Those are the findings of the study “Weight status as a predictor of being bullied in third through sixth grades,” which is available online now and will be published in the June issue of the journal Pediatrics. Julie C. Lumeng, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases at the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, is lead author of the study.

Childhood obesity and bullying are both pervasive public health problems. Obesity among children in the United States has risen to epidemic proportions with 17 percent of 6 to 11 year olds estimated to be obese between 2003 and 2006. In addition, parents of obese children rate bullying as their top health concern and past studies have shown that obese children who are bullied experience more depression anxiety and loneliness.

The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between childhood obesity and being bullied in third, fifth, and sixth grades. While studies on bullying and obesity in children have been conducted before, none had controlled for factors such as socioeconomic status, race, social skills and academic achievement.

Further, this study is unique in that it specifically looks at the age range when bullying peaks – ages 6 to 9.

Researchers studied 821 children who were participating in the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. These children were recruited at birth in 10 study sites around the country.

Researchers evaluated the relationship between the child’s weight status and the odds of being bullied as reported by the child, mother, and teacher. The study accounted for grade level in school, gender, race, family income-to-needs ratio, racial and socioeconomic composition of the school, and child social skills and academic achievement as reported by mothers and teachers.

Researchers found that obese children had higher odds of being bullied no matter their gender, race, family socioeconomic status, school demographic profile, social skills or academic achievement.

Authors conclude that being obese, by itself, increases the likelihood of being a victim of bullying. Interventions to address bullying in schools are badly needed, Lumeng adds.

“Physicians who care for obese children should consider the role that being bullied is playing in the child’s well-being,” Lumeng says. “Because perceptions of children are connected to broader societal perceptions about body type, it is important to fashion messages aimed at reducing the premium placed on thinness and the negative stereotypes that are associated with being obese or overweight.”

While the study did not look into interventions to address bullying in this population, the hope is that these results could prove useful in doing so, Lumeng says.

Additional authors: Patrick Forrest, B.S., of the University of Michigan; Danielle P. Appugliese, M.P.H., of the Boston University School of Public Health; Niko Kaciroti, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan; Robert Corwyn, Ph.D., of the University of Arkansas in Little Rock; and Robert Bradley, Ph.D., of the Arizona State University.

Funding source paragraph: This work was supported in part by the American Heart Association Mid-west Affiliate Grant-in-Aid 0750206Z to Dr. Lumeng.

Patents/conflict disclosures: None

Journal reference: DOI: 10.1542/peds.2009-0774

Source
University of Michigan Health System

Dr David Heber, Professor of Medicine and Public Health at UCLA Center for Human Nutrition in Los Angeles, and colleagues, presented their findings at the Experimental Biology 2010 meeting that took place from 24 to 28 April in Anaheim, California. An abstract of their study was also published in the The FASEB Journal.

For the study, Heber and colleagues tested the weight-reducing potential of dihydrocapsiate or DCT, a non-burning but structurally similar version of capsaicin, a spicy compound found in hot peppers.

DCT occurs naturally in a non-pungent pepper called CH-19 Sweet and is often used in studies instead of its spicy cousin capsaicin because it has none of the side effects.

Heber and colleagues recruited 51 male and female volunteers and asked them to follow a very low calorie diet based on a liquid meal replacement product for 28 days (800 Cal and 120 g per day).

At the end of the 4 weeks of dieting, the researchers then randomly assigned the volunteers to one of three groups: one took a a high dose pill of DCT (9 mg), another took a low dose pill of DCT (3 mg), and the third group took a placebo pill, three times a day.

The researchers took measures of body weight, body fat and how quickly the participants burned energy, at the start of the study, and at the end, after eating a single high protein test meal (400 Cal/60 g protein) of the same product they had been using in their diet.

Complete data was available for 33 of the subjects at the end of the study.

The results showed that for several hours after consuming the test meal, the group on the high dose of DCT (13 subjects) burned significantly more energy, at almost twice the rate of the placebo group (9 subjects).

They also showed that in both the DCT groups (24 subjects), fat oxidation increased significantly, which results in more fat being used for energy.

The researchers concluded that after following a low calorie diet, people may benefit from using DCT to “provide metabolic enhancement to weight management efforts”.

In other words, although this is a small study, and the results are based on one analysis after a single test meal, which may not be borne out in a larger study with repeated tests, the findings suggest DCT, like its cousin capsaicin, may cause the body to burn energy faster, which could boost metabolism.

Good news, perhaps, for people who like their chili peppers.

“Effects of dihydrocapsiate on diet-induced thermogenesis following 4 weeks of very low calorie dieting.”
T.Y. Amy Lee, Alona Zerlin, Gail Thames, Zhaoping Li, and David Heber.
The FASEB Journal, MeetingAbstracts, 24: 343.7, accessed online 29 April 2010.

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD

In a study designed to test the weight-loss potential of this DCT containing, non-spicy cousin of hot peppers, researchers at the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition set out to document its ability to increase heat production in human subjects consuming a weight-loss diet. Under the direction of David Heber (Professor of Medicine and Public Health), they recruited 34 men and women who were willing to consume a very low-calorie liquid meal replacement product for 28 days. The researchers then randomized the subjects to take either placebo pills or supplements containing the non-burning DCT pepper analog. Two dosage levels of DCT were tested. At the beginning and end of the study, body weight and body fat were assessed, and the researchers determined energy expenditure (heat production) in each subject after he or she consumed one serving of the test meal. On Tuesday April 27, Heber and his research team will present their results at the Experimental Biology 2010 meeting in Anaheim, CA. This presentation is part of the scientific program of the American Society for Nutrition, home to the world’s leading nutrition researchers.

Their data provided convincing evidence that, at least for several hours after the test meal was consumed, energy expenditure was significantly increased in the group consuming the highest amount of DCT. In fact, it was almost double that of the placebo group. This suggests that eating this pepper-derived substance that doesn’t burn can have the same potential benefit as hot peppers at least in part by increasing food-induced heat production. They were also able to show that DCT significantly increased fat oxidation, pushing the body to use more fat as fuel. This may help people lose weight when they consume a low-calorie diet by increasing metabolism.

Note, however, that a limitation to this study was that the researchers only tested the effect of DCT on the thermic response to a single meal. Heber and colleagues also point out that that there might be a different effect in lean vs. obese subjects. But to their credit, this was the first study ever conducted to examine the potential health benefits of DCT consumed together with a very low calorie diet. The bottom line: don’t be afraid to pile on the peppers.

Dr. David Heber, Dr. Amy Lee, Alona Zerlin, Gail Thames, and Dr. Zhaoping Li are all researchers at UCLA’s Center for Human Nutrition in Los Angeles, CA and were coauthors on this paper.

Source: Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB)

These findings were presented at this week’s Experimental Biology conference in Anaheim, Calif. They showed that people who ate organic cookies labeled as “organic” believed that their snack contained 40% fewer calories than the same cookies that had no label, according to Jenny Wan-Chen Lee, a graduate student with the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.

“An organic label gives a food a ‘health halo,’ said coauthor, Brian Wansink, Cornell professor and author of the book, Marketing Nutrition. It’s the same basic reason people tend to overeat any snack food that’s labeled as healthy or low fat. They underestimate the calories and over-reward themselves by eating more.”

The study even identified two personality types most likely to make these low estimates – people who claim to “usually buy organic foods,” and those who typically read labels for nutritional information.

What if you don’t want to overeat an organic food?

“Take your best guess at its calorie count. Then double it. You’ll end up being more accurate, and you’ll probably eat a lot less,” explained Wansink.

Source:
Tom Rushmer
Cornell Food & Brand Lab

You can read about the investigation Drs Jo Barton and Professor Jules Pretty from the University of Essex conducted into how a walk a day might keep the doctor away, in Environmental Science and Technology, where it appeared online on 25 March and will appear in print later this month.

Pretty, who is Professor of Environment and Society at Essex, told the media that:

“For the first time in the scientific literature, we have been able to show dose-response relationships for the positive effects of nature on human mental health.”

Barton, a Senior Researcher and Lecturer at Essex, said encouraging people to take a walk a day would help keep the doctor away and save the country money.

“There is a large potential benefit to individuals, society and to the costs of the health service if all groups of people were to ’self -medicate’ more with green exercise,” she added.

Barton and Pretty had alread established in earlier studies that links existed between green exercise, which they defined as activity in the presence of nature, and long term health benefits, but this meta-analytical study (a study that pools and re-analyzes results from other studies as if they came from one large one) is the first to measure what the best exposure “dose” might be.

For their research they pooled data covering 1,252 participants of varying ages, gender, and mental health status, drawn from 10 UK studies covering outdoor activities like gardening, walking, cycling, boating, fishing, horse riding and farming that showed green exercise was linked to improved mental and physical health.

In their calculations they looked at the links between two types of dose response: intensity and duration of activity, and two types of mental health indicators: scores on mood and self-esteem.

The biggest effect was seen in just 5 minutes of activity:

“The overall effect size for improved self-esteem was d = 0.46 (CI 0.34-0.59, p < 0.00001) and for mood d = 0.54 (CI 0.38-0.69, p < 0.00001).”

“Dose responses for both intensity and duration showed large benefits from short engagements in green exercise, and then diminishing but still positive returns,” they wrote.

It appears the effect was even greater in the presence of water, such as a lake, stream or pond, so perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the most beneficial environment is a blue and green one.

When they looked at age, the authors found the greatest improvement in self-esteem was in the youngest participants, and diminished with age, while for mood the smallest change was in the young and old.

The biggest change in self-esteem occurred in the mentally ill, and while both men and women showed similar boosts in self-esteem after green exercise, men showed a difference for mood.

Barton and Pretty concluded that:

“This study confirms that the environment provides an important health service.”

They recommended that green exercise should be considered for therapy (green care), planning authorities give more thought to creation and design of green space, and educators should give children more opportunity to learn outdoors.

Pretty said that we often make recommendations like these to public policymakers but they rarely adopt them. To make a significant impact in whole populations, the shift needs to be in areas as diverse as urban design, transport, social care, parenting and what we expect from our doctors, he said.

The authors said the UK population has a “natural health service” that complements the National Health Service and is there for everyone.

“What is the Best Dose of Nature and Green Exercise for Improving Mental Health? A Multi-Study Analysis.”
Jo Barton and Jules Pretty.
Environ. Sci. Technol., Published online ahead of print 25 March 2010.
DOI: 10.1021/es903183r

Source: University of Essex.

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD

They focus on choosing healthier foods and exercising more, but they never answer a key question: how can people who have eaten to cope with emotions change their eating habits, when they haven’t learned other ways of coping with emotions?

Researchers at Temple’s Center for Obesity Research are trying to figure out the answer as part of a new, NIH-funded weight loss study. The new treatment incorporates skills that directly address the emotional eating, and essentially adds those skills to a state-of-the art behavioral weight loss treatment.

“The problem that we’re trying to address is that the success rates for long-term weight loss are not as good as we would like them to be,” said Edie Goldbacher, a postdoctoral fellow at CORE. “Emotional eating may be one reason why people don’t do as well in behavioral weight loss groups, because these groups don’t address emotional eating or any of its contributing factors.”

The study has already had one wave of participants come through, and many participants have seen some success in the short term, but have also learned the skills to help them achieve long term success.

Janet Williams, part of that first cohort, said she lost about 17 pounds over 22 weeks, and still uses some of the techniques she learned in the study to help maintain her weight, which has not fluctuated.

“The program doesn’t just help you identify when you eat,” said Williams. “It helps you recognize triggers that make you eat, to help you break that cycle of reaching for food every time you feel bored, or frustrated, or sad.”

Williams said that the program teaches various techniques to help break that cycle, such as the “conveyor belt,” in which participants, when overcome with a specific emotion, can recognize it and take a step back, before reaching for chips or cookies, and put those feelings on their mental “conveyor belt” and watch them go away.

“I still use the skills I learned in the study,” she said. “I’ve learned to say, ‘I will not allow this emotional episode to control my eating habits.’”

Source:
Temple University

Writing in the Washington Post on Friday, retired US army generals John M. Shalikashvili and Hugh Shelton, referred to several sources, including the US Army’s own analysis of national data that shows as of 2005, and the figures have changed little since, 27 per cent of Americans aged 17 to 24, some 9 million young adults, were too overweight to serve in the military.

The leading medical reason recruits are rejected for military service in the US today is being overweight or obese, wrote Shalikashvili and Shelton, both members of the executive advisory council of Mission: Readiness, a nonprofit organization of retired senior military leaders, who referred also to a recent report from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research that showed over the last 15 years the proportion of potential recruits who have not passed their physical exam because of their weight has gone up nearly 70 per cent.

This is backed up by data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who report that the number of states where 40 per cent or more of young adults are overweight or obese has risen dramatically from only one in 1998 to 39 in 2008.

This not the first time the military has spoken out about how the health of America’s children poses a threat to national security: the last time was in 1945 when they expressed concern about the poor health and nutrition of potential recruits, and Congress responded by creating a national school lunch program.

But it appears that the school lunch program has now gone too far in fuelling children with calorie-laden french fries, pizza and other unhealthy foods.

About 40 per cent of American children’s calories are consumed during school hours, and Mission: Readiness proposes that if properly managed, the school environment could be the key to getting children to eat more healthily, as suggested in a recent paper published in Health Affairs in March, where researchers from Rice University and the University of Houston concluded that the most effective way to combat obesity in poor children is to increase their participation in federal nutrition programs.

Shalikashvili and Shelton note that saving some of the $75 billion dollars the US spends every year on obesity-related medical expenses could pay for school districts to provide children with more fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and cut down on foods with too much sugar, salt, fat and calories.

Mission: Readiness wants Congress to pass new child nutrition legislation that:

• Takes the junk food and high-calorie drinks out of schools.
• Brings in new standards for school meals based on the latest Institute of Medicine recommendation: the current ones are 15 years out of date.
• Supports the Obama administration’s proposed increase of $1 billion per year for 10 years for improved child nutrition programs.
• Develops researched and proven ways for schools to help parents and children adopt healthy eating and exercise habits for life.

Retired Navy Rear Adm. James Barnett Jr, a member of the officers group, said at a recent press conference held by Mission: Readiness , that national security in the year 2030 is “absolutely dependent” on reversing child obesity rates.

“When over a quarter of young adults are too fat to fight, we need to take notice,” said Barnett, according to a report by Associated Press.

The obesity problem doesn’t just affect recruitment, Mission: Readiness reports that the government spends tens of millions of dollars every year replacing military personnel that have to be discharged because of weight issues.

The School Nutrition Association (SNA) recently commended the call to increase funds for school nutrition programs, and pointed out that while a lot is already happening, there are problems where more money would make a huge impact.

For instance, in their 2009 report, the SNA said that across the country, nearly every school district was now offering students fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains, with low-fat dairy products, salad bars and pre-packaged salads, but because of extremely limited budgets, they struggle to pay for the extra refrigeration, steamers, labor and other expenses involved.

Sources: Associated Press, Washington Post, Mission Readiness, MNT archives.

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD

A survey of eating habits among first year self-catering students showed that university lifestyle tends to lead to an increased consumption of fast foods.

This was more noticeable amongst male students, who confessed to thinking of cooking as ‘women’s work’ and were more likely to eat fast food than their female counterparts, while female students were more likely to be influenced by worries about weight gain and appearance.

The study, carried out by student Hannah Cooper under the supervision of Dr Ellen Annandale at the University of Leicester Department of Sociology, also indicated that students’ fast food consumption increased when they left home and began to cater for themselves, in spite of the known link between fast food consumption and obesity.

Convenience, peer pressure and budget appear to be the main reasons for their eating habits, while the gender difference is widened by a male culture of greater alcohol consumption though males also played more sport.

Another factor in students’ choice of fast foods was quite simply that they liked it. Pizza proved to be favourite, followed by pasta, curry and French fries.

While the students studied felt that living among new people had not influenced their eating habits, nevertheless peer pressure played a major role in decisions about when and what to eat and whether or not to cook for themselves.

Hannah Cooper commented: “Students might be tired and not feel like cooking. Fast food marketing makes it very accessible, and if several students combine to order fast food together then it becomes an even cheaper option.

“At home their parents probably provided their meals. They come to university and have to start managing and budgeting for themselves. They didn’t seem to have the knowledge of how to manage money in relation to food, and fast food was sometimes seen as cheaper than cooking.

“They knew that fast food was less healthy than home cooked food, but that knowledge wasn’t strong enough to override their lifestyle. Peer pressure can be very strong. One male student reported that when he ordered a salad at a pub his friends jeered at him.”

The Department of Health has linked fast food consumption to the growing rise in the nation’s obesity, yet one problem may be that eating unhealthily when young may not lead to obesity and health problems until later in life.

Of the sample consulted by Hannah Cooper, while 59% admitted their eating habits had changed for the worse, only 29% felt their weight had increased since becoming students, and these tended to be those who did less exercise and drank more alcohol.

The University of Leicester is developing strategies to combat students’ reliance on fast foods. Frances Stone from the Residential and Catering Services commented: “I found Hannah’s report very informative, giving support to our assumption based on anecdotal evidence. We encourage students to eat healthily and do hold regular Healthy Living weeks in residences. We support the studentcooking.tv, which is a lively, informative and stylish Internet-based video service that shows students how to cook great tasting meals on a budget.

“We have also arranged for a Student Survival Guide to be distributed to all students communal areas. This extensive guide gives students advice on healthy eating, shopping starter kits and techniques and equipment. It covers areas such as brain boosting breakfasts, energising lunches and simple budget beating meals. The guide concentrates on what students should be including in their diet.

“We look forward to continuing our work to help students find their way around the healthy living agenda”

Hannah Cooper is now taking her research further with a MSc in Social Research at the University of Leicester. “I would like to make a difference,” she said. “I think policies designed to improve the dietary behaviour of students should be tailored by gender and specific attention paid to the body dissatisfaction reported by females.

“My findings showed males as more likely to view work surrounding food as a female task. This may be due to the lack of socialisation they receive at home. Maybe intervention into the prevention of obesity in later life should start earlier for males and be undertaken in the home to produce the most beneficial results.”

Dr Annandale commented: “It isn’t just a question of knowledge, as many students are aware of what constitutes a healthy diet. It is the social context in which students live that pushes them towards a lifestyle that might be unhealthy.”

Source: Leicester University

Dr David Heber, Professor of Medicine and Public Health at UCLA Center for Human Nutrition in Los Angeles, and colleagues, presented their findings at the Experimental Biology 2010 meeting that took place from 24 to 28 April in Anaheim, California. An abstract of their study was also published in the The FASEB Journal.

For the study, Heber and colleagues tested the weight-reducing potential of dihydrocapsiate or DCT, a non-burning but structurally similar version of capsaicin, a spicy compound found in hot peppers.

DCT occurs naturally in a non-pungent pepper called CH-19 Sweet and is often used in studies instead of its spicy cousin capsaicin because it has none of the side effects.

Heber and colleagues recruited 51 male and female volunteers and asked them to follow a very low calorie diet based on a liquid meal replacement product for 28 days (800 Cal and 120 g per day).

At the end of the 4 weeks of dieting, the researchers then randomly assigned the volunteers to one of three groups: one took a a high dose pill of DCT (9 mg), another took a low dose pill of DCT (3 mg), and the third group took a placebo pill, three times a day.

The researchers took measures of body weight, body fat and how quickly the participants burned energy, at the start of the study, and at the end, after eating a single high protein test meal (400 Cal/60 g protein) of the same product they had been using in their diet.

Complete data was available for 33 of the subjects at the end of the study.

The results showed that for several hours after consuming the test meal, the group on the high dose of DCT (13 subjects) burned significantly more energy, at almost twice the rate of the placebo group (9 subjects).

They also showed that in both the DCT groups (24 subjects), fat oxidation increased significantly, which results in more fat being used for energy.

The researchers concluded that after following a low calorie diet, people may benefit from using DCT to “provide metabolic enhancement to weight management efforts”.

In other words, although this is a small study, and the results are based on one analysis after a single test meal, which may not be borne out in a larger study with repeated tests, the findings suggest DCT, like its cousin capsaicin, may cause the body to burn energy faster, which could boost metabolism.

Good news, perhaps, for people who like their chili peppers.

“Effects of dihydrocapsiate on diet-induced thermogenesis following 4 weeks of very low calorie dieting.”
T.Y. Amy Lee, Alona Zerlin, Gail Thames, Zhaoping Li, and David Heber.
The FASEB Journal, MeetingAbstracts, 24: 343.7, accessed online 29 April 2010.

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) combines gentle tapping on pressure points while focussing on particular emotions and thoughts.

Psychologist Dr Peta Stapleton, an academic title holder in Griffith University’s School of Medicine, said that EFT was painless and easy to learn.

Her research also showed the impact on food cravings was almost immediate and long lasting. Food cravings significantly reduced after just four, two-hour sessions and were maintained at a six-month follow-up.

“Participants in the trial were surprised by how quickly the technique works – that it doesn’t take a lot of time to eliminate food cravings they may have had for many years,” Dr Stapleton said.

She said common cravings were for sweet carbohydrates such as cakes and chocolate or salty foods such as chips and savoury biscuits.

“Food cravings play a big role in people’s food consumption and ultimately their body weight. If we can beat the cravings without the need for willpower or conscious control of behaviour, then weight loss is also possible.”

While the study did not show any significant impact on body weight or body mass index (BMI) after six months, the results of a 12-month follow-up are still being analysed.

Dr Stapleton, who specialises in the management of eating disorders, said some participants had actually forgotten they had a previous problem with food cravings until they were reminded at the six-month follow-up.

She said because the technique helps over-ride emotional eating at a sub-conscious level, it was more likely to be effective in the long-term.

Psychological acupuncture, also known as the emotional freedom technique (EFT), has also been used to manage clinical issues such as post traumatic stress disorder, phobias and addictions.

The results of the study will be presented at the International Congress of Applied Psychology in Melbourne in July.

Source:
Research Australia