As childhood obesity reaches epidemic levels, anything that gets kids moving should be encouraged. But children’s sports are competitive these days. Whether at school or on traveling or club teams, young athletes are training …
Diet & Fitness
Why Can’t Americans Eat Their Fruits and Veggies?
A large and undisputed body of evidence suggests that eating fruits and vegetables is a preventive measure against cancer, cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently found that only 32.5% of American adults ate two daily servings of fruit in 2009, a slight decline from …
Football Pitfall: Stadium Kitchens that Violate Health Codes
Football season starts today. How can you show team spirit while staying healthy?
A Healthy Rosh Hashanah: A Sweet New Year, Without the Sugar
At sundown Wednesday Jewish families will ring in Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, by feasting on sweet foods like apples and honey, rugelach cookies and round honey cakes. The holiday tradition is that a sweet meal will lead to a sweet new year. So what about the diabetics and health conscious relatives at your table?
The …
Which Low-Carb Diet Is Healthiest?
Many clinical trials (and blockbuster diet plans, from Scarsdale to South Beach to The China Study) have supported the idea that reducing the intake of simple carbohydrates — white breads, pasta, rice and sugar — leads to …
Coming Soon to a Restaurant Near You: Calorie Counts
They knew it was coming. Last March, the federal health-care reform bill warned all U.S. chain restaurants that, before long, they would need to start posting calorie counts for each of their menu items. Yesterday the Food and …
Can Zapping Potatoes Make Them More Nutritious?
Giving potatoes a good soak in a salt water solution doesn’t seem that unusual. But dunking them in such a bath and then zapping them with a jolt of electricity is hardly a conventional culinary trick—even in the name of …
Leafy Greens May Cut Diabetes Risk
In a study of the effects of fruit and veggie intake on diabetes risk, kale and cabbage seem unusually protective.
Researchers writing today in the British Medical Journal found that — in data from six previous studies …
On a Trip to Mars, Astronauts’ Muscles Could Waste Away
They have treadmills and exercise bikes, but astronauts do not maintain muscle mass during long space voyages — a finding that suggests big problems on manned missions to other planets.
Pumping Iron? A Lighter Load May Give Better Results
Enough with the grunting and groaning at the gym already. New research this week in PLoS One shows that, to build muscle, it’s more effective to lift a lighter weight many times than to lift a heavy load that you can only manage …
Baldwin Park, CA — Birthplace of the Drive-Thru — Bans New Drive-Thrus
Like many towns in America, Baldwin Park has a weight problem. But this southern California city — the reputed birthplace of drive-thru fast food joints — is taking an unusual step to help its citizens stay lean: A nine-month …
Anxious kids? Let Them Walk to School
A stroll to school in the morning can help kids prep for the stresses that await them in the classroom. They’ll have less severe increases in heart rate and blood pressure when they’re put on the spot, and will feel less anxious about it to boot — or at least that’s the implication from a new study by researchers at the University of …
How Safe is Gulf Seafood?
Some reassuring news from the Institute of Food Technologists on the safety of seafood from the Gulf. Despite the photos of pelicans and turtles drenched in the oil from Deepwater Horizon, seafood from Louisiana, which provides one-third of the continental US’s seafood (that’s about 1.5 billion pounds a year) does not seem to be that …