The Dairy Show

Do Small Dietary Changes Effect Weight?

Tara Parker-Pope recently wrote an interesting article for her Well Column in the New York Times about the effect of making small changes in diet, like eating one less cookie per day, on weight.  Her article was based on a Commentary in JAMA by Martijn Katan and David Ludwig titled "Extra Calories Cause Weight Gain—But How Much?"

She points out that 1lb of fat is equal to about 3500 calories.  This means that in order to lose a pound of fat you need a calorie deficit of about 3500 calories.  That means you must burn 3500 calories more than you take in. 

Interestingly though, to gain a pound of fat, you need to have an excess of about 4000 calories.  This is because the process of converting foods is not 100% efficient and on average about 500 calories are needed to create 1lb of fat from the food you eat.

The average daily supply of calories available per person in American is about 1000 calories more than the average person's daily requirements.  Based on the previous paragraph, eating an extra 1000 calories per day would lead to a weight gain of 1.75 lbs per week or 91.5lbs per year!  However, this is not exactly what happens, because the bodies metabolism and energy requirements change with time and size.  So as you gain weight your energy requirements will increase in order to maintain that weight and so you need to eat increasingly more calories to gain more weight.

The same issues come into play when we talk about losing weight.  As you lose more weight your energy requirements will decrease, so that in order to maintain weight or lose more weight you must take in even less calories.

I think though that the messages in the NYT and JAMA articles is confusing.  But the gist of what they are saying is that figuring out how our caloric intake effect our weight is not a simple equation and therefore gaining and losing weight over time takes more calorie intake or deficit than we might think.  Small dietary changes such as cutting out a soda or a cookie from diet isn't going to make a major long term impact on weight, because most people are taking in so many extra calories that they are still going to have an excess of calories and gain weight in the long run.  However, it will make a difference, because while you would still gain weight, you will gain less in the end.  But if you want to lose weight or maintain weight in the long run its going to take more than just one small changes.  It requires multiple small changes that add up to creating no net gain of calories to maintain weight or a net loss of calories to lose weight.  The amount of calories taken in will have to change over time because of changes in the bodies metabolism.

What do you think about the effects of small dietary changes on weight?

Let's Move

Last week the White House and the First Lady unveiled there new plan to combat childhood obesity.  This is a very serious problem as in the past 30 years the prevalence of childhood obesity has grown to 30% of the population. 

There are two main parts to the White House Initiative.  First the President has established the creation of a childhood obesity task force and second the first lady will head up a new public relations program called Let's Move.  The goals of the programs are to ensure access to healthy, affordable food; increase physical activity in schools and communities; provide healthier food in schools; and empower parents with information and tools to make good choices for themselves and their families.

The Let's Move website, is definitely worth checking out, because is filled with great information about the program and links to other resources.    This looks like a great comprehensive program that is tackling the issues from many different angles and over the next few weeks, I'll put up some posts to highlight different aspects of the plan..  I'm very impressed by how many different organizations are involved from the FDA, to USDA, to public schools, to the American Academy of Pediatricians.  This type of multidisciplinary approach makes me optimistic that this program could work. 

Jamie Oliver wins TED prize

Jamie Oliver is the British chef who has come to America to tackle obesity and related diseases.  On his new show called "Jamie's Food Revolution", which premieres March 26th on ABC he visits "America's Unhealthiest city" Huntington West Virgina in order to teach the community about food and to try to get them to change that way they. 

On February 10th he won the this years TED prize (Technology, Entertainment, Design).  The prize comes with $100,000 and "a wish to change the world".  Which according to the TED website is supposed to mobilize the community to effect change.  Jamie's wish was

"for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity."

Hopefully this prize and the upcoming television show will indeed help make an impact in the improving the way people eat and fighting obesity.  To watch Jamie's TED speech, see below.

Factory Farms and Antibiotics Part II

In Part II of Katie Couric's piece from CBS News on Antibiotics and Farm she visits a new model of factory farm that does not use antibiotics.  In order to successfully raise animals in confinement succesfully without antibiotics, the farmers say that they have to provide additional space.  This of course leads to an increased price of the meat products to consumers that the National Pork Board seems to suggest is too much. 

The story also sites studies that show that incidence of infection with resistant bacteria in humans increased when animals started getting regularly fed antibiotics. After banning this practice in European countries the incidence of finding resistant bacteria in meet has decreased.  The next step is to see the effect on public health.

It is very interesting and somewhat surprising to see that intensively raising animals in confinement is possible without antibiotics, provided they have a little more space. The turkey shed that Couric visits, doesn't look that different that one of the chicken houses that you might see in movies like Food, Inc or Our Daily Bread.

Watch part II below:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Factory Farms and Antibiotics

Around 70% of all the antibiotics produced go to farm animals.  Antibiotics in many of these cases aren't used to treat animals who are sick, but are given to healthy animals to make them grow faster and keep them from getting ill.  The indiscriminate use of antibiotics helps encourage the growth of antibiotic resistant bacteria and so is a major threat to public health.  CBS news did a story on this issue tonight, you can watch it below.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Doctors and Sustainable Food

Three of the leading causes of death in the United States, Heart Disease, Stroke, and Diabetes are all heavily influenced by diet.  These diseases are very likely preventable by changing what we eat.  Unfortunately, to many of us continue to maintain diets that promote, instead of prevent these diseases. Also health care providers have really not made prevention of disease through diet a priority. This is understandable though as there have been many mixed messages about what we should eat and getting people to change is very difficult.  Well hopefully this is going to change.  About 1 month ago today, the AMA passed a new policy resolution (download it here) in support of practices in health care facilities and education by providers about sustainable food.  The new resolutions state: