Category Archives: Diet

Most of us have seen the statistics depicting that more and more individuals, worldwide, are suffering from either excessive weight gain or obesity, especially within the developed nations. This, in part, is due to the fact that many individuals are finding that they are trapped in a lifestyle that is quite busy and hectic. This being said, many individuals are finding it increasingly more difficult to consistently set aside the time to regularly perform an exercise routine, to participate in a variety of physical type activities, and to consistently consume a healthy whole foods diet that is well balanced and nutritionally rich.

The combination of decreasing the total number of calories burned per day, due to lack of sufficient physical activity, while increasing the total number of calories consumed per day only serves to worsen the problem of excessive weight gain.

In regards to traditional dietary intake wisdom, at least over the last 40 years or so, individuals have been told that they should avoid fried foods due to their large quantities of saturated fat and calories. However, a newly published study suggests that fried foods don’t affect everyone equally. In the study, changes in the subjects’ body mass index (BMI) after eating fried foods seemed to depend largely on their genetic propensity for obesity.

Although a new report on salt intake by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that Americans are consuming less sodium today than they did about 10 years ago, we’re still eating far too much salt on an average day, according to the researchers behind the report. As of 2010, the average person ate about 3,424 mg of sodium each day, a figure reduced from 3,518 mg of sodium daily in 2003. Infants were not included in the study, though people of all other ages were. The decline may be partly due to the fact that popular food brands increasingly offer low-sodium options. For example, Progresso Soup, Bush’s Beans and V8 often have low-sodium versions placed directly adjacent to their typical products in supermarkets. This is important, as processed foods such as canned products and lunch meat contain a notoriously high amount of sodium.