1 February 2009

GI News—February 2009

[COLLAGE]

  • Senior moments? It may be your blood glucose
  • Fruit, vegetables and strong bones
  • Healthier foods no more expensive
  • Are pomegranates a super food?
  • Fat body, fat tongue? Prof Trim investigates
  • Should you eat breakfast before exercising?
Child obesity is a regular headline hitter from scary new statistics, blame gaming and finger pointing (and wagging) to banning junk food ads, school fat report cards and Jamie’s school dinners. From the comfort of home those hardy perennials, the armchair experts, trumpet that the answer is obvious: just get kids to eat healthy food and run around more. Oh, and shouldn’t they walk to school, mow lawns and shovel snow? GI News talked to Prof Louise Baur from The Children's Hospital, Westmead and reports on promising results from three Australian programs for overweight children. There are all our usual features too, plus three new recipes for you to try.

Good eating, good health and good reading.

GI News Editor: Philippa Sandall
Web Design and Management: Scott Dickinson, PhD

4 comments:

janmarie_qld said...

When my son was in Primary School each morning the children ran around the sports ground and my son was slim.

Then he went to High School and they stopped that..had to spend more time on homework etc...and he put on weight.

He continued to be challenged around his weight throughout his adulthood

Anonymous said...

My son's private elementary school had an Ala Carte Line in addition to the regular lunch. They replaced fresh fruit with candy bars, and bagels with a frozen yogurt machine, which was nothing but sugar. Then, I found out my son was spending his all lunch money to buy a bunch of candy bars instead of his lunch, and the Ala Carte lady let him, without ever saying a word. I complained to the school, but they did nothing -- I found out they made a bunch more money selling junk than the healthy stuff. Finally, the Health Department noticed all the bad food during one of thier routine inspections, and made the school change back to a healthier menu. I don't mind him eating a little junk, now and then, but I never expected this from a school. How are parents supposed to feed thier kids a healthy diet, when schools are pushing all this junk food -- especially when they go and put in a soda machine?

Unknown said...

There has been a great deal of talk in the USA about the salmonella carried by peanuts used as ingredients in foods. Since you promote peanuts as an ingredient of a Low-GI diet, have you found any diet bars or other peanut foods to be toxic?
See http://snipurl.com/basot for more in the salmonella scare in the USA,

GI Group said...

Re peanuts: Food regulatory authorities test for toxins. Here's the latest (as of 4 February) from the FDA.

'A combination of epidemiological analysis and laboratory testing by state officials in Minnesota and Connecticut, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have enabled FDA to confirm that the sources of the outbreak of illnesses caused by Salmonella Typhimurium are peanut butter and peanut paste produced by the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) at its Blakely, Georgia processing plant.'

For more information on the peanut products recalled, check the FDA website which is updated regularly: http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/Salmonellatyph.html