Food Bytes 2009: What the Media Reported on Families, Food, Fat and Fitness Was 2009 a good year for families eating dinner together, eating healthier foods, getting thinner, and staying fit? In some ways, yes it was. The recession can be credited for people eating out less and eating more at home. A few big food companies were pressured into lowering sugar levels in cereals and other food products. Schools in different areas of the country stepped up PE classes to provide beneficial exercise programs. Yet, obesity and its fall-out of diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure was still a major health concern, even for missionary candidates. Obesity, expensive on every front, even extended to pets. Here are samplings of what the media reported this past year. Families “The benefits of family dinner for children have been well documented, but after recently completing a study of IBM workers, [Jenet I.] Jacob and BYU colleague E. Jeffrey Hill, associate family life professor, now tell us that family dinner benefits parents as well, especially parents who work outside the home. . . . “Their analysis showed that making it home for dinner at least three times a week eased the negative effects of long working hours and helped employees feel more successful in their roles as parents and spouses. “We measured employees’ [1,580 IBM workers] feelings of personal success, work success, and marital success, and being home for dinner was most connected to feelings of personal and marital success,” says Jacob.” (Sue Bergin, “Making Dinner Together Time,” BYU Magazine, Winter 2009, 24.) * * * * “We all know the theory: Families who dine together have kids with better grades and healthier outlooks. But we also know the guilty reality. Getting those overbooked kids and overextended parents to the dinner table takes the scheduling skills of an airport control tower these days-and you can forget what’s on the plate. “That’s where we’re going wrong, says Lucinda Scala Quinn, Martha Stewart’s food guru and author of the new ‘Mad Hungry: Feeding Men and Boys.’ If the aromas emerging from the kitchen smell amazing, there’s no power on Earth that will keep a hungry teen away.” (Jackie Burrell, “Chow down: Return to the family dinner table,”Contra Costa Times, December 2, 1009.) * * * * “Saying society faces ‘a toxic combination’ of cultures geared toward individuality, competition, super-sized consumerism and ‘kids-are-fragile’ therapeutic thinking, family time and family meals together are two factors that can help rescue parents and children, said William J. Doherty, a family therapist, educator and researcher in an evening address at BYU. . . “Researchers are showing that this kind of ‘older wisdom’ is really quite important-and young parents raising children believe it, but it’s hard to practice. When you lose your family meals, it’s hard to get them back. . . . “Making changes to emphasize family time together and family meals together is difficult-but doable, Doherty said. ‘It takes courage, it takes vision, it takes values, and it takes community values,’ he said.” (Scott Taylor, “Therapist touts value of family time, meals,” Deseret News, February 13, 2009.) * * * * “A mushrooming industry of cookbooks, advice columns and even takeout foods repackaged as ‘family dinners’ beckon folks to the table. Coca-Cola, Smucker’s and Stouffer’s were among the sponsors for activities for the annual Family Day (Sept. 28 this year), designed to promote family dinners. “Like breastfeeding and Baby Mozart tapes, family dinner has become a red-hot item on the good-parent scorecard, by which mothers in particular judge one another and themselves, a tinder box for networks like Twittermoms.com. . . . “The family dinner research may be telling us that some of the more important elements may be about slowing down, organizing our lives with a little bit less harried time,’ said [Dr. Amy Middleton, adolescent medicine specialist at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston]. There needs to be come element of structure and reconnection during the day.'” (Jan Hoffman, “The Guilt-Trip Casserole: The Family Dinner,” New York Times, October 4, 2009.) Food The move. . . comes as many food companies alter their products and face growing scrutiny from consumers, regulators and health groups over the nutritional value of their foods. . . . Several cereal makers have adjusted their products to address the growing concern. . . . “The cereal companies have really been under a lot of pressure, [Kelly] Brownell said. [Director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.] . . . “The Rudd Center recently published a study that found the least-healthy breakfast cereals are the most frequently and aggressively marketed directly to children. . . . ‘Children deserve to be marketed products that are healthier to them than what is being marketed now,’ Brownell said.” (Sarah Skidmore, “General Mills plans to reduce sugar in kids’ cereal,” Associated Press, December 9, 2009.) * * * * “‘Inflammation’ seems to be the newest buzzword in nutrition research. Studies show that poor diet choices and lack of exercise trigger excessive inflammatory responses in the body that lead to chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis and even type 2 diabetes. Obesity, for instance, is a ‘smoldering inflammatory state’ according to Gordon Jensen, MD, from Penn State University. To the rescue are ‘anti-inflammatory’ foods such as fish, flaxseed, walnuts and other foods high in omega-3 fatty acids. . . . And, of course, fruits and vegetables that are rich in anti-oxidant substances continue to be the darlings that also fight off excess inflammation.” (Barbara Quinn, “Lessons from a nutrition conference,” Monterey County Herald, November 10, 2009.) * * * * “Fewer U.S. high schools and middle schools are selling candy and salty snacks to students, the federal government said in a report. . . . “The report marked a continued effort by health officials to combat childhood obesity. ” ‘Efforts to improve the school nutrition environment are working and Mississippi and Tennessee are excellent examples of this progress,’ Howell Wechsler, director of CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health,’ said in a statement. “American Heart Association officials celebrated the progress, attributing it to aggressive legislation and school policy changes in some states that they hope will get children and teens accustomed to healthier eating. ” ‘What kids do in school in large measure dictates what they do away from school,’ said Dr. Clyde Yancy, the association’s president.” (Mike Stobbe, “Fewer schools selling candy to students,” Associated Press, October 5, 2009.) * * * * Fat “Within the Latter-day Saint community there is another consequence. There are medical complications of obesity that could prevent young men and women from serving Mormon missions. . . . The problem of missionary obesity was recognized because of the number of supposedly healthy young people who were forced to come home due to injuries, muscoskeletal pain or troubles with mobility, sleep, fatigue or the other assorted consequences of being overweight. “A 19-year-old male or a 21-year-old female doesn’t just wake up overweight. There is a long trail of inactivity, dietary overindulgence, nutritional malnourishment and perhaps unidentified emotional problems. . . . “In today’s unhealthy world, preparing for a mission means not only being spiritually ready but also being a lean, mean praying machine.” (Joseph Cramer, M.D., “Missionary candidates must watch weight-or wait,” Mormon Times, March 2, 2009.) “Every year Americans are getting heavier, not surprisingly so are our pets. The latest research indicates that half of all pets are overweight or obese. This closely mirrors the obesity epidemic in the human population. . . . “The bottom line is that our pets are becoming overweight for the same reasons we are: too much food and too little exercise.” (Dr. Chris Rainey, “Overweight pets can have a variety of health problems,” McClatchy Newspapers, Dec. 10, 2009.) * * * * “As the nation battles the obesity crisis, ambulance crews are trying to improve how they transport extremely heavy patients, who become significantly more difficult to move as they surpass 350 pounds. And care for such patients is expensive, requiring costly equipment and extra workers, so some ambulance companies have started charging higher fees for especially overweight people. The move to modify ambulances is just the latest effort to accommodate plus-sized patients. Some hospitals already offer specially designed beds, wheelchairs, walkers and even commodes. (Heather Hollingsworth, “Ambulances start charging extra for obese patients,” Associated Press, October 22, 2009.) * * * * “Obesity’s not just dangerous, it’s expensive. New research shows medical spending averages $1,400 more a year for an obese person than for someone who’s normal weight. “Overall obesity-related health spending reaches $147 billion, double what it was nearly a decade ago, says the study published by the journal Health Affairs. “The higher expense reflects the cost of treating diabetes, heart disease and other ailments far more common for the overweight, concluded by the study by government scientists and the nonprofit research group RTI International. “Two-thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese, and the average American today is 23 pounds overweight, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ” ‘Obesity, and with it diabetes, are the only major health problems that are getting worse in this country, and they’re getting worse rapidly,’ Frieden said.” (Lauran Neergaard, “Obesity leads to rocketing health spending, study says,” Associated Press, July 27, 2009.) * * * * “Being fat in middle age may slash women’s chances of making it to their golden years in good health by almost 80 percent, a new study says. . . . “American researchers observed more than 17,000 female nurses with an average age of 50 in the U.S. All of the women were healthy when the study began in 1976. Researchers then monitored the women’s weight, along with other health changes, every two years until 2000. “For every one-point increase in their Body Mass Index, women had a 12 percent lower chance of surviving to age 70 in good health when compared to thin women. Researchers defined ‘healthy survival’ as not only being free of chronic disease, but having enough mental and physical ability to perform daily tasks like grocery shopping, vacuuming, or walking up a flight of stairs. . . . “Other studies have found similar trends in men. Qi Sun, a research associate at Harvard University and one of the study authors, said men were probably at risk, since fat acts largely the same way in both genders.” Maria Cheng, “Fat can cut women’s life span,” Associated Press, September 30, 2009.) Fitness “Yet much truly has changed-evolved is more like it-in the modern middle school and high school PE class. Changed for the better, educators say, especially considering the nation’s bloated rate of childhood obesity and alarming predictions about increases in juvenile-onset diabetes. “Gone is the epoch . . . when the teacher would just roll out the balls and tell kids to go play, when students would pick blades of grass in the outfield during softball ‘instruction,’ their heart rates barely rising above resting levels. “These days, you’re more likely to find students checking the heart-rate monitors they’ve strapped on during jump rope to ‘stay in the zone,’ try for that aerobic threshold on the step trainer, and harden those abdominals and obliques with side planks. . . . “Antelope Crossing [Middle School in Antelope, California] is on the cutting edge of the latest trend in elementary and secondary school physical education principles: to engage students into lifelong physical activity and educate them on the proper form, function and philosophy of a variety of skills in individual and team sports as well as understand concepts such as optimal heart rate and effort for aerobic activity.” (Sam McManis, “Obesity pushing schools to take fitness seriously,” McClatchy Newspapers, May 25, 2009.) * * * * “Many exercise experts believe children today are too sedentary, which is contributing to the childhood obesity epidemic with a third of children weighing too much. The government’s physical activity guidelines recommend that children and teens do an hour or more of moderate-intensity to vigorous physical activity daily. “One way to get them to move more is to go out and do things with them so they’re having fun, says Robert Malina, professor emeritus at the University of Texas, Austin. Try to work in 20 minutes of activity before or after dinner, he says. “Parents should listen to what their children want to do and then do it with them, he says. ‘The children will learn from their parents, and the parents will learn from their children. More importantly, they will be together.’ ” (Nanci Hellmich, “Parents urged to get out, play with kids,” USA Today, February 15, 2009.) No Comments | Post or read comments FEATURES |
April 28, 2026
April 28, 2026
