Nutrition & Wellness Course Blog

A Story of Grief, Loss, Bulimia and Hope: Someday Melissa

2010-08-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the worlds of nutrition and grief and loss overlap. One of these is the story of Melissa Arvin and her mother Judy's way of coping with her daughter's untimely death following years of battling bulimia.

Melissa's Story
Melissa Arvin died in May 2009 at the very age of 19 of a heart attack, one of the complications of a 5 year battle with bulimia.

Sometime after Melissa's death, Judy discovered a unique way to cope with her grief over her daughter's death in one of Melissa's journal entries.

Someday ...
Ill eat breakfast.
Ill keep a job for more than 3 weeks.
Ill have a boyfriend for more than 10 days.
Ill love someone.
Ill travel wherever I want.
Ill make my family proud.
Ill make a movie that changes lives.

The poem, "Someday" was the start of the documentary, Someday Melissa, a story of eating disorders, loss and hope.

Watch an excerpt of the film at the YouTube clip below:

Find out more about Someday Melissa at their website: http://www.somedaymelissa.com

Find out more about eating disorders at the NEDA website, supporting individuals and families affected by eating disorders, and serves as a catalyst for prevention, cures and access to quality care.

Pogrebin R. April 2010. A Mother’s Loss, a Daughter’s Story. New York Times.

Government Study on Questionable Marketing Practices with Dietary Supplements

2010-07-30T22:10:00.000-07:00

GAO (Government Accountability Office) was asked to determine (1) whether sellers of herbal dietary supplements are using deceptive or questionable marketing practices and (2) whether selected herbal dietary supplements are contaminated with harmful substances. The study was released in May 2010.

Watch the video clip from the USGAO describing examples of deceptive or dangerous marketing for herbal supplements, obtained by undercover visits and phone calls. Unfortunately, GAO investigators were given potentially harmful medical advice, which could have detrimental causes for consumers if they had been the ones getting the advice.

GAO sampled 40 herbal dietary supplement products and discovered at least one potentially hazardous contaminant in 37 of the 40 herbal dietary supplement products tested, though none in amounts considered to pose an acute toxicity hazard.

All 37 supplements tested positive for trace amounts of lead; of those, 32 also contained mercury, 28 cadmium, 21 arsenic, and 18 residues from at least one pesticide.

It should be noted that the levels of heavy metals found do not exceed any FDA or Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations governing dietary supplements or their raw ingredients, and FDA and EPA officials did not express concern regarding any immediate negative health consequences from consuming these 40 supplements.

Source: GAO. (2010). Herbal Dietary Supplements: Examples of Deceptive or Questionable Marketing Practices and Potentially Dangerous Advice. GAO-10-662T.

Learn About Multivitamins from a CVS Pharmicist

2010-07-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

A helpful video "What you need to know about multivitamins" from CVSPharmacyVideos with CVS Pharmacist, Erika Shephard, who discusses some of the benefits and potential problems with taking a multivitamin.

Their main take home points:

Multivitamins can't replace the benefits of a healthy diet
Side effects can occur if you consume too much of one vitamin
Talk to your doctor or pharmacist when considering a multivitamin

I would add a registered dietitian to the list of people to consider when you are thinking about taking a multivitamin.

The side effect cautions she mentioned in the video:

Avoid any supplement that contains high levels of trace minerals like manganese and molybdenum.
Be aware of high doses of vitamin A and beta-carotene
Be sure not to get too much zinc.
Be sure to not get more than 1,000 of vitamin C daily.

The potential benefits from additional vitamins and supplements mentioned in the video:

Calcium is crucial to keeping your bones healthy, especially in older women, and most multivitamins don't contain more than 130 milligrams. Because of this, you may need to take a calcium supplement.

Source: CVSPharmacyVideos.What you need to know about multivitamins. YouTube.

New Report Shows Taxing Sodas Could Make a Big Difference in the Obesity Epidemic

2010-07-12T07:59:00.000-07:00

In the late 1990's I saw a young 20-something woman who was trying to figure out what she could do to change her diet to lose some weight.

One of the things we discovered was that she was drinking 10 regular sodas a day.

If each soda was 150 calories, she was drinking 1,500 empty, sugar calories a day.

Obesity, Empty Calories and Sugary Beverages
There is evidence to show that the over-consumption of added sugars, largely from sodas and fruit drinks is contributing the the growing obesity rates in both adults and in children.

Legislatures and Health Care Professionals in many states have been calling for a public tax, a luxury tax, on caloric sweetened beverages in the hopes that such a tax will financially discourage consumers from drinking sugary beverages, and as a result help take a positive step in reducing the obesity epidemic in adults and children.

The hope is that faced with such a tax, consumers may reduce consumption of high-calorie, non-nutritive sweetened beverages and substitute nontaxed beverages, such as bottled water, juice, and milk.

A new study published in July 2010 and conducted by researchers in the Economic Research Service of the USDA on "Taxing Caloric Sweetened Beverages Potential Effects on Beverage Consumption, Calorie Intake, and Obesity" is providing evidence to show the impact of a tax-induced 20-percent price increase on caloric sweetened beverages on potentially reducing the alarming trends of the growing obesity epidemic.

Study Findings

In this study, "Taxing Caloric Sweetened Beverages Potential Effects on Beverage Consumption, Calorie Intake, and Obesity" researchers estimated that a tax-induced 20-percent price increase on caloric sweetened beverages could:

Cause an average reduction of 37 calories per day, or 3.8 pounds of body weight over a year, for adults
Cause an average reduction of 43 calories per day, or 4.5 pounds over a year, for children.

Researchers estimate that a 20-percent price increase from a tax on caloric sweetened beverages could reduce total calorie intake from beverages by 13 percent for adults and by 11 percent for children.

With these reductions in calorie consumption there could be an estimated decline in adult overweight and children prevalence of obesity.

Decline in adult overweight prevalence (66.9 to 62.4 percent)
Decline in adult obesity prevalence (33.4 to 30.4 percent)
Decline in child at-risk-for-overweight prevalence (32.3 to 27.0 percent)
Decline in children overweight prevalence (16.6 to 13.7 percent).

Since the obesity epidemic has been growing unchecked in the past 20 years, instituting a tax like the beverage tax that could potentially result in a decline in the epidemic would have an enormous impact on people's health and on health care.

Obviously the actual impacts would depend on many factors. Some of the include how the tax would be reflected in consumer prices and the competitive strategies of beverage manufacturers and food retailers.

Sources & Resources

Full Report: Travis A. Smith, Biing-Hwan Lin, and Jonq-Ying Lee. July 2010. Taxing Caloric Sweetened Beverages Potential Effects on Beverage Consumption, Calorie Intake, and Obesity. Economic Research Report No. (ERR-100) 33 pp, July 2010 Retrieved July 12 from http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR100/ERR100.pdf

Publication Page: Travis A. Smith, Biing-Hwan Lin, and Jonq-Ying Lee. July 2010. Taxing Caloric Sweetened Beverages: Potential Effects on Beverage Consumption, Calorie Intake, and Obesity. Economic Research Report No. (ERR-100) 33 pp, July 2010 Retrieved July 12 from http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR100/

Report Summary: Travis A. Smith, Biing Hwan Lin, and Jonq-Ying Lee. July 2010. Taxing Caloric Sweetened Beverages: Potential Effects on Beverage Consumption, Calorie Intake, and Obesity. Economic Research Report No. (ERR-100) 33 pp, July 2010 Retrieved July 12 from http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR100/ERR100_ReportSummary.html

Image: R Young. Cooler Cans. Royalty Free Use.

Using Diet Analysis Plus

2010-07-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

A helpful video from Cengage Learning to get you familiar with the Diet Analysis Plus Program.

The video offers an overview of the Diet Analysis Program as well as screen shots to familiarize students with the program.

For more information on the Diet Analysis Plus you can visit their website.

Research Shows that Copying is Worse for Learning and Final Grades

2010-07-09T17:25:00.000-07:00

A study published in the March 2010 issue of Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research is showing what teachers have know for years, that homework is important for learning concepts in a course, which ultimately help with earning the final grade.

In this study of homework submitted to an online tutor at MIT found that students who regularly copied problem sets earned lower grades and were three times as likely to fail the class.

The researchers also discovered several patterns with homework submissions:

Students put very little effort into their homework until the last day before the deadline.
Students waiting until the last minute are more likely not to finish by the deadline.
The rate of homework copying increases over the term.
The rate of homework copying significantly increases after midterms.

These findings reinforce what instructors know about homework, and send a good message for students wanting to do well.

Do your homework and don't wait until the last minute to get it done.

You will learn more in the course and are more likely to do better in the course in the long run if you do your own work.

Source:
Sanders, L. 2010. Homework makes the grade: Class performance slipped for physics students who copied. Science News.

Palazzo D. 2010. Young-Jin L. Warnakulasooriya R. and Pritchard D. Patterns, correlates, and reduction of homework copying. Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research 6, 010104

Image: Modified Microsoft Clipart.

Obestity Statistics from the CDC

2010-07-02T22:09:00.000-07:00

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over the past 20 years there has been a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States.

In 2008, only one state (Colorado) had a prevalence of obesity less than 20%.

Based on these statistics, 7hirty-two states had a prevalence equal to or greater than 25%; six of these states (Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia ) had a prevalence of obesity equal to or greater than 30%.

The slide show, developed from CDC slides, graphically demonstrates the increases in United States obesity trends from 1985 through 2008.

Source:
CDC. November 2009. Obesity and Overweight for Professionals: Data and Statistics: U.S. Obesity Trends.

Avoid Magic Powder Coffee Dietary Supplement

2010-06-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

A new warning this week from the Food and Drug Administration. Consumers are being warned not to use an instant coffee being sold online as a dietary supplement for sexual enhancement.

On the packaging Magic Power Coffee claims to be 100% natural and is labeled as an “all natural dietary supplement” yet this supplement can cause serious harm particularly for those taking nitrates (nitroglycerin).

Lab analysis done by the FDA determined that "Magic Power Coffer" contains a chemical similar to the active ingredient in Viagra, a prescription drug used to treat ED (erectile dysfunction).

Viagra has a list of contraindications for use. The chemical may interact with prescription drugs known as nitrates, including nitroglycerin, and cause dangerously low blood pressure.

A PDF File, Magic Power Coffee: POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS Not Magical is available for download with more information.

Source:
FDA. June 22, 2010. Magic Power Coffee: Potentially Dangerous—Not Magical. Consumer Updates. Food and Drug Administration.

A Look at Digestion with Video Clips and Articles

2010-06-20T10:54:00.000-07:00

I found a few new video clips on YouTube, in 3-D that give you a good idea how the digestive system functions. These clips are updates to the prior post on The Digestive System from 2008.

The first on the Digestive System traces a bite of food from the mouth until it is eliminated. (Click on the link to go to the YouTube site, if the video doesn’t display below). Digestive System

Other interactive online animation:

Digestive System from the National Geographic has an interactive way of looking at the digestive system. You can click to view certain parts of the system.
A normal, healthy digestive system this 2-dimensional one is from a constipation advice company in the U.K.
The Digestive Machine from Discovery Health. May appeal more to younger children, but it is kind of fun.

The Digestive System. A WebMD text-based article updated last in 2008.
Healthy Digestion. An article on digestion from Discovery Health.

Eating Brown Rice and Whole Grains May Be Best for Your Health

2010-06-14T15:10:00.001-07:00

A new study published in the June issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine in which researchers looked at "White Rice, Brown Rice, and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in US Men and Women" is supporting the role of whole grains in the diet. This study showed that substituting whole grains, including brown rice, for white rice may lower risk of type 2 diabetes.

In their findings researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and Department of Nutrition found that those who ate two or more servings of brown rice per week had a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, where as those who ate more than five servings of white rice per week had an increased risk.

The research group went on to recommend that most carbohydrate intake should come from whole grains rather than refined grains to help prevent type 2 diabetes.

The MyPyramid.gov Food Pyramid recommends to make 1/2 of your grains whole. It appears that focusing on eating whole grains, like brown rice, may be the best for your health.

Sources:
Hendrick B. 2010. Brown Rice vs. White Rice: Which Is Better? Replacing White Rice With Brown Rice Reduces Risk of Type 2 Diabetes, Study Finds. WebMD.com

Qi Sun, MD, ScD; Donna Spiegelman, ScD; Rob M. van Dam, PhD; Michelle D. Holmes, MD, DrPH; Vasanti S. Malik, MSc; Walter C. Willett, MD, DrPH; Frank B. Hu, MD, PhD
White Rice, Brown Rice, and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in US Men and Women. Arch Intern Med. 2010;170(11):961-969.

Image: Rob Qld. Brown Rice. Creative Commons License.

Dirty Dozen - Foods to Watch According to EWG

2010-06-13T09:15:00.000-07:00

The EWG's (Environmental Working Group) Shoppers Guide was developed to help consumers make informed choices to lower their dietary pesticide load. They released their new "Dirty Dozen" fruits and vegetables on June 1, 2010.

The complete "Dirty Dozen" list includes: celery, peaches, strawberries, apples, blueberries, nectarines, bell peppers, spinach, kale, cherries, potatoes and imported grapes. To decrease exposure to pesticides, these are the fruits and vegetables recommended by the EWG, that consumers should buy organic when possible. According to the EWG, "Consumers can lower their pesticide consumption by nearly four-fifths by avoiding conventionally grown varieties of the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables."

Through their research the EWG has found that people who eat five fruits and vegetables a day from the Dirty Dozen list consume an average of 10 pesticides a day.

Those who eat from the 15 least contaminated conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables ingest fewer than 2 pesticides daily.

EWG analysts have developed the Guide based on data from nearly 96,000 tests for pesticide residues in produce conducted between 2000 and 2008 and collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

EWG is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, DC that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment. Find out more about the EWG at their websites, EWG's Shopper's Guide to Pesticides and EWG (Environmental Working Group) Home.

Source: EWG's Shoppers Guide. 2010.

Video Online Survival Guide

2010-06-11T09:35:00.000-07:00

A very helpful and informative video from Tulsa Community College's, MyTCCwork on "Online Survival Guide." They offer helpful tips and skill assessments for surviving in an online course.

Note: It gets a bit crazy after 3:24.

Tips from the Online Survival Guide

Some of these are pretty self evident.

Be a Self-Motivator.
Be able to express yourself through writing.
Be able to meet deadlines.
Be able to commit 3 - 10 hours per week per course.
Have a computer with Internet access.

To be an online learner you also need to understand your learning style and then creating the right environment that allows you to learn.

Audio Learner - learns by listening
Visual Learner - learns by watching
Kinesthetic Learner - learns by doing hands-on activities

Source: MyTCCwork. 2007. Online Survival Guide. YouTube Video. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkkHSQxXgNg

Tips for Suceeding as an Online Student

2010-06-10T11:22:00.000-07:00

Two articles with a variety of tips to help students succeed in online courses were written for the Education & Career, Distance Education section of Suite 101:

Tips to Become a Successful Online Student
Tips for Getting Organized in an Online Course

These two articles are very helpful for new and not to new online students in being a successful online student, managing distance education courses, staying organized in distance education courses and managing weekly materials in online courses.

More information on succeeding in an Online course can be found by reading the additional articles below:

Dyer KA. 2008. Tips for Success in this Course. Nutrition & Wellness Edublog.
Dyer KA. 2008. Suggestions for Success in this Course. Nutrition & Wellness Edublog.
Dyer KA. 2008. Tips for Online Success. Nutrition & Wellness Edublog.

Image: Elena Buetler. Working with Laptop 6. Royalty Free Use.

White House to Have a Garden

2010-06-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

Reposted from Nutrition & Wellness Edublog, originally posted March 21, 2009.

We’ve been doing a garden at our house with the girls for the past 4 years. As they have grown they are able to do more. Needless to say, I was very happy to hear that the Obamas were starting a garden at the White House for the first time since the first time since first lady Eleanor Roosevelt planted her “Victory Garden” during World War II.

Michelle Obama shared her thoughts on (re)starting the White House Garden:

We want to use it as a point of education, to talk about health and how delicious it is to eat fresh food, and how you can take that food and make it part of a healthy diet.

This video shows twenty-six elementary schoolchildren wielded shovels, rakes, pitchforks and wheelbarrows to help first lady Michelle Obama break ground on a produce and herb garden on the White House grounds.

Michael Pollen, author of Omnivores Dilemma and advocate for agricultural reform had this to say about the garden.

A garden like this is one of those small gestures that is powerfully symbolic…it teaches important habits of mind — helping people to reconnect with their food, eat more healthily on a budget and recognize that we’re less dependent on the industrial food chain, and cheap fossil fuel, than we assume.

Sources:
Barrett K, Hartman B. March 20, 2009. Foodies Celebrate White House Veggie Garden: Obama’s Shovel-Ready Project Nurtures the Sustainable Food Movement Amid Some Criticism. Abc News.

Stanglin D. March 20, 2009. First lady breaks ground on White House veggie garden. USA Today.

Take 5 Minutes for Health

2010-05-29T22:32:00.000-07:00

An interesting Widget from the CDC (Center for Disease Control) that offers weekly 5 minute tips (or less) with ways to stay safe and improve your health.

The 5 minute health tip has also been included as a side bar for the Nutrition & Wellness course.

Five Minutes Or Less For Health Widget.
Flash Player 9 is required.

Flash Player 9 is required for the Five Minutes Or Less For Health Widget.

Note: This Health widget is updated with a new five-minute tip each week by the CDC.

Big Mistakes Made by Online Students

2010-05-27T08:46:00.000-07:00

In an article in US News published in March 2010, author Kim Clark (a writer for US News) wrote about the "8 Big Mistakes Online Students Make."

According to Clark the biggest mistakes made by online students are:

Not checking out the school
Signing up for a course without budgeting at least 10 hours a week of study every week the course is in session—with no vacations!
Being unrealistic about your learning style.
Committing to an online course without first ensuring your technology matches the schools.
Not checking out the teacher.
Taking on too much too soon.
Thinking that since it is an online course, it is OK to "copy and paste."
Being unprepared or unwilling to cooperate with a virtual team.

Some of the points Clark makes I am not as convinced are "Big Mistakes" in online learning, at least in online learning in my courses. The four key points that I *do* agree with, which apply in particular to the online classes that I teach are:

Signing up for a course without budgeting at least 10 hours a week of study every week the course is in session—with no vacations!
Being unrealistic about your learning style.
Committing to an online course without first ensuring your technology matches the schools.
Thinking that since it is an online course, it is OK to "copy and paste."

One thing is for sure is that potential online students need to should to determine before taking an online course if online learning is truly for them.

Be watching for other posts to help determine if online learning is for you.

Source:
Clark K. 2010. 8 Big Mistakes Online Students Make. US News.

Be Active Your Way Widget Gives Physical Activity Tips

2010-05-26T22:22:00.000-07:00

Be Active Your Way Widget

The Be Active Your Way widget is a quick quiz that instantly provides physical activity tips and recommendations.

Be Active Your Way (open accessible version in new window)

Welcome to the Nutrition & Wellness Course Blog

2010-05-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

The Nutrition and Wellness Course Blog established for Biology 50, the Nutrition course taught by Dr. Kirsti A. Dyer at Columbia College.

This blog is used to provide information, interesting nutrition news, course updates and additional information for teaching the Nutrition course.

The Blogger version of the Nutrition & Wellness Course Blog at http://nutrition-course.blogspot.com is a continuation of the Nutrition & Wellness - Biology 50 Edublog, launched in 2008 on Edublogs.

For a variety of different reasons starting in Summer 2010 the Blog will be now on Blogger. The older posts will continue to be available on the Edublog site.