Tag Archive: study

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NYC Sees Drop in Child Obesity; Can Other Cities Do Same?

December 16th, 2011 / tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , / categories: Uncategorized /

THURSDAY, Dec. 15 (HealthDay News) — In what might serve as a
hopeful sign for all children in the United States, a new study finds that
obesity rates among New York City‘s school children have dropped slightly
in the past five years, particularly among the youngest.

Although the absolute decline in the obesity rate is only 1.2 percent,
it’s still the largest drop seen yet in any major U.S. city, the
researchers noted, and many of the programs that New York City health and
education officials implemented to combat rising childhood obesity rates
are being tried in other parts of the country.

“This is really good news, but there are still one in five children in
grades K-8 who are obese, which is still a huge number of children,” said
study author Magdalena Berger, a city research scientist in the New York
City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. “We are on the right track,
but we still have a very long way to go.”

Obesity among children has been increasing since the 1970s, Berger
said. “In the last decade, nationally, we have seen a leveling off of
obesity, but this is the first well-documented decline in obesity among
children that we have seen.”

The drop in obesity is statistically significant, because of the large
number of children in New York City‘s public schools, Berger said.
“Whether or not it’s actually meaningful is another question,” she
added.

“I think it’s meaningful in the sense that it’s not going up, and
that’s good news, it’s not staying stable, and that’s good news,” Berger
said. “I would characterize this as a slow sustained drop over five years;
it’s not a dramatic drop.”

Although the reasons for the decline in obesity among these school
children isn’t clear, Berger speculated that policies implemented by the
New York City departments of health and education, along with more public
awareness of the problem, may have played a role.

Study co-author Cathy Nonas, director of Physical Activity and
Nutrition Programs in New York City’s Department of Health and Mental
Hygiene, said several changes in city schools probably contributed to the
drop in obesity rates.

“There are significant changes in school food,” she said. “There is no
whole milk in the schools anymore, it’s only 1 percent and the chocolate
milk is skim and low sugar,” she said. “That saved 4.5 billion calories,
just by making that change.”

In addition, food served in schools has reduced fat and no trans fats
and reduced salt, and the level of fiber has been increased, Nonas said.
Drinks and snack foods sold in schools are also healthier, she said.
Similar policies were also instituted in early child-care centers, she
added.

Also, the city has trained K-5 teachers on how to increase physical
activity in the classroom, Nonas said.

“It’s a layering effect” that all contributed to reducing obesity
rates, Nonas believes. These and similar policies are being implemented
throughout the country, she noted.

The report was published in the Dec. 16 issue of the U.S. Centers for
Diseases Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly
Report.

For the study, Berger’s team used data on the more than 900,000
children in kindergarten to eighth grade in New York City public schools.
The city’s school system collects fitness data on these students every
year, Berger said.

The researchers found the obesity for these children, aged 5 through
14, dropped from 21.9 percent in 2006-07 to 20.7 percent in 2010-11, a
little more than a 1 percent decline among kids overall.

The biggest drop was among children aged 5 to 6, from 20.2 percent in
2006-07 to 18.2 percent in 2010-11, they noted.

These declines in obesity were seen in all race and ethnic groups, the
researchers added.

Obesity expert Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research
Center at Yale University School of Medicine, said that “this report,
showing a decline in obesity among New York City school children over the
past five years is, to be sure, a glass half full. But I wouldn’t get
carried away with the celebrations just yet.”

The absolute decline in the overall obesity rate is roughly 1 percent
in five years, he noted. “At that rate of progress, it would take a
century to fully reverse the damage done over the past several decades.
The rate of obesity is still over 20 percent, and the gains are
uneven.”

This is a window to a very small part of a nationwide obesity problem,
Katz added. “The resources of New York City may be sufficient to produce
some good news, but that is not generalizable. We have a long way to go,
and will need to build diligently on these modest gains to get there,” he
said.

“Obesity is still a major health issue in children,” Dr. Achiau
Ludomirsky, chief of pediatric cardiology at NYU Langone Medical Center,
New York City, added in a statement. “We can definitely see that the
decline in obesity among [New York City] school children is the result of
early intervention for better diet, opportunity for physical fitness and
the education of students and parents. It is a three-tier effect.”

What kids eat and learn away from school is also key. “We can’t
reduce obesity levels without working closely with the families of
students to help them offer better diet options at home and limit a
child’s time in front of the television, computers and video games,”
Ludomirsky said.

“But we still have a long way to go,” he stressed. “If we don’t address
the childhood obesity epidemic more proactively right now, it will become
a major health issue for the next generation of Americans.”

More information

For more on childhood obesity, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/nyc-sees-drop-child-obesity-other-cities-same-210409857.html

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Weight gain in college? The freshman 15 is just a myth, U.S. study reveals

December 14th, 2011 / tags:, , , , , , , , , / categories: Uncategorized /

ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2011) — Contrary to popular belief, most college students don’t gain anywhere near 15 pounds during their freshman year, according to a new nationwide study.

Rather than adding “the freshman 15,” as it is commonly called, the average student gains between about 2.5 and 3.5 pounds during the first year of college.

And college has little to do with the weight gain, the study revealed. The typical freshman only gains about a half-pound more than a same-age person who didn’t go to college.

“The ‘freshman 15′ is a media myth,” said Jay Zagorsky, co-author of the study and research scientist at Ohio State University’s Center for Human Resource Research.

“Most students don’t gain large amounts of weight. And it is not college that leads to weight gain — it is becoming a young adult.”

The results suggest that media reporting of the freshman 15 myth may have serious implications.

“Repeated use of the phrase ‘the freshman 15,’ even if it is being used just as a catchy, alliterative figure of speech, may contribute to the perception of being overweight, especially among young women,” Zagorsky said.

“Weight gain should not be a primary concern for students going off to college.”

Zagorsky conducted the study with Patricia Smith of the University of Michigan-Dearborn. The study will appear in the December 2011 issue of the journal Social Science Quarterly.

The study uses data from 7,418 young people from around the country who participated in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. The NLSY97 interviewed people between the ages of 13 and 17 in 1997 and then interviewed the same people each year since then. The NLSY is conducted by Ohio State’s Center for Human Resource Research for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Among many other questions, respondents were asked their weight and college status each year.

Other studies have shown that college students tend to underestimate their weight by half a pound to 3 pounds. But if people are consistent in underestimating their weight from year to year, it would not impact these results, Zagorsky said.

The study found that women gained an average of 2.4 pounds during their freshman year, while men gained an average of 3.4 pounds. No more than 10 percent of college freshman gained 15 pounds or more — and a quarter of freshman reported actually losing weight during their first year.

“It’s worth noting that while there’s this focus on weight gain among freshman, we found that one in four actually lost weight,” Zagorsky said.

The researchers examined a variety of factors that may be associated with freshman weight gain, including whether they lived in a dormitory, went to school full or part time, pursued a two-year or four-year degree, went to a private or public institution, or was a heavy drinker of alcohol (consuming six or more drinks on at least four days per month.)

None of these factors made a significant difference on weight gain, except for heavy drinking. Even then, those who were heavy drinkers gained less than a pound more than students who did not drink at that level.

Zagorsky said it was particularly significant that dorm living did not add to weight gain, since one hypothesis has been that the dorm environment encourages weight gain during the freshman year.

“There has been concern that access to all-you-can-eat cafeterias and abundant fast food choices, with no parental oversight, may lead to weight gain, but that doesn’t seem to hold true for most students,” he said.

The results do show, however, that college students do gain weight steadily over their college years.

The typical woman gains between seven and nine pounds, while men gain between 12 and 13 pounds.

“Not only is there not a ‘freshman 15,’ there doesn’t appear to be even a ‘college 15′ for most students,” Zagorsky said.

Over the course of the entire college career, students who both worked and attended college gained an extra one-fifth of a pound for each month they worked.

The researchers also examined what happened to college students’ weight after they graduated. They found that in the first four years after college, the typical respondent gained another 1.5 pounds per year.

“College students don’t face an elevated risk of obesity because they gain a large amount of weight during their freshman year,” Zagorsky said.

“Instead, they have moderate but steady weight gain throughout early adulthood. Anyone who gains 1.5 pounds every year will become obese over time, no matter their initial weight.”

Although most students don’t need to worry about large weight gains their freshman year, Zagorsky said they still should focus on a healthy lifestyle.

“Students should begin developing the habit of eating healthy foods and exercising regularly. Those habits will help them throughout their lives.”

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Ohio State University. The original article was written by Jeff Grabmeier.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

  1. Jay L. Zagorsky, Patricia K. Smith. The Freshman 15: A Critical Time for Obesity Intervention or Media Myth? Social Science Quarterly, 2011; DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6237.2011.00823.x

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Article source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111031115239.htm

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Orangutans shed light on obesity in people

December 14th, 2011 / tags:, , , , / categories: Uncategorized /

CHICAGO (Reuters) – In lush times, orangutans on the island of Borneo gorge themselves on forest fruits, packing on extra pounds in preparation for leaner years, when they live off leaves and bark and their own stored fat.

This behavior of overeating is all too common in humans, but rarely seen in nonhuman primates, and studying it may offer some clues about obesity and eating disorders in people, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

“Orangutans make very interesting models for studying human obesity because they are really the only apes and potentially the only nonhuman primates in the wild that actually store fat deposits,” said Erin Vogel, an evolutionary anthropologist from Rutgers University in New Jersey, whose study appears in the journal Biology Letters.

“It’s never been documented in any other species,” Vogel said in a telephone interview.

Vogel and colleagues studied urine samples from Bornean orangutans laboriously collected over a period of five years by a team led Dr. Cheryl Knott, a biological anthropologist at Boston University.

“Orangutans living in this really challenging habitat are able to take advantage of these periods of incredible fruit abundance — these masting periods, where 80 percent of the fruit on the trees are fruiting,” Vogel said.

“They eat and eat and eat and they get fat,” she said.

Then they go through periods of very low fruit production that can last up to eight years.

In the study, as food stores became more and more scarce, the orangutans shifted to bark and tough leaves to survive. And the team noticed changes in the apes’ urine.

First, they saw ketones, a sign that the body was metabolizing fat. “It indicates they are burning this fat for energy,” Vogel said.

And then they saw elevated nitrogen isotopes. These indicated that muscle cells were being broken down to obtain protein and energy.

“They have to get energy from somewhere, so they start to digest their body tissue, just like you would find in situations were humans are very impoverished, and in anorexia, where we would potentially see conditions where humans would digest their own muscles,” Vogel said.

Vogel credits Knott’s team for collecting the urine samples, which was no mean feat.

The team followed the orangutans from the time they woke up in their nest until the time they went to sleep.

“As soon as they wake up, they typically void — they urinate,” Vogel said.

Knott’s team would be waiting underneath the tree canopy to collect these samples, either with plastic sheeting or an inverted umbrella held over their heads, which worked as both a collection device and some protection from the shower of urine.

Vogel said the study shows how orangutans have taken advantage of their ability to store fat to increase their chances of survival, but this same ability is a deficit for most humans who do not need to forage for food.

“We have this wonderful ability to store fat, and now most of us wish we didn’t have it,” she said.

In future studies, Vogel said she plans to look for fluctuations in the hunger-related hormones ghrelin and leptin during periods of food scarcity and abundance, as well as changes in inflammatory cell signaling chemicals known as cytokines, which are thought to play a role in obesity.

Orangutans are endangered. There are only 50,000 individuals remaining in Borneo and 7,300 in Sumatra — the two places in the world where they can still be found in the wild.

(Editing by Vicki Allen)

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/orangutans-shed-light-obesity-people-005451686.html

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