Leslie Beck Calorically Confused?

What is it about calories that makes health professionals not want to talk about them?

Some say that teaching people about calories will lead to increased incidences of eating disorders - yet there's never been any evidence published to suggest that would be true.

And really it's more about how you talk and teach about calories.

At my offices we teach people to be non-judgmental about calories. They're not by definition, "bad", it's just that we have to pick and choose when they're worth it.

It's a money type analogy - before you buy anything it's probably a good idea not only to look at the price tag, but also to know how much you've got in your bank account and how much you make a month. We all buy things we don't need, but we of course don't buy every last thing we want - some things just aren't worth their price tags and frankly some foods just aren't worth their calories.

The other thing we teach about calories is that rather than worrying about maximums, worry about minimums - eating too few of them at any given meal or snack and you're asking to get hungry and as anyone who's ever gone to the supermarket hungry knows, hunger influences our choices.

Of course there's much more to successfully losing weight than simply keeping track of calories. Elements such as the timing of meals and snacks, macronutrient distributions, protein consumption, learning how to cook, finding time, planning and meal preparation, shopping skills, media awareness and so on.

Which brings me to Leslie Beck. She's a very prominent Toronto based dietitian and I often quite like what she's got to say. Yesterday though wasn't one of those times.

Yesterday she wrote an article for the Globe and Mail that told readers that the key to weight loss was simply portion control and explicitly discouraged them from looking at calories.

Why is her assertion ridiculous and upsetting?

Well it's upsetting because she knows better. It's upsetting because there's this non-complicated factor of which she's well aware called energy density. What energy density refers to is the fact that gram per gram some foods have more calories than others. What that means is that even eating small portions of highly energy dense foods can lead to the consumption of large numbers of calories. By not including this concept in her article and by simply telling people to eat less, she's doing a disservice both to the public and to the privilege she enjoys of being able to reach huge numbers of people.

It's a ridiculous assertion because basically Leslie is telling her readers that in order to lose weight you simply have to eat less. While ultimately that's true it's about as useful a piece of advice as someone telling you that to get rich all you need to do is, "buy low and sell high" in the stock market. In Leslie's case the analogy would be to an actual stockbroker giving you that sage advice.

If it were that easy Leslie, everybody'd be skinny.

New York State Health Commissioner Calorically Confused?

I figure most of my blog readers already know about New York State's fat-tax proposal whereby an 18% premium will be attached to sugary drinks. The hope of course is that if soda costs more, people will therefore buy and drink less, and by drinking less sugary beverages those folks will lose weight (or stop gaining).

It's a very simple premise really - drink fewer calories, gain less (or even lose some) weight and in NYC where calories are posted on menus, people really ought to "get it".

You know who absolutely ought to "get it"? New York State's Health Commissioner - the board certified in internal medicine physician Dr. Richard Daines who you'd guess ought to be fairly well versed in all things caloric.

Well if the video below really represents his views, I'm not so sure.

You see in the video below Dr. Daines boils down the point of the tax to be shifting the consumption of cola "back" to the consumption of milk as in the 70s when obesity was less of a concern the average New Yorker was drinking more milk and less soda.

The problem with that notion is that the past 30 years of weight gain cannot be skimmed down to a single variable. It's not soda that's caused the gain, it's the calories in it as well as the various other foods and portions that have grown in size, quantity and calories since the 70s.

Watch the video and you'll hear how in fact since the 70s the average New Yorker is drinking at least 2 more glasses of liquid calories a week just between milk and soda. Of course we also know that since 1970 juice consumption has gone up as well so likely the average New Yorker is consuming anywhere from 200-500 more calories weekly purely from liquid sources. Splitting the difference and extrapolating for a year that's 5.2lbs more calories per year just from non-satiating liquids.

Given that 2% and higher fat milks have drop per drop more calories than soda, and juice the same, if all a New Yorker did following the introduction of the fat-tax was swap some sodas for milks or juice liquid calories won't change (and neither will weight).

Now I can't imagine Dr. Daines doesn't "get it", I think he probably figured it'd be best to try to dumb things down.

Problem is dumbing things down when it comes to calories is just plain dumb. If New Yorkers who watch Dr. Daines think that soda has magically bad calories and milk and juice magically good ones they're missing the really important take home point - liquid calories aren't satiating and we drink too many of them.

The message really has to be, don't drink your calories. Too bad Dr. Daines blew the opportunity to hammer that home.



[Hat tip to one of my favourite nutritional economists Parke Wilde]

I hope you gained weight over the holidays

That's what I'm telling my patients.

Frankly I think for many (certainly not all), significant losses over Christmas and New Years carry a worse prognosis than small gains.

Why?

Simple.

To lose weight over Christmas and New Year for many would require an overly strict approach, a slap-your-wrist, wish you could have seconds, damn that stupid pie, type approach. An approach otherwise known as a "diet".

"Diets" by definition are temporary.

Lifestyles are forever.

Life includes Christmas.

Hope you enjoyed yours.

(And if you did lose, don't feel guilty, just ask yourself if you were reasonably indulgent and if not, perhaps loosen your reins just a touch)

French-Fried Hot Dogs?

I need a softball post to get back to blogging and thanks to my favourite blogging anaesthetist Joe, I've got one.

Introducing this year's first Frankenfood, straight from South Korea - the french-fried hot dog.

I imagine that whatever evil technology was used to fuse the fries to the dogs will soon be used to make french-fried lots of other stuff.

Hope you all had great holidays - look for some more figuratively meaty posts later this week.

[Hat tip to Joe via The Last Appetite blog]

Weighty Matters Cracks Wikio's Top 50 Health Blogs!

Received a nice email today from Nicolas over at Wikio advising me that Weighty Matters cracked their top 50 list for Health Blogs.

Below is Wikio's top 50 with Weighty Matters flying up to number 33!

Happy New Year everyone,
Yoni

1 Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog 2 Pharmalot 3 Shapely Prose 4 The Carlat Psychiatry Blog 5 GoozNews 6 DB's Medical Rants 7 The Doctor Is In 8 In the Pipeline 9 Healthcare Economist 10 The Covert Rationing Blog 11 Health Care Renewal 12 Highlight HEALTH 13 Brain Blogger 14 Autism Vox 15 InsureBlog 16 Doctor Anonymous 17 Disease Management Care Blog 18 StevePavlina.com 19 Six Until Me. 20 Her Bad Mother 21 Musings of a Dinosaur 22 Junkfood Science 23 Dr. Deb 24 Fight Aging! 25 Schwitzer health news blog 26 ScienceRoll 27 AlexShalman.com

28 HD BizBlog 29 Diabetes Mine 30 John McManamy's SharePosts 31 The Independent Urologist 32 Aging Fabulous 33 Weighty Matters 34 The-F-Word.org 35 Pallimed 36 retired doc's thoughts 37 Cranky Fitness 38 PixelRN 39 The Trouble With Spikol 40 The Rotund 41 The Change Blog 42 Eye on DNA 43 Alzheimer's Notes 44 Autism News Beat 45 All 4 My Gals 46 Slow Down Fast 47 Global Health Policy 48 The Last Psychiatrist 49 Bump on the Road 50 John Goodman's Health Policy Blog Rankings by Wikio.

The World's Best Holiday Weight Advice

3 words.

Don't. Get. Hungry.

Christmas (or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or Muharram or any religious holiday) isn't preventable.

Hunger is.

Life includes Christmas.

Worst thing you could do to help control portions/foods/calories on Christmas? Save them up for the day because you know you have a big night. If you do that you'll hit your festive meal hungry and way over do it.

Best thing you could do? The day of - eat every 2-3 hours, include protein with every meal and snack, have at least 350 calories per meal and 150 calories per snack and then indulge because it's Christmas and not because you're hungry on Christmas.

Merry everything and Happy New Year!
Yoni

(On Blog-cation until January 5th!)

Disney Creates World's Vilest Burger?

Maybe.

Served with pride in Disneyland Paris' Buzz Lightyear Pizza Planet is a burger with pizza for a bun.

Only €6.45.

Thanks Disney for providing yet another healthy option for the children.

[Hat tip to loyal blog reader Stefan, via A Hamburger Today and Flickr's Ms Noir for the photo]

Shocker! Restaurant Food has More Calories!

Sure, common sense already told you so, but now here's proof.

In last weeks issue of Review of Agricultural Economics James Binkley looked at, "Calorie and Gram Differences between Meals at Fast Food and Table Service Restaurants".

His non-shocking conclusions?

Calories and portions in restaurant meals are larger than at home ones and restaurants are as bad if not worse calorically than fast food.

Breakfasts at table service restaurants typically had 261 more calories than home cooked and fast food 206 more.

Lunches at table services restaurants typically had 183 more calories than home cooked and fast food 227 more.

Dinners at table service restaurants typically had 219 more calories than home cooked and fast food 120 more.

Couple those conclusions with the facts that food dollars spent outside the home have increased from 33% in the early 70s to 54% today and that obesity rates have risen dramatically since the early 70s (doubling in adults and trebling in children) and you've got one clear cut puzzle piece.

My simple eating out rules?

Keep celebratory meals out. Keep some social meals out (but look for other socializing options). Keep necessary business meals out. Lose all the convenience ones, the because it's easier than cooking ones.

Quite simply eat out the smallest amount you need to be happy.

[Via Parke Wilde's US Food Policy blog - because what other blogger are you aware of that reads Review of Agricultural Economics?]

Toilet Humour - Literally

I really am a simple man.

Enjoy Funny Friday and have a great weekend!



[Hat tip to Rob, BMI's fitness director]

Surprise! Booze has Calories!

Surprisingly to me, many patients are shocked when I tell them how many pounds worth of calories they're drinking in booze.

Perhaps one of the reasons they're shocked is that they truly have no idea and the reason they have no idea is because for reasons that I cannot explain, alcohol is exempt from carrying a Nutrition Facts Panel.

Well now, thanks to a lovely website from the BBC entitled "Alcohol Experiment" you can plug in your nights' drinks and see how many calories you drank.

Be forewarned - if you like drinking, you won't like the answer.

(And for any across the pond readers, can you please leave a comment as to just what the heck is a "jaffa cake" or an "onion bhajji"?)

[Via the Consumerist]

UPDATE: Thanks to friend and colleague Sara and blog reader Cathy who have informed me that jaffa cakes are, "cake-like (i.e.spongy) cookies with a thin layer of an orange jelly and then a layer of chocolate" and that onion bhajjis are, "onions coated in a spicy batter and deep fried". Apparently both are delicious.

Burger King - the Cologne?!

Who doesn't love the smell of flame-broiled meat?

They really are great marketers those Burger King folks.

$3.99 - It's called Flame.

My Wife Channels Jamie Oliver

A ways back I blogged about Jamie Oliver's latest show, Ministry of Food, in which he tries to teach a British town of 250,000 how to cook by teaching his recipes to a few folks, asking them to teach them to a few folks and so on, and so on.

My wife, inspired by Jamie's social experiment, decided to host one of her own whereby she's organized a group of her friends to share their families' favourite recipes.

Here's the email she sent out to her friends,

"So Yoni and I just finished watching Ministry of Food with Jamie Oliver.

Basically the show tries to teach people in a small town to cook by “passing it on”, whereby each person who learns a recipe passes it on to two more people and so on. Between that and seeing all these advertisements for places like Super Works in Orleans, I had an idea: What if we create our own “pass it on”? We could choose one night a month where we get together at someone’s home (on a rotation) and the hostess chooses the meal that we are going to be making together. This would give us an opportunity to:

a) hang out (more),
b) learn a new recipe that comes with high recommendations,
c) have a nutritious meal ready to serve to our families the next day

We would each be responsible for providing a list of ingredients needed for the recipe ahead of time and would bring it along, or the hostess could pick it all up and then divide the cost of the groceries amongst participants.

Let me know if you’re interested! (Can you tell I’m getting bored with our usual repertoire of meals?)."

Well today I'm pleased to report that the idea was a big hit whereby she and 6 of her friends met at our house and made a chicken curry dish that has proven to be surprisingly child and picky-eater friendly (Recipe Below). They've also already set a date for their next culinary adventure.

Maybe it's time for you and your friends to "Pass it On"?

Slow-Cooker Chicken Curry

• 1.5lbs chicken breast half without skin, cut in 1" cubes
• 1.5lbs chicken thighs without skin, cut in 1" cubes
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 medium Onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon brown mustard seeds
• 28 ounces crushed tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 head cauliflower, cut into small florets, stems discarded
• 1 cup peas, frozen, thawed

1. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions to the pan and cook until softened.
   
2. Add the garlic, chiles, coriander, turmeric, cumin, ginger, paprika, red pepper flakes, and mustard seeds and cook gently for 2 min, stirring constantly.
3. Add the tomatoes and lemon juice and mix well.
4. Puree half of the tomato-onion mixture in a blender or food processor or in the pan with a handheld immersion blender.
5. Coat the slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray.
6. In layers add to the slow cooker one-third of the Chicken (dark meat first) and one quarter of the sauce, and sprinkle with one-third of the cauliflower. Repeat the layers two more times and finish with the remainder of the sauce.
7. Cover and cook on High for 1 hour.
8. Turn the cooker to Low and cook for 4-4.5 hours.
9. During the last 30 minutes, toss in the peas, season with salt, cover and cook until tender.
10. Serve over whole-grain couscous.

Serves 10.

Per Serving (excluding couscous): 198 Calories; 7g Fat; 23g Protein; 12g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 194mg Sodium.

Thank you!

Thanks to everyone who voted, Weighty Matters was voted Best Health Blog in the 2008 Canadian Blog Awards.

Close second place to my friend and colleague Dr. Arya Sharma for his Obesity Notes blog. I'm predicting a first place finish for him next year.

Thanks again,
Yoni

An Amazing $15.99 Nutritional Stocking Stuffer!

It's called Mastercook and it's a recipe manager program.

Like many such programs it'll compile and store all of your family's recipes, it has a shopping list generator and thousands of built in recipes. However there are two things that really set this one apart for me.

Firstly it's got this great feature that allows you to cut and paste a recipe from virtually any recipe website directly into your cookbooks.

Secondly it's got a nutritional database built in and with the click of a button you can immediately get a nutritional breakdown of your recipe (calories, vitamins, carbs, protein, sugar, fibre, etc.) and best of all, it's scalable (meaning enter all of your ingredients and then enter how many servings you served and it'll scale the nutritional information down for you).

I love the program and for $15.99 CAD from Amazon.ca it's tough to go wrong (for some reason Amazon.com charges more - $18.99 USD).

If you're interested, links to both Amazon.ca and Amazon.com are below.

Holiday Eating - Canine Edition

As I've blogged about before, unlike in people the cause, and more importantly the treatment of canine obesity is not too difficult to ascertain.

To illustrate the point is today's Funny Friday!

Have a great weekend!



[Hat tip to my friend and sensei - Claudio, from asksensei.com]

Why Your Child's Food isn't "Bone Stiffening"

I love this story.

So in 2006 the European Food Safety Authority tightened up the requirements for health claims on packaging. They (gasp) required a more rigorous proof be made by corporate applicants that the front-of-package claim was actually scientifically defensible.

So what's happening?

Apparently Big Food is up in arms because sales are suffering as claims like the one put forth by the Beneo-Orafti corporation that was slotted to appear on kids' foods suggesting that the food was "bone stiffening" are not making the cut.

For icing on this blog post, check out this quote from Shane Starling, editor of Big Food newsletter (and source for many of my blog posts) Nutraingredients,

"If one of the aims of the health claims process is to build consumer confidence in healthy food messaging, a mass rejection of those claims by an apparently rational and independent body can only do the opposite."

Yup Shane, it's those crazy rational independent bodies demanding an evidence-based approach to health claims that are going to crush consumer confidence, not asinine and scientifically unsubstantiable claims like, "bone stiffening".

Why Oprah Regained her Weight

Simple.

All the money in the world (and I believe Oprah literally has all the money in the world) won't change the fact that at the end of the day the way you live is a choice and not a purchase.

In Oprah's case, she admits to stopping her exercise sessions, her meditations and going back to eating higher calorie foods.

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not knocking Oprah. Frankly I can't imagine what her life must actually be like. The hours she works, her stress levels, her responsibilities - not to mention the incredible amount of meals out that her job likely requires of her.

Oprah had succeeded in losing weight before because she succeeded in changing her lifestyle. That said, unless you enjoy the way you're living while you're losing, ultimately you're going to gain it back.

Life's complicated and lifestyle for weight management is a treatment, not a cure. Stop treatment - regain weight. So really, you'd better pick a treatment you actually enjoy.

Cultural Arrogance or Brilliant Marketing?

It's been out for one day and already there is a lot of uproar over Burger King's new "Whopper Virgin" campaign.

The premise is simple. Take Whoppers to people who've never had them (farmers in Transylvania, the Inuit in Greenland, the Hmong tribe of Southeast Asia) and see how they like them.

The uproar generally has to do with how dare Burger King take these weapons of mass consumption and unleash them on unsuspecting locals, or how culturally arrogant Burger King is for making a commercial with an overarching theme that the poor indigenous folks don't know what they're missing or even questioning Burger King's journalistic integrity by pointing out that it's not really a documentary.

Me?

Frankly I've never cared about Big Food's existence or their marketing (so long as it doesn't exploit children) as we live in a free-market society, and really I'm not worried that the Hmong tribe is suddenly going to start planting Burger King franchises, or that they were culturally offended by the cinematographers who after sharing Whoppers with them also shared their traditional meals, nor do I care that at the end of the day it's a commercial and not a documentary. I wasn't even offended by the clearly staged ceremonial dress which I imagine was meant to convey that we're dealing with modern day savages because my bet is that the locals were paid well to wear cloths that they themselves are likely culturally proud of and really it's our own issues of perception that are being exploited and at the end of the day isn't that what commercials are designed to do

Me?

Even with my flea-like attention span I managed to watch the whole thing - and enjoy it.

And for the record, I prefer Big Macs.

Learn to Count with Doughnuts?

Came across these stupendous games while speaking at the Family Medicine Forum in Toronto last weekend.

They're made by a company called Learning Resources from a line of games quobesigenically entitled, "Smart Snacks".

The box reads,

"Imaginative Play that Teaches"

Do you think maybe, just maybe, letting your toddlers play with models of cookies and doughnuts might make them more likely to want to eat more cookies and doughnuts?

Now I'm not one to forbid my kids or anyone else's kids treats - they're part of life, but do you really think that going out of your way to keep doughnuts and cookies in the foreground of your toddler's consciousness is the best plan?

(If only they made these in ice-cream sandwich versions that St. Andrew Catholic School could use in local preschool feeder schools - might do wonders for their Grade 1 class' weekly ice-cream sandwich fundraising!)

Last Chance to Vote!

A rare weekend post just to let you know that this weekend is your last chance to vote for the Best Canadian Health Blog!

The other health blogs making it through to the finals are:

• Ottawa Street Dental
• Marijke: Nurse turned writer
• Dr. Sharma’s Obesity Notes
• Salted Lithium

Please have a peek at all the blogs and here's my brief pump of my friend and colleague Arya's Obesity Notes Blog and of the interesting and personal perspective of the blogger behind Salted Lithium who details his life with manic depression.

When you're ready to vote just click here!

To see all the other categories feel free to take a trip over here!

World's Most Wanted Wiener

[BEST HEALTH BLOG FINALIST: The final round of voting is on and today's the last weekday to vote! Please vote for your favourite Canadian health blog by clicking here.]

Wieners are on on the menu for today's Funny Friday.

Have a great weekend!



[Hat tip to Rob, BMI's fitness director]

My 4 Year Old Donates her Hair to Kids on Chemo

[BEST HEALTH BLOG FINALIST: The final round of voting is on - please vote for your favourite Canadian health blog by clicking here.]

My wife too (and yes, that is my daughter having a small lollipop - we're not nutritional ogres and there was a cookie jar full of them at the hair salon).

You know I've known my wife for 8 wonderful years and during that time we've had 3 houses, 5 jobs, 2 beautiful children, and in my wife's case - 4 haircuts.

Why only 4 haircuts?

Because for as long as I've known her my wife has been growing her hair long enough to donate to "Locks of Love", a charity that uses donated hair to make wigs for children who for various reasons (including chemo) don't have any.

This year my ridiculously kind-hearted, 4 year old daughter (clearly she takes after her mother), decided that she wanted to donate her hair too and sure enough yesterday both of them had 10 inches removed.

If you've got hair to donate and you live in Ottawa this year's "Mitzvah Day" (translates from Hebrew to Good Deeds Day) which takes place this Sunday is including a Locks of Love station. If you've got 10 spare inches of hair, professional stylists are donating their time to cut the ponytails and style your hair for free.

Despite its location at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre and its Hebrew name, Mitzvah Day is a non-denominational event with monetary proceeds this year going to Ottawa's Snowsuit Fund.

It's a great event, a great cause and if you want to come there are many activities for all ages including making hygiene kits for parents of patients at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, birthday celebration kits for children in shelters, cheer kits for seniors and welcome kits for new immigrants.

There will also be entertainment for the kids in the form of Dr. Kaboom!

When: Sunday December 7th from 8am through 1pm (free breakfast)
Where: Soloway Jewish Community Centre, 21 Nadolny Sachs Private, Ottawa

If you're there feel free to come and say hi!

Is This the Future of Childhood Obesity Treatment?

[BEST HEALTH BLOG FINALIST: The final round of voting is on - please vote for your favourite Canadian health blog by clicking here.]

Lord I hope not.

Last week I attended a talk at the Family Medicine Forum in Toronto (the largest Canadian family medicine conference of the year). The talk was entitled,

"Childhood obesity in 2008: A growing challenge for family physicians"

and according to the conference program the learning objectives for this talk included,

"1. to increase awareness of the importance of childhood obesity,
2. to improve participants’ clinical skills towards children and adolescents,
3. to introduce a multimodal, integrative treatment strategy including practical instruction on exercise, nutrition, family
recruitment, medications, and more invasive options, and
4. to work to improve advocacy and prevention strategies at the patient as well as community levels."

To help frame their talk the speakers used a hypothetical case of a 16 year old, obese, socially withdrawn, depressed female and then highlighted what they thought treatment should include.

Want to know their proposed treatment plan?

One hour of exercise daily.

No TV.

No Internet.

No going out to eat.

No junk food.

Plate regular portions and then take away 10% weekly

What was not included? Any strategy to reduce hunger (ie. eating every 2-3 hours, including protein with every meal and snack, having sufficient numbers of calories per meal and snack, improving the quality of her carbohydrates by switching to whole grain versions, fueling properly for her hour of exercise etc), any discussion regarding calories and tracking food with a food diary (despite the recent study showing those who keep them lose twice as much as those who don't), any discussion regarding her depression (important given that an active depression is a contraindication to initiating an effort of intentional weight loss).

Basically they took this socially withdrawn, depressed obese teen and told her that all the things she actually enjoys doing in her life she can't do, that she's got to go from not enjoying exercise to plodding through an hour of it a day (without ascertaining whether or not she's got time), that she's simply going to have to learn to eat less calories than before without any adjustments to how she uses food to minimize hunger and that she's now no longer able to access the only social venue she's got where she doesn't have to be the obese girl (the anonymous internet). There was also no mention of family counselling to determine family habits and lifestyles, no mention of exploring her social history to look for things like physical or sexual abuse, no mention of teaching her how to read a nutrition facts panel, etc.

This girl needs guidance, not guilt. There was no mention of treating her like a living, breathing, complicated human being and instead the message being given to her was the classic and useless - eat less and exercise more.

Perhaps the only thing worse than the messages these physicians were providing was the room full of family doctors nodding their heads in agreement.

If this is the future of childhood obesity treatment in Canada we're all in big trouble.

School Superintendent Defends Pushing Ice-Cream on 6 Year Olds for Fundraising!

[BEST HEALTH BLOG FINALIST: The final round of voting is on - please vote for your favourite Canadian health blog by clicking here.]

Readers of my blog may remember a few weeks ago when I posted about a local elementary school that offered 6 year olds weekly ice cream sandwich and pizza days.

Duly horrified, I wrote the Director of Education of the Ottawa Catholic School Board about my concerns about both the message being sent to children regarding school approval of junk food and about the contribution of such programs and messages to the problem of childhood obesity. My letter was then forwarded to Ms. Diane Jackson, the Superintendent of the School involved.

She wrote me back and while you can feel free to read her letter in its entirety here are some salient parts.

First paragraph reads,

"It is evident that you are the Medical Director of the Bariatric Medical Institute. Based on the information I read on your website www.bmimedical.ca, my understanding is that your business serves the public, for a fee, in the treatment of obesity and its associated conditions"

Now maybe I'm reading into this paragraph but the inclusion of the words, "for a fee" strike me as a tad odd. Is Ms. Jackson suggesting that 6 months of unlimited one-on-one access to dietitians and trainers along with the use of onsite fitness facilities should be offered for free? Does the fact that my single income from OHIP is unable to pay the salaries of my 9 non-physician co-workers and 4,000 square feet of rent somehow discredit me in her eyes? While it would certainly be nice to be able to offer my office's services for free, clearly that's not possible and I certainly would never feel it important to describe her job as, serving the public, for a fee, in her role as school superintendent.

Ok, maybe I'm being sensitive and really how she views me isn't the point. Let's get to the issue at hand,

"Your letter expresses concerns over childhood obesity. Apart from expressing your displeasure with one of our schools, I am not clear as to the purpose of your letter"

Now I sure don't recall expressing displeasure at a school but rather at what I felt to be an obscene school program. Regarding my "purpose", I thought it was pretty clear but let me spell it out as bluntly as possible.

Using 6 year olds (or any students for that matter) and their love of ice-cream to raise money for your school is not only nutritionally and medically unsound, I would argue that it's also morally questionable given the global awareness of the risks of our growing epidemic of childhood obesity and consequently I am suggesting it is a practice that should end.

But who am I? Maybe I'm simply a for-a-fee, crazy, capitalistic nutritional zealot - right?

Probably not given that every official Canadian Food and Nutrition Policy statement expressly forbids the practice of fundraising with unhealthy food including those of the Provinces of Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Manitoba, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador, and New Brunswick, as well as those produced by the Ontario Physical and Health Education Association and the Ontario Society of Nutrition Professionals in Public Health.

As for why I chose to write my original letter...aside from my obvious and well-founded concern that serving ice-cream to children to fundraise for the school is just plain wrong, I think my friend Bill Jeffery from the Centre for Science in the Public Interest sums up what inspired me to write when he proclaimed in his school nutrition paper, School Nutrition Policies Across Canada: Are Schools Making the Grade?,

"All Canadians have a stake in the health of the next generation of children. Let’s keep out the junk food, subsidize healthy food offerings like vegetables and fruits and monitor the schools’ success in doing both. Improving (and enforcing) decent nutrition standards for school foods and better subsidizing nutritious school fare would help children improve their diets and establish healthier dietary practices that persist into adulthood."

In that spirit, I'd like to call upon you, my blog readers, to take two minutes of your time to let Diane Jackson know what you think about the practice of a school that fundraises using weekly ice-cream and pizza days to 6 year olds by clicking here to send her an email . Included in your email will be Mr. Jamie McCracken the Director of Education for Ottawa Catholic Schools, Mr. Brian Kelly the Principal of St. Andrew Catholic School and Ms. Joanne MacEwan the Chairperson of the Catholic School Parents Association (CSPA).

To avoid confusion, please don't forget to very clearly explain to Diane the purpose of expressing to her your concerns.

Advocate!

Final Round of Voting Has Begun!

Thanks to everyone who voted, Weighty Matters has made it through to the final round of voting for the Best Canadian Health Blog!

The other health blogs making it through to the finals are:

• Ottawa Street Dental
• Marijke: Nurse turned writer
• Dr. Sharma’s Obesity Notes
• Salted Lithium

It's an honour to have made it this far and knowing first hand how much time and energy it takes to keep a daily blog I truly hope you take the time to poke around the other 4 nominee's sites.

When you're ready to vote just click here!

To see all the other categories feel free to take a trip over here!

Starbuck's Latest Frankenfood!

Hat tip right off the top to the Centre for Science in the Public Interest's Nutrition Action magazine who highlight Starbuck's new Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate in their Food Porn section.

So what makes this a Frankenfood?

How about (for a large with whole milk and whipped cream) 20% more calories and double the saturated fat of a Big Mac and for good measure 20% of the recommended maximal sodium intake of the National Sodium Policy Statement?

MMmmmmm?