Tag Archive for 'Obesity'

Kids’ TV watching can influence eating habits in later years

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Jana
on February 9, 2009
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Can watching TV make you fat? There are some increasing amount of indicators that link too much TV viewing to becoming overweight or obese.

The most recent study on eating habits has revealed that kids who watch more TV than other kids in middle and high school have diets that are not as healthy 5 years later. During this time, these kids tend to eat more fast food, fried foods and sugary drinks and eat less fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

The lead researcher of this study, Daheia Barr-Anderson said that they don’t know what exactly links TV and diets, but she knows there is a definite connection. She said that there are a lot of commercials for snacks and soda on TV that target children, and this tends to affect their food choices. Also, many lifelong habits are shaped in the adolescent years, such as a tendency to snack and watch TV.

American adolescents definitely play a role in the obesity upswing. Fewer than 5% of 12-19 year olds were overweight in the mid-1960s, but today there are about 17% who are overweight and another 17% who are obese.

In earlier studies, Harvard researchers found that for each hour of TV watching, kids ate an extra 167 calories a day, mainly because they usually eat more junk food. The University of Missouri-Columbia advocates that the combination of family meals and less TV can help kids to avoid getting overweight.

This most recent study was conducted on a survey of 2000 middle and high school children in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. This study was different, because it compared the subjects’ behavior in two separate time periods instead of at the same time. It can be found in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.

Diabetes reversed in teens with obesity surgery

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Jana
on December 31, 2008
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About a third of America’s youth are either overweight or obese. More and more obese children are being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, which is the most common form of the disease and the one that is linked with obesity. In the past, it was rarely seen in kids.

On the positive side, a small study has shown that obesity surgery can reverse  diabetes in teens like it does in adults. There were 11 patients in the study who were aged 14 to 21 and all were severely obese, ranging from 250 to 403 pounds. They were taking diabetes pills and one was on insulin. They had gastric bypass surgery or stomach stapling at five different medical centers. At Cincinnati Children’s Hospital,they were compared to 67 teens who were mostly obese and had diabetes. Their blood sugar was being controlled with diet and medication.

After a year, those who had surgery had lost between 72 and 218 pounds, but none had reduced to a normal weight. Diabetes disappeared within a year for all but one of the 11 severely obese teens in the study, after under going weight- loss surgery, according to the researchers. The 11th patient still had diabetes, but was able to stop taking diabetes pills and needed much less insulin.

All of the teens who did not have surgery still had diabetes after a year and there was no change in their weight or their medication usage, but their blood sugar levels showed improvement.

The researchers said the reason wasn’t clear why diabetes wasn’t reversed in one patient who had been through the surgery, but they mentioned that his mother and a sibling had Type 2 diabetes. The teen still needed to take insulin but was no longer overweight three years after the surgery. Another reason could be that his diabetes was more advanced than the other teens in the study. Previous adult studies have found that the chances of reversing diabetes are better when the surgery is done soon after a being diagnosed. The others were most likely successful because their surgery was done while the patients were in the early stages of the disease.

Cases of diabetes in U.S. jump

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Jana
on November 10, 2008
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In the past 10 years, the rate of new diabetes cases has almost doubled in the U.S. The South had the highest levels. All this was stated in the government’s state-by-state review of new diagnoses.

West Virginia had the highest rate, where 13 in 1,000 adults were diagnosed with the disease. Minnesota, a northern state, had the lowest, where there was 5 in 1,000 cases.

Type 2 diabetes, the form that is linked to obesity, accounted for 90 percent of the cases. The findings reflect geographic trends that occur with obesity and physical inactivity, which are also tied to heart disease. The southern states ranked the worst in these cases as well.

The study was done by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and covered most states. Previous studies have given state-specific estimates of diabetes cases, but this is the only one that has charted where the new cases are being diagnosed.

Diagnosed diabetes cases was the only thing asked about in the report. Considering an estimated 1 in 4 diabetics have not yet been diagnosed, the problem is most likely underestimated.

More than 260,000 adults were involved in the study which used a random-digit-dialed survey. The participants were asked if they were diagnosed with having diabetes and when the diagnosis was given.

The yearly rate of new diabetes cases climbed from nearly 5 per 1,000 in the mid-1990s to 9 per 1,000 in the mid-2000s. This data was gathered from 33 states for which CDC had complete data for both periods of time.

The researchers were able to get data for 40 states for the years 2005-07. South Carolina, West Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, Texas and Tennessee had the highest rates, all at 11 per 1,000 or more.

Women who are obese seem to have more blocking them from exercise

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Jana
on October 22, 2008
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Even though most of us can exercise, some of us just decide against it. Many tend to create their own roadblocks that hinder any willfulness to be active physically. Obese women seem to have even more standing in the way of healthy exercise than most people.

The Obesity Society recently revealed that these women come up with more mental blocks that prevent them from exercising than normal or underweight women.

There were 105 overweight and obese women and 173 normal or underweight women in a home-based exercise promotional trial who were surveyed by researchers from the Center for Obesity Research and Education and the kinesiology department at Temple University in Philadelphia. To summarize, the obese women indicated more barriers than the slender women. 

Some of their blocks included feeling self-conscious about their appearance while exercising, lacking self-discipline, not trying because they hated to fail, having minor aches and pains and feeling too heavy to exercise. 

At the conclusion of the 12-month follow-up, the overweight or obese women with these mental blocks at the beginning, were found to be less likely to exercise.

Melissa Napolitano, a leading author and associate professor of kinesiology at Temple, said more tailored programs are necessary to help overweight women overcome these roadblocks that stop them from being healthy and active.

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