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CHANGING YOUR BEHAVIOUR

"It has been well documented that dividing 30-40 min. of exercise/d into multiple 10-min. bouts of exercise may facilitate initial adoption of activity in previously sedentary adults." [pg 3829S]

"US ADULT WEIGHT GAIN IS PRIMARILY ATTRIBUTABLE TO OVERCONSUMPTION OF ENERGY". Evidence shows it is not that we exercise less, it is that we are eating much more thanks to fast food, variety of foods available, and content of foods we consume at home.

If you want to see what is understood as of May, 2005, about what really controls your weight and activity level, Figure 2, page 1317, of the following article is worth going to a major research library that has the Journal of Nutrition to see. Obesity and the Neuroendocrine Control of Energy Homeostasis: The Role of Spontaneous Locomotor Activity Tamara R. Castañeda, et al J. Nutr. 2005 135: 1314-1319. This figure indicates why it is so complicated to control our weight and level of physical activity, and why simple diet and activity plans may work for one person and not for another. The figure shows what is know as of May 2005 about hormonal, mental, organ-based, and molecular based signalling interacting with various specific parts of the brain. When trying to determine your weight and physical activity and trying to change your behavior, there are no easy answers, and we each are different. It may be easy for one person, and nearly impossible for the next person.

Dietary variety causes one to eat more, and this variety has increased markedly at the grocery store and in the variety of restaurants.

Soft drinks consumption has increased 60% in 23 years.

Solids vs. liquids: The kind of food you eat influences your appetite. Solid food reduces your appetite most effectively (64%). Semisolid food is less effective (21%). And energy-containing drinks (fruit juice, soda) have no impact at all (0%) on how much you want to eat. So drinking anything with calories is just adding fat to your body!

What's more, high simple carbohydrate food (white things like pasta, rice, potatoes, bread, and sugar in soda) generally do not satisfy appetite for very long, so they are contributing substantially to the obesity epidemic in the US.

Portion size:: "Adults consume more energy when served larger portions initially, even when second servings are available" [3831S]. So if you want to lose weight, have a smaller first portion. If you want to gain weight, get a larger first helping.

"Increased palatability has been shown to [increase] later hunger, the desire to eat, and energy intake at the next meal". So if you eat really tasty food, be aware that it will cause you to be hungrier sooner - but this is a physical/psychological effect, not a physiological need.

Snacking probably makes you eat more calories. Diets that encourge you to eat small frequent meals rather than three regular meals are probably mistaken, but these differences have not been thoroughly demonstrated by research.

Eating out at restaurants frequently is a problem. People who ate at restaurants 13 times a month ate 31.5% more than people who ate out less than 4.3 times.

Body Shape and Waist Size: Android obesity is characterized by localization of body fat in the stomach, more common among males. It is a risk factor for diabetes, stroke, heart diseasse, and mortality, and is independent of and additive to total obesity.

This story ought to help change behavior:

Cancers of the Gut and Western Ills

Ian T. Johnson*

In their well-known 1981 review on the causes of cancer in the United States, Doll and Peto* estimated that around one-third of deaths from cancer could be attributed to diet and were therefore, in principle, preventable. Epidemiological evidence continues to support this general conclusion, but in contrast to cardiovascular disease, for which the link to nutrition is now generally recognized, the relationship between diet and cancer has made much less impact on both policy-makers and the general public. One reason for this is the absence of any single hypothesis on which to build a dietary strategy for cancer prevention; this itself is a reflection of the complexity of human diets and the obvious fact that cancer is not a single disease. Although there has been huge progress in our understanding of the molecular basis of many cancers in recent years, most of the new knowledge has been deployed in the search for new therapies rather than to understand the role of nutrition in their causation. Nevertheless, the mechanisms linking diet to cancer can be understood and exploited for prevention as much as for treatment, and there are sound scientific and strategic reasons to focus such research on carcinomas of the alimentary tract.

Taking supplements clearly is connected to better health and to behaviors that promote better health. Here's a wonderful study demonstrating that those who take supplements do other things correctly also:

Mike E. J. Wadsworth et al, Supplement Use Is Associated with Health Status and Health-Related Behaviors in the 1946 British Birth Cohort, J. Nutr. 2005 135: 1782-1789.

A significantly greater percentage of women reported supplement use compared with men (45.1 vs. 25.2%). Supplement use was associated with lower BMI, lower waist circumference, higher plasma folate and plasma vitamin B-12 concentrations, nonsmoking, participation in physical activity, and nonmanual social class in women and with plasma folate concentrations and participation in physical activity in men. ..Overall, supplement users tended to differ from nonsupplement users on a range of health-related behaviors and health status indicators, although there were fewer significant associations in men. Similarly, dietary supplements users tended to have underlying diets that, were healthier and those taking supplements may be the least likely to need them. ..

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