SUGAR

I love sugar. Love love love it. Give me fruit, give me gelati, give me cake, give me pie, give me milkshakes and slices and lollies oh my! But lately, sugar has been getting a bad rap, as we look at our battle with the bulge, some people have sugar in the firing line. Last week, I watched two documentaries about sugar and health.

The first was the much talked about 'That Sugar Film'.

There has been a lot written about this film by people far cleverer than I so I won't harp on about it. There was some things I liked in this, and some I didn't.  Bottom line: if it gets people thinking and talking about their diets, it's great, but casting sugar as the devil in this piece is perhaps a little one dimensional - little time was given to the dangers of excessive salt or fat in our diets. More time could also have been given to the importance of exercise, and making a stronger definition between naturally occurring sugars and added sugars. I think this documentary sits well among other health information (and I am not talking about self proclaimed experts on Facebook) - because while I am sure experts were consulted on this project and informed the development - it was a study of one, conducted by a television actor, and has virtually zero external validity, given the number of confounding variables in this 'study'. But as I say, starting the conversation is part of the battle, and this is a good thing.

The second was 'Fat V Sugar' (Click this link to watch it all online for free in the next seven days)

Again, there have been many things written about this documentary. Since it is not as well known, the basic premise is that a set of twins, adult doctors as it happens, decide to undertake one each of a fat or sugar loaded diet and monitor the effects they have on the body, in much the same way as That Sugar Film does. Long story short: both men have poor health outcomes. And while again, this study has no repeatability, and has too many variables to make it a legitimate study, they presented two sides of the diet debate, and had an excellent, if boring, bottom line.

Everything in moderation.

I know I know how revolutionary. And how boring! Why can't I just cut one food out of my diet and be skinny! Why can't I eat this instead and it is a miracle food which does everything else I need! This is the thing - we want a quick easy fix. I'll quit sugar and I will be healthy! I'll start eating kalettes and my internal health will be amazing! But it doesn't work like that, moderation is key. Extreme diets where all food groups are cut out (unless you have a medical reason, of course!) are unsustainable.

And this is the other problem.

When we use the word diet, it can mean two things. It can mean, "I'm going on a diet where all I eat is lemon tea and acai berries" or it can mean "I enjoy a well balanced diet 365 days of the year". We need to get away from yo-yo diets and fad diets and losing 10 kilos so we can be bikini ready and looks at making our 365 diets more well rounded and sustainable. Make little changes here and there, don't bother with cheat days - keep it rocking all the time, and never get yourself to a point of excess for any food. Don't eat a whole bag of chips or block of chocolate. Just don't. Try and bring some more whole grains (I am doing this, I hate it, but I am doing it), try to bring in more greens (Helllooo spinach in everything) - but don't cut all carbs, and only eat salad - and try drinking less soft drink.

Which brings me to my final point.

Label reading is IMPORTANT. But not all the time - just be aware. A few weeks ago, before I watched either of these documentaries, Steve and I were in the supermarket shopping for the dinner we were cooking for family. As I said above, I have made small changes - one of them is cutting back (not quitting) sugary drinks. I didn't drink a lot, but I felt it was something I could do less of. We decided we would buy mineral water instead of soft drink, because it's healthier, right? Well! This is what we found.

Can you see that? You might not be able to. The Coles Mineral water - which I grabbed first based on price, has 10.5 grams of sugar per 100mls. For some reason, I decided to compare this to the same flavour in the soft drink. It's 13 grams per 100mls. Only 2.5 more grams! I was flabbergasted at this. These are both fine products (don't sue me Coles), but if you are looking at sugar, there was little difference. I then looked at the Schweppes brand and true to the label advertising less sugar - which I often ignore as a simple marketing ploy - it has 5.1 grams of sugar per 100ml. Whoa. Bet you can guess which one I picked.

So what is my bottom line? Well, I am just another flog on the internet. I don't know it all, and there are things I struggle with, but I think moderation is honestly key, and maintaining a constant diet always is better than yo yo-ing, and if you can do anything to cut back realistically on your excess sugar, fat and salt intake, then do it!

Adios bloggers!

Corporate Sponsorship and our Children's Food and Exercise Habits

Hey bloggers!

How are we? As I shared on the Facebook page last week - I went for a job annnnnd didn't get it! BUGGER! My feedback was the same as the previous interview - we loved your energy and enthusiasm but in this instance, we had a more qualified applicant (5+ years). Ack, much graduate, so hard.

But, on we press! This little train that could is powering through the stations 'disheartening-ness' and 'fear of failure' and pressing on through to the stations 'success' and 'joyousness'. What helps this is that I have been awarded with the Penfold Prize for Public Health at La Trobe University for having the highest average mark for 3 Public Health units - see, I told you this girl loves Public Health!

So, for this weeks consideration, and sort of following on from last weeks post, is what place do big corporations have in our children's food and physical activity industries? (Note: I don't have a kid, just an awesome fiance and cat).

What I mean by this is two different things: First, food companies that are typically unhealthy - sponsoring kids sport, such as the McDonalds sponsorship of the Hooptime kids basketball competition, and formally of Auskick. This week I'm going to leave a lot of thinking up to you, internet, but here are some starters... what sort of message does it send to kids to associate physical activity with energy dense nutrient poor foods. Or where would these sporting organisations be without the huge corporate sponsorship they currently receive; would they disappear and would this lead to obesity as well, as there isn't enough money to run the programs?

Worth thinking about.

This is the other thing to think about. What about children's character 'endorsement' of certain foods? Characters like Mickey, Hoot, Peppa, Minions etc have a lot of influence in the lives of their key demographic. So why are the organisations behind the corporate endorsement of foods choosing foods that aren't particularly healthy? My assessment of this today in one supermarket: Minions are currently appearing on Tic Tacs, Cupcake mixes and Banana flavoured biscuits, none of which children need any help in consuming - why aren't they sponsoring actual bananas (prepacked), or healthy breakfast cereals (Oats or Wheetbix!) As an example here are more of the products Minions currently appear on.... not a lot of food kids should be encouraged to eat!

As this post is designed for you to think about, all I really want is for people to be aware of how this is all affecting our food and exercise and to think critically about it! Are these things you have noticed too? Should we be looking at who is supporting kids food and sporting competitions? Or is that just the way it is? 

Why it costs more to be unhealthy

I was listening to the radio the other day (AM talkback radio because I am a super cool, hip and trendy 26 year old) and someone, when talking about obesity, rang through and said "But it's cheaper for me to get drive through McDonalds/KFC because they have lunch deals where I can get a hamburger, chips, a drink and a soft serve for $4.95!. I sighed - knowing that overconsumption of energy rich nutrient poor foods (and almost total lack of exercise) is what is leading to this country, and many other countries, struggle with weight.

The next caller, Curtis Stone I expect, rang up and said "Nah mate, not if you've got a family of five to feed, 5 times $5 is $25 and I could go to the supermarket and make some really delicious and healthier food for that much" And this caller is right. For $25, you could get about 2kg of lean beef mince and all the ingredients for an awesome batch of spaghetti - you might even get leftovers! And ultimately, it will taste a hellava lot better than fast food!

Curtis Stone, long time listener, first time caller.

Over the weekend, The Age published this article on the Obesity epidemic, feel free to go read it and come back to. I'll wait. For those that can't be bothered, here are the key points.

The story beings with a woman who is obese, and her story of 35 kilogram weight loss, and then looks at one of Victoria's health providers, Bendigo Health, and the building of their new hospital, including the Bariatric rooms.

"It will house 27 custom-designed "bariatric" rooms, exclusively to be used by obese patients. Every ward will house one or two such rooms...Four square metres larger than standard, each $266,000 bariatric room in the new hospital will be equipped with a bigger, reinforced bed, a larger toilet, shower, wheelchair and trolley, and will be fitted with an electronically operated ceiling track hoist capable of moving patients weighing up to 300 kilograms.Equipment costs alone are $30,000 - more than three times that of a standard room."

The article goes on to say that the addition of these bariatric rooms has added $1.67 Million to building costs - something I heard previously from the CEO of Bendigo Health, John Mulder, at the Loddon Mallee Health Promotion Conference I attended last year. Mr Mulder explained that for whatever reason (sorry, can't remember), the Bariatric rooms were not on the first floor, and for this reason, the floor underneath these rooms had to be given additional reinforcement because of the weight they needed to support. 

This is insane.

Mr Mulder went on to explain that this is why Bendigo Health are looking to put more money and efforts towards preventative health - because the money spent there is significantly less than money required to build rooms which cost more than 3 times the cost of a regular room, and don't require extra reinforcement which costs so much more. 

This is something our governments, local state and federal need to be looking at as well. It costs a lot less to put efforts into preventative health than sending the money to the end of the spectrum where people are already overweight. The issue with this is simple. 

The average term of a state government, 4 years and federal, 3 years, is simply not enough time to invest money in preventative health and see a return on those investments. Preventative health takes years to see the results, like lower levels of certain cancers, obesity, heart disease etc. This is contrasted with results you can see in a 3/4 year term - more beds in hospitals, more police on the streets, and more roads. It boils down to KPI's. In my retail job, I can't say, look, I didn't make any sales this week, but I talked to a lot of people who are going to come in next week and buy some stuff. You know who will get my shifts next week? The person who had sales this week. Alexander is right, it really is simple. 

Alexander gets it. 

So what do we do about it? We keep talking about how expensive it is to look after people who are obese, you approach it from this angle and it becomes more savory to those concerned with dollars and cents. Invest money now in prevention and save money when it comes time for their treatment. We need to increase education around food choices and the importance of physical activity. And on a personal note... people need to stop believing that a 'cure' or a 'magic pill' or a 'tea' or a 'juice cleanse' is going to shed their weight while they continue to sit on their collective arses and eatting shitty food the rest of the time.

A meat pie pizza. Well done Australia.