Newsbriefs: Food Cravings; Weight Gain; Diet Quality; School Lunch Standards

Beating Food Cravings

Do foods like cake, cookies and potato chips seem to call your name when you’re on a weight-loss diet? It may help to cut out such foods completely, say the authors of a new study in the journal Obesity.

“This is best accomplished by purging your home and workplace of your most-craved food items—in other words, do a cabinet cleanout,” says John Apolzan, PhD, lead author of the study at Louisiana State University’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge. “If that isn’t possible, decrease how frequently you eat craved food items. However, our research suggests this approach decreases your chances of success losing weight and maintaining weight loss compared to eliminating craved items from the diet.” What didn’t seem to work for controlling food cravings? Continuing to eat craved foods but trying to reduce the amount (portion size).

The researchers compared data on cravings and food intake reported by 367 overweight or obese men and women (ages 30 to 70) in a two-year weight loss trial. Notably, the study wasn’t a type that could show cause and effect. And, it’s uncertain whether efforts to restrict craved foods may lead chronic dieters to overeat such foods.

Weight Gain in Younger Adults Linked to Increased Health Risks Later

Small, gradual weight gain during early and middle adulthood may get little attention since it doesn’t necessarily cause health problems in our younger years. But, it may have serious consequences later in life. Scientists at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston looked at data from nearly 120,000 adults (primarily white health professionals). They found that, compared to keeping weight stable, each 5-kilogram (11-pound) increase in weight from young adulthood through age 55 was associated with a:

  • 31% increased risk of type 2 diabetes
  • 14% increased risk of hypertension
  • 8% increased risk of cardiovascular disease
  • 8% increased risk of dying prematurely (among never smokers)
  • 6% increased risk of obesity-related cancer
  • 17% decreased odds of achieving healthy aging into their 70s

“In young and middle adulthood, weight gain primarily reflects an increase in body fat, which contributes to insulin resistance, dyslipidemia [unhealthy cholesterol and triglyceride levels], chronic inflammation and other metabolic disorders,” says Frank Hu, MD, PhD, senior author of the study. “These findings suggest that prevention of weight gain by following a healthy dietary pattern and lifestyle is of paramount importance.” The study is published in JAMA.

Diet Quality May Impact Belly & Liver Fat

Eating a higher-quality diet may lead to a more favorable body fat distribution, says Gertraud Maskarinec, MD, PhD, an epidemiologist at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center, who recently coauthored a study on the topic published in the journal Obesity. “That’s important because internal (visceral abdominal/belly and liver) fat appears to be a stronger risk factor for chronic diseases than body fat located directly under our skin,” she says.

The scientists looked at food intake data reported at the start of the study by a multiethnic group of about 2,000 US adults (average age, 48). After 20 years of follow-up, a second diet survey was completed, and fat distribution was checked via scanning (DXA and MRI). People with the best (highest) diet quality scores on both surveys were 48% less likely to have high belly fat storage, and they were 45% less likely to have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease than those with the lowest diet quality scores (after adjusting for DXA-based total body fat).

Diets were scored as higher quality if they emphasized foods like vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes, fish, vegetable oils and whole grains, while limiting red/processed meats, refined grains, sugar-sweetened beverages, fruit juice and sodium.

Lowered School Lunch Standards

Healthier school meals have been in place for five years. But, the government recently relaxed a few Obama-era rulings for the federally-funded National School Lunch Program. The USDA cited feedback from students, schools and foodservice experts as the reason for the changes, which include:

  • Sodium. Meals must only meet the current sodium limits in school years 2017–2020, rather than the lower limits previously proposed. For example, that’s 1,230 milligrams rather than 935 milligrams sodium at lunch in elementary schools.
  • Whole grains. Schools experiencing hardships providing every grain food (like tortillas and pasta) as whole-grain-rich may request product-specific exemptions from their state in the 2017–2018 school year. If exemptions are granted, such schools must ensure at least half of the grain items offered weekly are whole-grain-rich.
  • Flavored milk. It will be up to a school’s discretion to serve 1%-fat flavored (sweetened) milk. The USDA previously had ruled that flavored milk was only allowed if it was fat-free.

The post Newsbriefs: Food Cravings; Weight Gain; Diet Quality; School Lunch Standards appeared first on University Health News.

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