Americans Want Government’s Help Putting Healthy Foods On Their Dinner Table
New survey finds out what Americans are really paying attention to when choosing foods
Americans recognize things need to change in the grocery aisle, and they support Uncle Sam’s efforts to overhaul what is included in their food and on the packages. The majority also believe they are individually responsible for making the right food choices to avoid obesity, but will readily accept the government’s help to be successful, according to a new survey by FoodMinds.
“In light of all the recent attention around food labeling and nutrition guidance programs, we wanted to get a sense of what the consumer actually thought,” said Grant Prentice, FoodMinds’ director of Strategic Insights. “We heard clearly they believe things need to change – and that it makes sense for the government to lead that charge.”
Americans Want Uncle Sam…
…Involved in Food Labels
* Eighty-six percent of consumers are interested in the government implementing objective front-of-pack labeling that calls out calories and beneficial nutrients such as vitamin D or fiber
* Seventy-seven percent of shoppers are interested in front-of-package labels designed to warn them of products with high calories, low nutrients
- And, 64 percent said if their favorite food had a warning label on it, they would either eat less or stop buying the product entirely
…To Help Educate, Mitigate and Motivate
* Seventy-four percent favor government-sponsored nutrition education programs to help them better identify the “good” versus the “bad” foods
* Fifty-eight percent support the government banning advertising of “unhealthy” foods to children and young adults
* Half are in favor of the government allowing employers to reward healthier employees while levying higher costs or fines to punish those who engage in unhealthy behaviors
…But Not His Taxes
* Rejected by 65 percent of shoppers are proposed taxes on soft drinks and foods high in sugar and calories, but low in nutritional value
Just the (Nutrition) Facts, Ma’am
Consumers love food-related information – and want more of it, in particular basic, factual data.
* The Nutrition Facts panel ranks first with 93 percent of shoppers saying it’s a very or somewhat useful tool, followed by front-of-pack information (low fat, high in fiber, etc.) at 88 percent
* Not quite as popular are marketing-oriented claims such as “helps lose weight,” “helps build strong bones,” with 71 percent of shoppers finding them useful
* Three quarters of shoppers like seeing where their food comes from (“organic,” “natural” and “sustainable farming practices”)
Not It! Significant Minority Believes Others Responsible for Individuals’ Eating Habits
* When asked who holds the primary responsibility to make sure the public makes right food choices to avoid obesity, 38 percent chose: 14 percent said food companies, 12 percent said the government, nine percent said the health care system and three percent pointed to the educational systems
About the Food Temperance Survey
Created by the FoodMinds Strategic Insights department, the Food Temperance survey was conducted through Greenfield Online’s Omnibus service on January 18, 2010. The sample of 1045 adults is balanced on age, gender and region of the U.S. Sub-samples of 869 primary grocery shoppers and 182 Opinion Leader Shoppers were screened from the overall adult sample. The MOE is +/- 3% for primary grocery shoppers and +/- 7% for the opinion leader shoppers. redOrbit
Warning Over Salt Levels In Soup
Many soups sold in high street cafes and supermarkets may not offer the healthy option customers are seeking, a pressure group has warned.
Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) said 25% of 575 types of soup it analysed failed to meet Food Standards Agency targets on salt content.
However, it said there had been a 17% drop in the amount of salt in ready-to-eat ranges since its 2007 survey.
Experts say high salt intake raises blood pressure and the risk of strokes.
For its survey, carried out between December and February, Cash tested soups from a number of supermarkets and high street chains.
The Food Standards Agency’s target for soup is that each 100g portion should contain no more than 0.6g of salt.
Its recommended maximum daily intake of salt for an adult is 6g.
Among the worst offenders highlighted by Cash was cafe chain Eat’s 907g Bold Thai Green Chicken Curry soup, which Cash said contained more than 8g of salt.
Even Eat’s smallest 340g-sized portion had 2.8g of salt, nearly half the daily recommendation and more than a Big Mac and fries, Cash said.
Eat, which has 98 shops nationwide, said it had reduced salt in all its soup stocks and would continue to do so, but said it needed to happen gradually for people’s tastes to adjust.
Brand director Faith MacArthur said its largest sized soup was often shared and represented a tiny part of soup sales.
Cash chairman, Professor Graham MacGregor said: “The majority of the food industry is slowly taking out the salt from food, including these soups.
‘Save lives’
“We commend the progress so far, however they haven’t gone far enough if we are to save the maximum number of lives.”
Spokeswoman Katharine Jenner added: “People tend to think salt is only in crisps, snacks and ready meals. But this survey shows huge amounts of salt can be hidden in seemingly healthy choices such as soup.
“We urge manufacturers to reduce their salt content immediately.”
Cash said among supermarket-own brands it tested, 93% met 2010 FSA salt targets, compared with 66% of branded products.
Among products on sale in supermarkets, 23 contained 2g or more salt per portion, Cash said. Of these, 18 were from brands including Heinz and New Covent Garden.
When it came to fresh supermarket soups, Cash said, the highest in salt content was New Covent Garden’s Scotch Broth at 2.4g of salt a portion – six times higher than the lowest, Tideford Organics Moroccan vegetable at 0.44g.
Prof MacGregor urged consumers to boycott products high in salt.
The New Covent Garden Food Company said it had consistently reduced salt levels across its range over recent years and had beaten the Food Standards Agency’s average target for soup.
“We also feature the government-approved FSA traffic light labelling system, which clearly shows all our soups fall within either green or amber classifications for salt,” a spokesman said.
Heinz said its entire soup range was already within average targets and its work to cut salt further continued in line with consumer taste. BBC News
Happiness Helps When It Comes To The Heart
You’ve heard it before: to avoid a heart attack don’t smoke, eat right and exercise. But it also may help to be happy, a new study says.
Even if you’re grumpy by nature, just try to be cheerful.
Researchers at Columbia University rated the happiness levels of more than 1,700 adults in Canada with no heart problems in 1995.
After a decade, they examined the 145 people who developed a heart problem and found happier people were less likely to have had one.
The study was published online Thursday in the European Heart Journal.
“If you aren’t naturally a happy person, just try acting like one,” said Dr. Karina Davidson of Columbia University Medical Center, the paper’s lead author. “It could help your heart.”
Davidson and colleagues used a five-point scale to measure people’s happiness. They then statistically adjusted to account for things like age, gender, and smoking.
For every point on the happiness scale, people were 22 percent less likely to have a heart problem. The study was paid for by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and others.
Davidson said happy people were more likely to have a healthier lifestyle.
It could also be there is an unknown genetic trait that predisposes people to be happy and have less heart disease.
Other experts said happiness itself could result in a healthier heart compared to other emotions such as stress or depression.
Stress often releases hormones that can damage heart muscle. Stress can also cause blood vessels to open too wide, allowing plaque buildups to break off and clog the arteries, according to Joep Perk, a professor of health sciences at Sweden’s Kalmar University and spokesman for the European Society of Cardiology. Perk was not linked to the study.
“I often tell my patients not to get too depressed because it’s bad for your heart,” Perk said. “You need time to recharge your batteries or else your heart won’t be able to take it.”
Depression has long been noted as a risk factor for heart problems. Davidson said it was premature to draft guidelines recommending patients boost their happiness levels just to protect their hearts, even if it might help, until broader studies now under way are completed. But she does recommend trying to be happy for other reasons, like better mental health.
“Anything that patients can do to increase the amount of (happiness) in their lives will be helpful,” she said, adding there was a slight proviso. “No smoking, eating unhealthy food, not exercising or anything potentially damaging,” she said. “That’s the only trick.” By Maria Cheng, The Press Democrat
Inexpensive Bathroom Makeover
You don’t have to spend a lot of money to decorate in your bathroom. Just add some cheap candlesticks, vases, and seashells, dishes with stones, candles or whatever you are drawn to. Even just these smalls’ touches will make your bathroom feel cozier and more decorative. Next, give your bathroom a new face lift with a fresh coat of paint. Painting is one of the least expensive home improvement projects you can do, but it will make an enormous impact. Select a bright color to open up a small room, and enhance it with bright white semi-gloss paint trim. This inexpensive bathroom makeover idea not only looks great, but makes the room smell clean and fresh too.
Nevertheless, while there are plenty of choices on the market for Bathroom Suites many elders still prefer soaking in a tub, and finding alternatives to the dangerous bath tub can prevent many falls. Thus, for bathroom remodels, choosing a toilet that is 15 inches or higher will generally provide the height needed on a more permanent basis. Various styles are available and dozens of models of walk-in tubs provide price range and choice. Some distributors provide reasonable installation, which includes removal of the standard tub. For those who simply want to keep the tub and insist on bathing, tub lifts offer a safe and affordable approach.
Quitting Smoking Helps Lung Cancer Patients Live Longer
Smokers who are diagnosed with early stage lung cancer can roughly double their chances of being alive five years later by giving up smoking, researchers say. However, many people with lung cancer are diagnosed at a later stage, and there’s very little research on whether these people would benefit from quitting.
What do we know already?
The warnings appear on every cigarette packet, often in stark lettering, but sometimes including grisly photos of diseased lungs. Whatever the reasons someone has for smoking, not being aware of the risks is unlikely to be one of them.
Given that many people with lung cancer die within a year of being diagnosed, it would take an insensitive sort of character to lecture a patient on their smoking habits. Nevertheless, a new study casts some light on the continuing harm someone might be doing to themselves by smoking while being treated for lung cancer.
What does the new study say?
Giving up smoking can help people with lung cancer to live longer, according to a round-up of all the research on the topic. The researchers used a mathematical model to predict life expectancy, based on observing people with lung cancer who chose to either carry on smoking or give up.
The researchers think that someone with a kind of lung cancer called non-small cell, diagnosed at an early stage at age 65, would have a 70 percent chance of being alive five years later if they gave up smoking. The chance of being alive in five years would fall to 33 percent for someone who kept on smoking.
While the predicted difference in life expectancy is large, in practice few people may be in a position to benefit. The majority of people are diagnosed with lung cancer at a later stage. There’s been very little research looking at the implications of smoking for these people.
How reliable are the findings?
The study is a review of all the research that’s been done so far. One weakness is that most of the previous studies have looked at people with early stage cancer.
Another is that most of the existing studies are of the observational kind. In other words, people chose whether to keep smoking or not, and the researchers kept track of what happened to them. This could affect the results. For example, people who’d smoked less in the past might find it easier to give up, so the benefit could come from having less lung damage in the first place, rather than quitting. However, in practice, it seems that it was the least healthy people who were most likely to quit, which would mean the study could underestimate the benefits of giving up.
Where does the study come from?
The study was published in the BMJ (British Medical Journal), which is owned by the British Medical Association. It was carried out by an organisation called the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, with funding from several organisations, including the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, and the National Institute for Health Research.
What does this mean for me?
In health terms, giving up smoking is almost always likely to be beneficial. However, if you’ve been diagnosed with lung cancer, you’re likely to be facing all sorts of difficult decisions about treatment and about the future. It’s entirely down to you to decide the amount of effort you’re prepared to put into giving up smoking. The Guardian