Whole Foods Market Hosts Hunger Banquet With Local High Schools

Whole Foods Market in Winter Park, in collaboration with Winter Park and Timber Creek High Schools, will present a Hunger Banquet to benefit the Whole Planet Foundation at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, May 3 at Glenridge Middle School.

A Hunger Banquet illustrates the disparity in distribution of the world’s resources by randomly assigning attendees to dinner tables representing different areas of the world to highlight the circumstances involved in the distribution of food in those areas. The event is open to the public, ages 12 and over.

For more information, go the the Whole Foods Market website.

Colas Could Harm Bone Health

Drinking too many colas–especially those containing sugar–can be unhealthy for anyone, but a new study suggests they could jeopardize bone health.

“There is enough evidence that high consumption of soda and carbonated beverages is associated with somewhat lower bone mass in children and that’s a real concern and people should be aware of it,” said Dr. Lawrence Raisz, director of the University of Connecticut Center for Osteoporosis.

Experts don’t know the exact cause of the problem, but believe it may be related to the caffeine or phosphoric acid in colas or the fact people drinking colas may consume fewer nutritious beverages with calcium and vitamin D.

Click here to read the complete HealthDay news story.

Whole Foods Market Hosts Hunger Banquet With Local High Schools

Whole Foods Market in Winter Park, in collaboration with Winter Park and Timber Creek High Schools, will present a Hunger Banquet to benefit the Whole Planet Foundation at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, May 3 at Glenridge Middle School.

A Hunger Banquet illustrates the disparity in distribution of the world’s resources by randomly assigning attendees to dinner tables representing different areas of the world to highlight the circumstances involved in the distribution of food in those areas. The event is open to the public, ages 12 and over.

For more information, go the the Whole Foods Market website.

Are Cavities in Kids Related to Weight?

You might think overweight children would have more cavities than normal weight friends, but that isn’t necessarily so, and they might even have fewer, according to the results of two national studies.

Researchers who reviewed the results of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys say results are inconclusive and raise a lot of questions.  ”Are overweight children eating foods higher in fat rather than cavity-causing sugars?” asked researcher Dorota Kopycka-Kedzierawski. She says more study is needed.

Click here to read the story from WebMD.com.

Acid in Drinks Eating Away Tooth Enamel

Kids are drinking too many soft drinks, sports drinks and some fruit juices that contain acids that are eating away the protective enamel on their teeth. Researchers examined the teeth of 900 middle school students and found about 30 percent had the condition.

“When consumed in excess, these products can easily strip the enamel from the teeth, leaving the teeth more brittle and sensitive to pain.  The acids in these products can be so corrosive that not even cavity-causing bacteria can survive when exposed to them, said study co-author Bennett T. Amaechi, an associate professor of community dentistry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Click here to read the complete story on the Medline Plus website.

How To Survive Girl Scout Cookie Season

Millions of boxes of Girl Scout cookies are sold each year, and chances are most readers have–or had–a box or two in their own kitchens this month. Ever wonder which is the healthiest of the cookies?

A WebMD website news story helps readers determine which of the cookies is least likely to ruin a weight loss program.

 Click here to read the complete WebMD story, and find out how your Thin Mints measure up.

Skipping Breakfast May Mean Adding Pounds

Eating breakfast–particularly a healthy one–is a great way to start the day, and, according to yet another study, can mean a trimmer body.

“There’s a pretty significant inverse association between how frequently kids report eating breakfast and how much weight they gain over time, and we took into account other dietary factors and physical activity,” said Mark Pereira, co-author of the study, published in the March issue of “Pediatrics.”

Read the complete story on the Healthfinder website by clicking here.

Reducing Kids’ Salt Intake May Lower Soft Drink Consumption

Children who eat less salt drink fewer sugar-sweetened soft drinks and may significantly lower their risks for obesity, elevated blood pressure and later-in-life heart attack and stroke, researchers reported in the print and on line issue of “Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.”

“We found that children eating a lower-salt diet drank less fluid,” said Dr. Feng J. He, M.D., lead author of the study. “From our research, we estimated that 1 gram of salt cut from their daily diet would reduce fluid intake by 100 grams per day.”

“If children aged 4 to 18 years cut their salt intake by half (i.e., an average reduction of 3 grams a day), there would be a decrease of approximately two sugar-sweetened soft drinks per week per child, so each child would decrease calorie intake by almost 250 kcal per week,” he said.

Read more about the study on the American Heart Association website.

Tips for a Healthy New Year

Good health is at or near the top of most families’ wish lists for the new year.  The trick is finding new and interesting ways to achieve it.

The Des Moines Register newspaper has a list of 52 useful suggestions, ranging from divvying up snacks into smaller portions and giving boring lunches a healthy boost to making a grocery store trip an adventure or using friends as resources for new, healthy recipes.

Click here to read the complete story.

UF Researchers Provide Holiday Diet Tips

University of Florida (UF) researchers say people don’t have to go no-carb to stay fit during the holidays. In fact, many dieters may be cutting out the wrong foods altogether, according to findings from a UF paper published recently in the “European Journal of Nutrition.”

Dieters should focus on limiting the amount of fructose they eat instead of cutting out starchy foods such as bread, rice and potatoes, report the researchers, who propose using new dietary guidelines based on fructose to gauge how healthy foods are.

There’s a fair amount of evidence that starch-based foods don’t cause weight gain like sugar-based foods and don’t cause the metabolic syndrome like sugar-based foods,” said Dr. Richard Johnson, senior author of the report.  Click here to read more.