Diet & Nutrition

WHEN PRESIDENT FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT convened the first National Nutrition Conference in 1941, the biggest problem confronting the delegates was how to help 45 million Americans who were malnourished because they could not afford to buy the right foods. Now, sixty years later, obesity has become an all-consuming worry of many health officials and medical professionals. These articles will help you know what to eat to be healthy and live longer.

Wondering why your waistline is expanding? Have a look at those of your friends. Your close friends can influence your weight even more than genes or your family members, according to new research appearing in the July 26 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
From Obesity Is Contagious, Study Finds
By Laura Blue
Jul. 25, 2007

But two new studies presented the annual meeting of the ASBS in San Diego, Calif., from June 11 to 16 show that adolescents and seniors, two age groups that have traditionally been urged to shy away from bariatric procedures, can actually benefit from surgical intervention.
From Studies Bring New Hope for Obese
By Carolyn Sayre
Jun. 14, 2007

Human beings have always had a complicated relationship with food. Staying alive from day to day requires our bodies to keep a lot of systems running just so, but most of themÑcirculatory, respiratory, neurological, endocrineÑoperate automatically. Eating is different. Like sex, it's a voluntary thing. And like sex, it's a sine qua non to keep the species going. So nature cleverly rigs the game, making sure we pursue them both by making sure we can't resist them. In the case of food, that has lately spelled trouble.
From The Science of Appetite
By Jeffrey Kluger
Jun. 11, 2007
Special Health Report: The Way We Eat


The show tries to prevent unhealthy behavior by making contestants keep food journals (to make sure they're not starving themselves) and threatening penalties if tests show they are too dehydrated (although an executive producer says no violations have been uncovered yet). But like the $55 billion U.S. diet industry, The Biggest Loser places the bulk of its emphasis on shedding kilograms rather than maintaining the loss.
From Fat Chance
By Julie Rawe
Jun. 11, 2007
Photoessay: What Makes You Eat More Food


But now Cojean, with his vegetable-packed toasted sandwiches, chicken curry wraps and salmon and quinoa salads, is the de facto godfather of a near-movement. In the last few years, other like-minded, health-conscious fast food restaurants have sprouted up around town, with easy-to-pronounce, linguistically neutral names like Bioboa, Noon, Jour and the deliciously provocative Eatme.
From Anti-Fast Food in France
By Bill Tancer
Jan. 30, 2007

What is surprising is just how fleeting an interest Internet users have in losing weight. By the second week of the year, diet searches begin a precipitous fall, dropping 32% within the first few days of the New Year, only to briefly recover in the summer months for swimwear season. The collapse then resumes until diet interest reaches an all time low on Thanksgiving Day.
From The Four Day Diet Craze
By Grant Rosenberg
Apr. 14, 2007


According to Power Plate's manufacturers, if you stand on the machine's vibrating plates for 10 minutes a day three times a week, you will lose weight, increase bone density and improve your overall health. But is that really possible? It might be.
From A New Way to Shake Off the Pounds
By Catherine Sharick
Sept. 5, 2006

It's also unclear whether switching to artificial sweeteners helps you lose weight, though a glance at our collective potbelly suggests that it doesn't. Some researchers think artificial sweeteners may actually interfere with our efforts to diet.
From How Sweet It Isn't
By Sora Song
Jun. 11, 2006

By combining the latest discoveries in human genetics with a deeper understanding of the hundreds of compounds found in food, investigators have begun to tease apart some of the more complex interactions between your diet and your DNA. In the process, they hope eventually to give consumers more personalized advice about what to eat and drink to stave off heart disease, cancer and other chronic conditions of aging.
From Does My Diet Fit My Genes?
By Christine Gorman
Jun. 11, 2006

Aim for variety, and include as much fresh food as possible in your diet. Minimize your consumption of processed and fast food. Eat an abundance of fruits and vegetables, and try to include carbohydrates, fat and protein in every meal.
From Dr. Andrew Weil's Wellness Diet
By Dr. Andrew Weil
Oct. 17, 2005

If you eat well, work out regularly and walk away from your doctor's office with straight A's on your physical, what does it matter if you can't wriggle into slim-cut jeans? That's a question more and more people have begun to ask, and lately they have been getting some answers they like.
From Can You Be Fat & Healthy?
By Jeffrey Kluger
May. 29, 2005

With so much evidence that lifestyle is the key to healthy aging, it might be tempting to ignore the role of genes altogether. That would be a
mistake.
From How To Live To Be 100
By Richard Corliss and Michael D. Lemonick
Aug. 30, 2004

Fully two-thirds of U.S. adults are officially overweight, and about half of those have graduated to full-blown obesity. The rates for African Americans and Latinos are even
higher.
From How We Grew So Big
By Michael D. Lemonick
Jun. 7, 2004

While biology and personal habits play an undeniable role, there's abundant evidence that environmental factors loom large in the obesity rate.
From The Obesity Warriors
By Claudia Wallis
Jun. 7, 2004

In the end, the biggest risk to the culture may be the inevitable false or misleading low-carb claims and influx of products that ladle on heapings of calories in exchange for carbs.
From The Low-Carb Frenzy
By Daniel Kadlec
May 3, 2004

You may think you are eating right, but by making subtle changes in what you eat and how you eat it, you could start eating considerably healthier.
From How to Eat Smarter
By Christine Gorman
Oct. 20, 2003

The question is whether the addition of these new concepts—glycemic load, a redrawn food pyramid—can restore sanity to a collective eating binge that has spiraled out of control. And if not, then what can?
From Cracking the Fat Riddle
By J. Madeleine Nash
Sep. 2, 2002

The mind, it turns out, can be nourished by certain foods just as much as the body, particularly foods high in antioxidants.
From Brain Savers
By A.J.Mann
May 27, 2002

Can eating the right foods in the right combination actually prevent disease? In the past few years, research on the subject has exploded. Scientists have started to identify what may be hundreds--even thousands--of natural chemicals in foods that seem to have preventive powers.
From 10 Foods That Pack A Wallop
May 27, 2002

The past 40 years' worth of research points to a consistent theme: eat a balanced diet that includes lots of fruits and vegetables and fewer animal-based foods; don't smoke; and get as much exercise as you can comfortably maintain.
From Eat Your Heart Out
By Michael D. Lemonick
Jul. 19, 1999

Much of what Weil recommends is pretty simple stuff: self-administered, commonsense cures like eating less fat, getting more exercise and reducing stress.
From Mr. Natural
By Jeffrey Kluger
May 12, 1997

Many doctors are beginning to view obesity as a chronic disease, much like high blood pressure or diabetes, that requires lifelong
therapy.
From Desperately Seeking a Flab-Fighting Formula
By Christine Gorman
Jan. 16, 1995

The great problem, delegates agreed, is not producing food—the U.S. produces plenty—but distribution. Most citizens can eventually be educated to eat the right food, if they can only afford to buy it.
From The Nation's Food
June 9, 1941