I read this in Jeannine Stein’s article on “Healthy Dining at Restaurants” in the LA Times just now, and couldn’t quite believe it… 49%???

But it really is what the American Restaurant Association claims:

So here we are today …

With 12.7 million employees, the restaurant industry is now the nation’s largest private-sector employer.

In 2010, Americans are spending about 49 percent of their food dollar at nearly 1 million restaurants.

As the industry flourishes, the National Restaurant Association continues to help restaurateurs meet new challenges. Stay tuned…

Restaurants get nearly half of every dollar spent on food, and – as Stein points out - a lot of restaurants dish out some pretty high cal fare.  Even seemingly “healthy” items like salads can clock in at over a thousand calories.

The American Restaurant Association appears to be quite happy about this, but to my mind, it’s a chilling statistic.

I have to admit, I’m a little bemused by this ”food fight” - as reported by the Sun Sentinel - between the Heart Attack Grill in Chandler, AZ and the Heart Stoppers Sports Grill in Delray Beach, FL.  The owners of the two restaurants are duking it out  over who “owns” the right to serve up massive amounts of unhealthy, fat-and-calorie-laden food, in an atmosphere that pokes light-hearted fun at… being in an intensive care unit.

Based on the info in the article, it seems to me that the Heart Attack Grill has a pretty good case.  The differences between the H.A.G (the original) and Heart Stoppers appear to be pretty superficial, so – in the end – I expect Jon Basso (the H.A.G’s owner) will emerge victorious from the fray.

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According to the New York Times:

…So to get ready for front-of-package nutrition labeling, the F.D.A. is now looking at bringing serving sizes for foods like chips, cookies, breakfast cereals and ice cream into line with how Americans really eat. Combined with more prominent labeling, the result could be a greater sense of public caution about unhealthy foods.

“If you put on a meaningful portion size, it would scare a lot of people,” said Barry Popkin, a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina. “They would see, ‘I’m going to get 300 calories from that, or 500 calories.’ ”

The problem is important because the standard serving size shown on a package determines all the other nutritional values on the label, including calorie counts. If the serving size is smaller than what people really eat, unless they study the label carefully they may think they are getting fewer calories or other nutrients than they are.

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Taylor LeBaron is one smart kid.

Taylor LeBaron is half the teen he used to be — and that’s a very good thing for both his health and self-esteem. An always-big boy who grew into a severely obese teen, the Georgia native dealt with schoolroom taunts and his own shrinking self-image even as he continued put on the pounds.

Finally, LeBaron took control of his life by turning to the thing that helped make him fat in the first place: video games. Based on the games he loved to play while he sat sedentary and stuffed himself, LeBaron created the “Ultimate Fitness Game” — not an actual video game but one that employs the same principles and strategy used to become a top gamesman.

…The fruits of LeBaron’s weight-loss labor are chronicled in his new book, “Cutting Myself in Half: 150 Pounds Lost One Byte at a Time,” in which he outlines the mechanics of his Ultimate Fitness Game while relating the story of how he went from a nearly 300-pound 14-year-old to the slim and trim 145-pounder he is today.

His is an awesome success story that hits all the right notes.  No fad diets, detox or starvation… just good nutrition, exercise and lots of patience.

As the LA Times puts it:

Americans may not be collectively doomed to die in their recliners after all, one hand in the chips bag, the other stretching for the remote. Obesity levels seem to be leveling off or slowing across most of the population, according to two new comprehensive studies of the nation’s heft.

The assessments, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are a welcome respite from the seemingly endless reports of Americans getting fatter and fatter. The latest of several to find an obesity plateau, they suggest that those earlier findings were not aberrations but that Americans may truly have turned a corner.

…Cynthia Ogden, an epidemiologist for the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics and lead author of the children’s report, said the findings track with other reports, such as the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, which saw a plateau among students in grades nine through 12 from 2005 to 2007.

“We’re continuing to see slowing,” Ogden said, “although the prevalence of obesity remains very high.”

It’s good news, although there’s still a long way to go.  Personally, I think this guy is spot on…

Dr. Howard Eisenson, program director of the Duke Diet & Fitness Center in Durham, N.C., sees glimmers of hope in the studies but says the real challenge is to get people to exercise. “The survey only looks at BMI; it doesn’t look at physical fitness, which doesn’t get enough attention,” he said. “Poor physical fitness is a matter of big concern.”

Bingo. Studies have already shown that physical fitness plays an important role in determining the health risks associated with being overweight. While exercise alone won’t win the battle of the bulge, it’s an important first step that could do a LOT to improve health and well-being.  There’s a lot more to the “obesity crisis” than BMI.

And I don’t mean the pink mystery-meat made famous by Hormel, either.  It’s the e-mail kind… for weight loss products, in particular. According to this report on Psych Central:

Have you ever wondered who actually buys anything advertised via spam emails?

It turns out that when it comes to weight loss spam, the answer is simple — young adults.

New research has found that 41 percent of college students with weight problems opened and read spam e-mail advertising weight loss products.

The researchers found that those with weight problems were three times more likely to open/read and also three times more likely to purchase weight loss products from this spam e-mail, compared to those without weight problem. The study also found that increased psychological stress was associated with an increase in purchases of these weight loss products advertised in spam e-mail.

According to a related report in the NYT, Dr. Fogel was pretty surprised by the results:

“I was shocked by the results,” said Dr. Fogel, whose research focuses on the Internet and consumer behavior. “Even among those with no weight problems, 5.2 percent bought something. It may be that young adults are hypersensitive to weight issues and they think, ‘this can’t hurt.’ ”

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I glanced at this blog post on Shakesville today about the XBox 360, and then did a double take…  Apparently Microsoft recently filed for a patent app, ”…to introduce a heightened degree of reality into the appearance of gamers’ avatars by utilizing a third-party health-care data repository… or a Wii Vitality Sensor-like device.”

In other words, Microsoft wants to create gamers’ avatars capable of collecting/storing user health info.  Why?

Evidently this is (partly) why:

To incentivize people to improve their physical well-being, Microsoft’s filing notes that gamers will be locked out of certain components of a game or a chat room until the proper health parameters are met.

“Physical data that reflects a degree of health of the real person can be linked to rewards of capabilities of a gaming avatar, an amount of time budgeted to play, or a visible indication,” the filing reads. “Thereby, people are encouraged to exercise.”

To the Shakesville blogger and commenter, this is yet another example of “fat hatred.”

But is it really?  Does Microsoft really intend to restrict gamers deemed unhealthy or overweight from playing XBox games?

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According to the China Post…

The Bureau of Health Promotion (BHP) is drafting a bill to charge special tax on food that are considered unhealthy, such as sugary drinks, candies, cakes, oily fast food, and alcohol.According to the BHP Director General Shu Ti-chiou, the proposal aims to promote a healthier eating habit.

…The BHP is expecting the Legislative Yuan to approve it by the end of next year and to enact the tariff in 2011.

If passed, Taiwan could be the first country with a “junk food” tax, local reporters said.

I’ll be curious to see the details on this: how much the proposed tax will be, the specific foods/products it will be applied to, what the money will be used for, and – most importantly - the effects the BHP believes it will have on consumption.

Ok, that’s a rhetorical question, since I didn’t have my camera with me.  But I wish I did, as what I just saw would have been worth recording for posterity…

John and I were driving home from the gym by our usual route, which always takes us past the neighborhood McDonald’s.  It was a little after 2:00 p.m. – well past lunchtime – yet there was a long line of cars (11) idling in the drive-thru lane.  The parking lot looked pretty full, too.

We both did a double take.  It’s the day after Christmas, after all, so it’s likely that most of the folks in the restaurant ate pretty damned well yesterday.  Heck, they may also have eaten heartily in the days just before Christmas too: after all, office parties/goodies, Christmas Eve celebrations, etc. are fairly common. So why on earth would anyone be eating at McDonald’s after all that… let alone LINING UP AND WAITING to eat at McDonald’s??? 

Wow.

You’d think today – of all days – would be a day where people would want to eat a little more sparingly and healthily… but obviously not.

This book review from NYT nutrition writer Jane Brody just caught my eye…

Recipes to Set Teenagers on a Healthy Path

…There is no better time than now to change this trajectory and get the nation’s youngsters on a more wholesome track. And there may be no better way to start than by consulting a new book, “Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs,” (Bloomsbury), by the award-winning chef Rozanne Gold in collaboration with a nutritionist, Helen Kimmel.

In creating the book with five budding teenage cooks, Ms. Gold, who lives in Brooklyn, took to heart the mantra of Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition and public health at New York University, who has written many books on wholesome food choices: “I’ve long argued that the best way to get people to eat more healthfully is to teach kids to cook.”

…There is no better proof, perhaps, than the experience of another of Ms. Gold’s teenage cooks, Danielle Hartog, 15, of Westport, Conn., who is a vegetarian. Danielle, who lost 23 pounds in seven months using recipes in the book, said in an interview, “Once I started eating healthy and feeling healthy, I started exercising every day and experienced a huge boost in confidence.”

“It’s hard not to be motivated,” she added. “It’s easy cooking, fun, healthy, and any teen could do it by themselves.” Once a devotee of pesto pasta — “two portions after school” — she was surprised to find that her favorite recipe is the Very Fresh Vegetable Soup.

Looks like a very cool book – so I just ordered a copy from Amazon for my kids.  Both Ryan and Nick are reasonably capable cooks, but don’t always go out of their way to prep veggies… maybe this will inspire them.  It won’t be here in time for Xmas, but that’s ok.  It’ll make a great New Year’s gift.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This probably goes double for graphic, gross-out pics, which is why the New York City Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene decided to use them to dissuade New Yorkers from “Pouring on the Pounds.”

New Campaign Asks New Yorkers if They’re “Pouring On the Pounds”

Health Department encourages consumers to choose beverages with less sugar

August 31, 2009 – It’s hard to overeat without noticing it. By contrast, soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages can sneak up on you, adding hundreds of calories to your diet each day without ever filling you up. In a new effort to highlight the health impact of sweetened drinks, the Health Department is confronting New Yorkers with a bold question: Are you pouring on the pounds? The agency’s new public-awareness campaign, which includes posters in the subway system and a multilingual Health Bulletin, goes live today and will run for three months.

The campaign’s signature image – in which a bottle of soda, “sports” drink or sweetened iced tea turns to a blob of fat as it reaches the glass – is s a stark reminder of how these products can lead to obesity and related health problems. The ads urge New Yorkers to cut back on sugary beverages and quench their thirst with water, seltzer or low-fat milk instead.

The ad is below the fold.  Warning: it isn’t… very… appetizing.  In fact, it’s pretty gross.

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The Nov. 2 issue of TIME magazine has a great article on the latest report from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity: “Sweet Spot: How Sugary Cereal Makers Target Kids.”

Rudd researchers just finished crunching Nielsen and comScore data — which track television and Internet marketing — to figure out exactly how much cereal advertising kids see. The result: obesity researchers for the first time have hard data proving that the least healthy cereals are the ones marketed most aggressively to children.

…The Rudd findings, which will be detailed at CerealFacts.org in time for the Obesity Society’s annual meeting in Washington on Oct. 26, show that each year preschoolers (ages 2 to 5) see an average of 507 cereal ads that are designed to appeal to kids. The report also details how sugary-cereal makers are interacting with young consumers online through video games like Lucky Charms Charmed Life and Cinnamon Toast Crunch Swirl. 

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The name of the article says it all: “On the ‘Biggest Loser,’ Health Can Take Back Seat.”

Some contestants have claimed that dangerous weight loss techniques were common among contestants. Kai Hibbard, who lost 118 pounds and finished as the runner-up in Season 3, has written on her MySpace blog and elsewhere that she and other contestants would drink as little water as possible in the 24 hours before a weigh-in. When the cameras were off, she said, contestants would work out in as much clothing as possible.

Ms. Hibbard, who weighed 144 pounds at the show’s finale, wrote that she added 31 pounds in two weeks, most of it simply by drinking water. That experience is not isolated. Including Mr. Benson, the winners of the first four seasons of the show each have added at least 20 percent to their weight at the end of the show.

Why am I not surprised?

<deep sigh>

I appreciate what the administrators at Lincoln University are trying to do… but they’re doing it wrong.

Entering freshmen at Lincoln University have to get their body mass index, or BMI, measured. And if the result comes back above 30, the threshold for obesity, the students have to take a physical education class called “HPR 103 Fitness Walking/ Conditioning” or they can’t graduate. Details here.

The requirement kicked in for students who enrolled at Lincoln in the fall of 2006. That class is now in its senior year, and most are looking forward to their graduation this spring. But for 80 seniors, graduation will hinge upon their taking phys ed or passing the required BMI test, according to minutes of a Nov. 3 faculty meeting at Lincoln.

James DeBoy, chair of the department of health, phys ed and recreation at Lincoln brought the issue up at the meeting, because he wanted to remind everyone of the requirement. About 15 percent of the entering freshman class in 2006 tested above the 30 BMI mark.

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This LA Times article describes what happens when your kids are raised to prefer sweetened foods.

Reporting from Chicago – The dairy industry recently rolled out an expensive media campaign in praise of chocolate milk, a classic school lunch drink that’s under assault for its sugar content. As trade groups spend upward of $1 million to defend the drink, three fifth-graders have come to its rescue.

A year after the school district in Barrington, Ill., banned flavored milk from its elementary- and middle-school lunch menus, students persuaded administrators to give it another chance.

“Kids weren’t drinking the white milk,” said Haley Morris, 10. “It’s better to have the chocolate milk than nothing.”

…National health organizations agree that milk, whatever its flavor, has benefits for young bodies. Bone density peaks during adolescence, and calcium is vital to bone strength. Milk offers calcium, Vitamin D and a host of other nutrients. Children need about 32 ounces of milk daily just to get the recommended allotment of Vitamin D, Greer said.

Milk processors argue that children might not receive those benefits if chocolate milk is taken away. “There is a huge concern that if kids don’t care for [the taste of plain milk], they won’t actually drink it,” said Vivien Godfrey, the milk trade group’s chief executive.

If they won’t drink even a neutral-tasting beverage like milk without added sugar, there’s a problem.

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The Center for Science in the Public Interest did some lab tests on movie theater popcorn. 

Eeek!

WASHINGTON—It’s hard to picture someone mindlessly ingesting three McDonald’s Quarter Pounders with 12 pats of butter while watching a movie. But according to new laboratory analyses commissioned by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, that food is nutritionally comparable to what you’d find in a medium popcorn and soda combo at Regal, the country’s biggest movie theater chain: 1,610 calories and three days’ worth—60 grams—of saturated fat. (Nutrition aside, that combo costs $12—for raw ingredients that must cost Regal pennies.)

“Regal and AMC are our nominees for Best Supporting Actor in the Obesity Epidemic,” said CSPI senior nutritionist Jayne Hurley. “Who expects about 1,500 calories and three days’ worth of heart-stopping fat in a popcorn and soda combo? That’s the saturated fat of a stick of butter and the calories of two sticks of butter. You might think you’re getting Bambi, but you’re really getting Godzilla.”

Ok the “Bambi vs. Godzilla” is a bit much… I don’t think anyone noshing on popcorn at the movies imagines they’re eating health food.  But people should have some idea about what they’re eating.  It’s easy as pie (no pun intended) to underestimate how much you’re eating. Movie theater snacks are the kind that are often eaten mindlessly, too (your attention is on the movie, after all), so it’s not exactly hard to pack away quite a few excess cals without noticing.

Like the Cheesecake Factory meals we were discussing yesterday,  munching movie theater popcorn isn’t exactly an every day thing.  But it’s not hard to see how these “loaded” meals and snacks can fit into an overall pattern of overeating that has implications for people’s weight and waistlines.  It helps to know where the “calorie traps” are, so they can be avoided.

I mostly agree with WaPo blogger Ezra Klein’s post on the Cheesecake Factory, although I think he’s off base on one point:

If I had gone to the Cheesecake Factory with the intention of ordering relatively healthfully, it’s pretty likely that the miso salmon would have ended up on my plate. A heart-healthy fish with a soy-based glaze? What could be better?

A lot, as it turns out. On first glance, I would have figure the salmon for the lightest entree, followed by the chicken piccata, the carbonara, and the crispy beef. Not so. The salmon weighs in at 1,673 calories — which is to say, a bit more than 75 percent of the food an adult male should eat in a day. The piccata is a comparably slim 1,385 calories. The crispy beef is 1,528 calories. And the carbonara? 2,191. The answer might be that someone looking for a healthful meal shouldn’t go to the Cheesecake Factory. But insofar as you’re already there, or your family wants to go there, making a good decision isn’t a particularly straightforward proposition.

Emphasis mine.  Sure, I agree completely with his point about the importance of knowing the calorie values of restaurant menu items.  But the calorie counts he’s quoting are for full entrees, which are hyoooge, and include sauces and (an often) heaping pile o’ starch.  But it doesn’t have to be that way… I’ve eaten at Cheesecake Factory before, and have emerged unscathed by following my usual ”restaurant rules.”

1. Pass on any bread/butter (or chips/salsa in Mexican restaurants)
2. Pass on any drinks except water, tea (I make occasional exceptions for a single glass of wine)
3. Order grilled chicken or fish (if it comes sauced, leave most of it on the plate)
4. Ask the server to hold the rice or potatoes and substitute a veg (if one already comes with the entree, I ask for double veggies.  In Asian restaurants, when rice is put on the table, I simply ignore it).
5. Skip dessert (order some decaf if others are ordering dessert) 
6. Eat only until comfortably full – bring leftover food home in a “doggie bag” for a later meal.

Thus, making a good decision IS a straightforward proposition, if that’s really what you want to do.  While developing an awareness of portion sizes and calorie counts is a good thing, it’s even better to have a set of food “values” to live by that can be relied on to mitigate any damage, regardless of where you’re dining, be it Cheesecake Factory, La Grenouille or IHOP.

According to the NYT, hospitalization rates are increased for obese/morbidly obese people with swine flu infections.

Obesity appears to be a risk factor on a par with pregnancy for developing complications from an infection with pandemic H1N1 influenza, according to the most comprehensive look yet at swine flu hospitalizations.

About a quarter of those hospitalizations have been for people who were morbidly obese, even though such people make up less than 5% of the population. That fivefold increase in risk is close to the sixfold increase observed in pregnant women…When the merely obese are included with the morbidly obese, they make up 34% of the American population. Yet they accounted for 58% of the hospitalizations in the study.

…The researchers found that two-thirds of the obese patients had a health problem that was previously recognized as an underlying risk factor for swine flu. The most common were chronic lung disease, heart disease and diabetes.

But that still left one-third of obese patients without other risk factors, said Dr. Janice K. Louie, lead author of the study and chief of the state health department’s influenza and respiratory syndromes section.

There are many possible explanations.

This parallels a University of Michigan report released a few months ago.

This Johns Hopkins study confirms some anecdotes I’ve heard/read.

October 22, 2009-Doctors have less respect for their obese patients than they do for patients of normal weight, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests. The findings raise questions about whether negative physician attitudes about obesity could be affecting the long-term health of their heavier patients.

Mary Margaret Huizinga, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of general internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, says the idea for the research came from her experiences working in a weight loss clinic. Patients would come in and “by the end of the visit would be in tears, saying no other physician talked with me like this before. No one listened to me,” says Huizinga, the study’s leader and director of the Johns Hopkins Digestive Weight Loss Center.

“Many patients felt like because they were overweight, they weren’t receiving the type of care other patients received,” she says.

Not good – no one should be disrespected by their doctors, particularly people who are at risk for future health problems (even if they’re apparently healthy now).

…Diet, that is. 

The New York Times has a commendably skeptical take on the principal cookie-based diets on the market: Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet, the Hollywood Cookie Diet, Smart for Life and the Soypal Cookie diet.  Eating cookies on a diet may seem like a luxury, but the reality is pretty stark… these diets typically provide only 800 – 1,000 calories per day!

Critics of cookie diets are not convinced. Weight-loss plans that center around a diet of below 1,000 calories do not, they say, lead to long-lasting weight loss and can result in potassium deficiency, gallstones, heart palpitations, weakened kidney function and dizziness. The cookie diet particularly concerns eating disorder activists, who have long criticized fad diets, such as the grapefruit diet, Master Cleanse and Optifast shakes. “Generally speaking, fad diets misinform the public and fuel a fire of continued curiosity with this dieting mentality, which we know gets us nowhere,” said Dr. Ovidio Bermudez, medical director of Laureate Eating Disorders Program in Tulsa, Okla. “They tend to promise a huge return for very little investment,” he said, adding, “We need to be very aware of that fact that whenever we skew our eating in any direction; the chances are that we’re going to hinder our health and not enhance it.”

…“For weight loss to stick, you have to be able to settle into an eating pattern that you can adhere to over time,” said Suzanne Havala Hobbs, a clinical associate professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “That eating pattern needs to provide you with all the nutrients you need while holding calories in balance with the number you expend.

“Diets with a gimmick,” she added, “aren’t harmful for a short period of time. But they’re not likely to cause a meaningful change in behavior that will enable you to keep your weight at an optimal level.”

While the article probably won’t tell you anything that you didn’t already know (or suspect), it reinforces what those of us in the bodybuilding community have understood for years… there are no shortcuts to getting “lean ‘n mean”.  Gimmick diets can certainly take some weight off in the short-term, but they aren’t a path to either long-term weight maintenance or achieving an optimal body composition.  They aren’t worth the effort or the costs, which – in the case of the various cookie diets – can be considerable.

(h/t Pandagon)