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Junk food banned in schools

Obesity in children is an issue throughout North America and the habits that you learn when you are young are the ones that will carry through to adulthood. Bill Clinton has brokered a deal through his organization to have all schools offering healthier snacks by going through the manufacturers of the snack food themselves. This is a great good news story.

Just five months after a similar agreement targeting the sale of sodas in schools, Bill Clinton and the American Heart Association announced a deal Friday with several major food companies to make school snacks healthier — the latest assault on the nation’s childhood obesity epidemic.

“By working with schools and industry to implement these guidelines, we are helping to give parents peace of mind that their kids will be able to make healthier choices at school,” said Dr. Raymond Gibbons, president of the heart association.

The agreement with Kraft Foods Inc., Mars Inc., Campbell Soup Co., Groupe Danone SA and PepsiCo Inc. sets guidelines for fat, sugar, sodium and calories for snack foods sold in school vending machines, stores and snack bars. Those companies make everything from MM’s, yogurt and granola bars to Frito-Lay potato chips, Snickers bars and canned soups.

Under the guidelines, most foods won’t be permitted to derive more than 35 percent of their calories from fat and more than 10 percent from saturated fat. There will be a limit of 35 percent for sugar content by .

Gibbons said Thursday the guidelines are based on the recommendations of leading scientists “as to what we should be doing to provide more nutritious foods for our kids.”

Exercise alone is not enough to keep kids thin

As a parent of two small children I always try to make sure that the kids get a lot of exercise to stay healthy but it is my wife that makes sure that they eat well as well. A new report from the British Medical Journal tells us that diet is very important too. Another thing of note is watching how much the kids exercise, it seems many are more inactive than we would think.

Physically active preschoolers are on to a good thing, but exercise alone won’t keep obesity at bay as they get older, British researchers report. Instead, a combination of exercise and other lifestyle changes — especially improved diets — may be the only solution to the childhood obesity epidemic, experts say.

“Promotion of physically active play per se may not be sufficient to have an impact on the status of young children,” said lead researcher Dr. John J. Reilly, a professor of pediatric energy metabolism at the University of Glasgow, Scotland.

His team published its finding in the Oct. 5 online issue of the British Medical Journal.

The researchers had already shown in earlier work that Scottish preschoolers have surprisingly inactive lifestyles. They typically get less than 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity each day, in contrast to the recommended 60 minutes a day. In their study, Reilly’s team looked at whether exercise could reduce the of 545 preschool children. Some of the children took part in an active play program, which consisted of three 30 minute sessions each week. In addition, parents received guidance on how to increase physical play at home.

The researchers measured the children’s at six months and then again at one year. They also assessed the youngsters’ movement skills, and tracked whether or not the increase in activity reduced sedentary behaviors.

They found that exercise had some health benefits, but loss was not among them.

Exercise had little effect on , or on the activity behaviors of the children, compared with the children who did not take part in the program. However, for children in the program, additional exercise did help improve their motor and movement skills.

“We know from older studies that improved motor skills, balance, running, skipping, catching a ball, bouncing a ball, is of benefit to children socially and developmentally, and tends to promote engagement in sport, and may help reduce subsequent excess gain,” Reilly said.

However, most children, even of preschool age, are relatively inactive, Reilly said. “We can’t just assume that they are physically active,” he said. “[We] must recognize that we need to change the environment at preschool/day care, at home and in the wider environment in ways which help them become more physically active.”

Article source: https://www.fitnesstipsforlife.com/exercise-alone-is-not-enough-to-keep-kids-thin.html

Dr Phil Settles

I love the Diet Blog and just had to post this story from where I saw the end of it first.

Dr Phil Pays Out $10 Million.

If you remember Dr Phil after selling a few diet books that I believe did offer value, although it looked like he was really taking advantage of the market (optics, what else do we have to go on?) was sued about supplements and now settled.

I said then and I say now that I do think that Dr Phil does mean well although his attitude about “It’s all your fault” wore on me a long time ago. The issue here is not really Dr Phil and his diet or that he was pushing crappy supplements himself but I think the story should really be about supplements in general.

I take some vitamins and when I am working out hard I take in some Creatine and extra protein, but I keep seeing these diets and programs that mandate that you buy their product and it’s magic % or 6 dollar meal replacemnt drinks. Have you seen how much a big tub of protein powder that is not brand name costs?

I have read Body for Life by Bill Phillips many times and there is a lot that I like about the book but at the same time Bill Phillips does push his brand of supplements a lot in his book and he is not the first or last to do this. I think the best thing that a person could do for themselves is to learn everything that they need to about health and fitness and then go out and decide about supplements away from the guys that are promoting both exercise and supplements

Anyway I guess Dr Phil had what was coming and maybe some of the other guys that try to push supplements will think twice before offering miracles that the products can not deliver

Article source: https://www.fitnesstipsforlife.com/dr-phil-settles.html

You are now not feeling sleepy

Sleep is a big problem for a lot of people. I just ran across a story from last week that points out that many people are having trouble sleeping and are using alternative medicine, herbs, in order to fall asleep. The big story is supposed to be the use of herbs but the real story here is that people are getting insomnia on a much more regular basis then they were 20 or 30 years ago.

The reasons for insomnia and most common sleep disorders can be narrowed down to a few causes. If you would like to sleep better then you should leave work stress at work, no sugar and caffeine after 3:00 in the afternoon and regular exercise. Sure there are a lot of problems that can cause sleeping problems but by just doing these three things most people will find that there length and quality of sleep will improve dramatically.

One in six Americans frequently have difficulty falling asleep, and 4.5 percent of them use some type of alternative medicine to treat their sleeping problems, a new study shows.

“Most respondents who used herbal therapies or relaxation techniques found these therapies helpful for managing their insomnia or trouble sleeping,” Dr. Nancy J. Pearson and colleagues from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland report in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Pearson and her team analyzed information from the 2002 National Health Interview Survey to find out how common sleeping difficulties were and how often people used alternative techniques to treat them.

Article source: https://www.fitnesstipsforlife.com/your-are-now-not-feeling-sleepy.html

Newsletter Ezine started

I have decided to startup a newsletter otherwise known on the internet as an ezine. What I have found over the last few months is that the articles that I post are of interest to some people but probably not every article is interesting to everyone so what my plan is is to have this newsletter work as a wake up call and a jump start to let you get reinvigorated.

Here is what I plan to put in this ezine:

– Fitness Motivation articles
– Biggest news over the last while for fitness
– Cardio articles
– Weight training articles

As you can see this is going back to the basics that I started this weblog for and that was to help people get into and stay in shape. Many of us know exactly what to do but sometimes we forget to do it and sometimes we forget those little things that make a difference. For example last week I again started drinking a large large cup of water first thing in the morning, more like 3 or 4 regular cups and I again remembered and experienced how much more energy and concentration I had for the first couple of hours of the morning.

You can sign up for this new ezine on the top left hand side of the home page or off of any of the pages of the weblog here.

I hope you find the info great and please remember that I will guard your email as I guard my own and if at any time you get tired of my you can cancel as easily as you joined.

Article source: https://www.fitnesstipsforlife.com/newsletter-ezine-started.html