Tagged With "Obesity Research"
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After WIC Offered Better Food Options, Maternal And Infant Health Improved (scienceblog.com)
A major 2009 revision to a federal nutrition program for low-income pregnant women and children improved recipients’ health on several key measures, researchers at UC San Francisco have found. The study is the first to analyze the health effects of the changes to the U.S. Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), which serves half of all infants and more than a quarter of all pregnant and postpartum women in the U.S. It comes amid renewed attention to poor...
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Being Black in America Can Be Hazardous to Your Health
Kiarra’s struggles with her weight are imbued with this sense, that getting thin is a mystery she might never solve, that diet secrets are literally secret. On a Sunday, she might diligently make a meal plan for the week, only to find herself reaching for Popeyes fried chicken by Wednesday. She blames herself for her poor health—as do many of the people I met in her community, where obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are ubiquitous. They said they’d made bad choices. They used food, and...
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Biomarkers for Diabetes May Differ Based on Childhood Experiences [Diabetes In Control]
MIDUS study looks at individual adverse childhood experiences and their impacts on future diabetes. An adverse childhood experience (ACE) is any experience that produces long-lasting stress in a child’s life and leads to worse overall health, both psychological and physical as an adult. Research has shown that even a single ACE increases the risk of diabetes, but little is known about the mechanism behind this phenomenon or how to prevent its occurrence. Currently the CDC only recommends...
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Check Your Privilege Before Talking About Obesity and Personal Responsibility
"The longer public health and public opinion focus their attentions on the personal-responsibility narrative of obesity and other chronic non-communicable diseases, the longer we'll wait to see population level changes. " https://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/articles/2016-09-27/check-your-privilege-before-talking-about-obesity-and-personal-responsibility
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Diet and Depression
The new study adds to a growing body of research that supports the connection between diet and mental health. "We have a highly consistent and extensive evidence base from around the globe linking healthier diets to reduced depression risk," says Felice Jacka , a professor of nutritional and epidemiological psychiatry at Deakin University's Food & Mood Centre in Australia. ...
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Drexel research links racism and hunger [thecourierexpress.com]
New research out of Drexel University finds that racism can be a catalyst for food insecurity. Released Monday by the school’s Center for Hunger Free Communities, the report shows that people who experienced discrimination firsthand struggled with hunger twice as often as others. When — or where — that discrimination occurred didn’t matter. However, food insecurity was more likely the more someone had experienced racism. [For more on this story by Aaron Moselle, go to...
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Eating Kale May Help Older Adults Slow The Decline In Cognitive Skills (scienceblog.com)
A recent study found that consumption of green leafy vegetables may help slow the decline in cognitive abilities—or brain function—in older adults. The study by researchers at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts found that those who ate about one-and-a-half servings of green leafy vegetables per day had the cognitive functioning of people roughly eleven years younger than those who ate little or no leafy greens. The finding is striking given that...
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Epigentic Research: Trauma and Nutrition
https://conscienhealth.org/2018/12/inheritance-of-trauma/
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Family Resiliency and Childhood Obesity
Abstract Background: Traditional research primarily details child obesity from a risk perspective. Risk factors are disproportionately higher in children raised in poverty, thus negatively influencing the weight status of low-income children. Borrowing from the field of family studies, the concept of family resiliency might provide a unique perspective for discussions regarding childhood obesity, by helping to identify mediating or moderating protective mechanisms that are present within the...
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Food Aid and Nutrition Education for women reducing rates of domestic violence
What do food insecurity, nutrition, and domestic violence have to do with each other? A study on reducing domestic violence, came out of a study on nutrition in Bangladesh, run by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Did women who were given food (or cash to buy food) improve their household's health when they were also educated on healthy diets? Yes! But the women's status also were improved. This article is not solely about nutrition and food but empowerment of women,...
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Gut Health and PTSD study
More research on diet, gut health, and PTSD. " Johns Hopkins Medicine says that keeping the gut healthy is an important part of overall health. One suggested way to maintain intestinal health is by eating enough fiber, sticking with a diet including plenty of fruits and vegetables." https://www.newsweek.com/gut-instinct-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-may-related-gut-bacteria-scientific-study-says-1467372?fbclid=IwAR1UeHlYKfcuXvrRtJmC2iDQ3yR2O2r2q1b_ddEU2bmamDgrGT73I_z7YIM
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Gut Instincts: Researchers Discover First Clues On How Gut Health Influences Brain Health (scienceblog.com)
New cellular and molecular processes underlying communication between gut microbes and brain cells have been described for the first time by scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell’s Ithaca campus. “Our study provides new insight into the mechanisms of how the gut and brain communicate at the molecular level,” said co-senior author Dr. David Artis , director of the Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease , director of the Friedman Center for Nutrition and...
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Healthy Eating Research: Building Evidence to Promote Health and Well-Being Among Children (Call for Proposals 2018)
Purpose Healthy Eating Research (HER) is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) national program, which supports research on policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) strategies with strong potential to promote the health and well-being of children at a population level. Specifically, HER aims to help all children achieve optimal nutrition and a healthy weight. HER grantmaking focuses on children and adolescents from birth to 18, and their families, with a priority on lower-income and racial...
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Healthy Eating Research (funding opportunity - Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)
Good nutrition is important to health at every stage of life. But often people from lower-income communities and communities of color lack access to healthy, affordable foods and beverages and the opportunity to make healthy choices. As a result, low-income families are disproportionately impacted by higher rates of obesity and other poor health outcomes. There are many factors that contribute to this inequity in access to nutritious food items and the ability to make healthy choices,...
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How to Nourish Your Brain to Improve and Protect It (thebestbrainpossible.com)
Research shows that memory problems can begin as early as the forties and continue to increase with age. However, declining cognition is not just an inevitable part of aging. Keeping your mind sharp is entirely possible, and it’s never too late to improve your brain function. Your lifestyle habits play a large role in determining whether your mind stays robust or degrades. The foods you eat are also integral in determining whether your brain continues to function at its best . Giving your...
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Hunger Moves to the Suburbs [sfchronicle.com]
By Tara Duggan, San Francisco Chronicle, November 4, 2019 Most people think of people lining up at food pantries and soup kitchens as an urban phenomenon. But in Alameda County, which has one of the highest rates of food insecurity in the Bay Area, an increasing number of people living in the suburbs are also having trouble affording food. That includes Livermore, a city in the Tri-Valley area that’s better known for its wineries. “When people think of homelessness and poverty, they don’t...
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Is everything you know about obesity wrong?
A podcast discussion of the article shared below "Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong." What is the best way to address health issues that are connected to overweight and obesity? Share your thoughts! http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/10/03/obesity-overweight-weight-loss
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More and More Research Points to Mindfulness--Not Certain Foods--for Weightloss
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/more-and-more-research-points-to-mindfulness--not-certain-foods--for-weight-loss/2018/03/05/2aa25d48-1c00-11e8-b2d9-08e748f892c0_story.html?utm_term=.fba35e64ac47
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New Research Analyzes State-Level Impact of USDA Proposal to End SNAP Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility [stateofobesity.org]
By The State of Obesity, September 8, 2019 A proposed rule from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that would eliminate the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)’s broad-based categorical eligibility (BBCE) would cause SNAP households in 39 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands to lose program eligibility, according to an impact assessment conducted by Mathematica. The analysis, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, finds that...
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Obesity and the Link with Childhood Adversity: An Interview with Mary Giuliani
Most people who struggle with weight and food have probably suspected that trauma in the past plays a role. In this new video, Anna Runkle (the Crappy Childhood Fairy) interviews Mary Giuliani, who explains what we now know about childhood adversity, food and obesity. She shares how she lost 160 pounds (and has kept it off for 15 years), and teaches ways to calm emotions (and the brain) and face the triggers that drive overeating in the first place (READ MORE AND WATCH THE VIDEO HERE).
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Oxytocin and Obesity
A small but interesting connection between obesity and oxytocin ("the cuddle hormone". While this article discusses potential use of oxytocin as a medicine to treat obesity, I wonder if there could be more research on how human connection impacts obesity ...
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Possible cellular pathways for how we develop disease from trauma
This research may one day illuminate how toxic stress damages our metabolic processes and lead to chronic disease. Might this also open an opportunity for good nutrition to promote healing on a cellular level? https://health.ucsd.edu/news/releases/Pages/2018-09-07-chronic-diseases-driven-by-metabolic-dysfunction.aspx?fbclid=IwAR1cXInVmnnyQlW6gU8AU1DJvSS7i4MWX5PaDjVYR3R7u6dG3eEr2l03lTk
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Press Release — New Survey of California Community College Students Reveals More than Half Face Food Insecurity and Nearly 20 Percent Have Faced Homelessness [California Community Colleges]
Press Release — New Survey of California Community College Students Reveals More than Half Face Food Insecurity and Nearly 20 Percent Have Faced Homelessness March 7, 2019 Sacramento — More than half the students attending a California community college have trouble affording balanced meals or worry about running out of food, and nearly 1 in 5 are either homeless or do not have a stable place to live, according to a survey released today. Click HERE to read the press release and click HERE...
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Study Analyzes Adolescents' Reactions to Weight-related Terms Used by their Parents
Conversations about weight can be particularly challenging for parents with adolescent kids, and insight into the characteristics of parent-adolescent communication about body weight is limited. Published in Childhood Obesity, this study from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity interviewed 148 adolescents enrolled in a weight loss camp, asking them what words their parents typically use to talk about their weight, how those words make them feel, and what words they would most want...
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The Diet That Might Cure Depression
A poor diet is a leading risk factor for early death, responsible for one in five deaths globally. Depression, meanwhile, is the leading cause of disability worldwide. A relatively new line of research suggests the two might be related: An unhealthy diet might make us depressed, and depression, in turn, makes us feel even sicker. ...
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The Second Assault
"Victims of childhood sexual abuse are far more likely to become obese adults. New research shows that early trauma is so damaging that it can disrupt a person’s entire psychology and metabolism -- Women [have] said they felt more physically imposing when they were bigger. They felt their size helped ward off sexual advances from men." https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/12/sexual-abuse-victims-obesity/420186/
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The Wrong Eating Habits Can Hurt Your Brain, Not Just Your Waistline
"A diet high in saturated fats and sugars, the so-called 'Western Diet', actually affects the parts of the brain that are important to memory and make people more likely to crave the unhealthful food -- Research from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience found that obese people have less white matter in their brains than their lean peers — as if their brains were 10 years older." ...
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To Head Off Trauma's Legacy, Start Young
Dr. Roy Wade, from the Cobbs Creek Clinic in West Philadelphia, works on his own screening tool to measure young patients "adversity score" -- indicators of abuse, neglect, signs of poverty, racial discrimination, or bullying. "Wade wants to take action because research suggests that the stress of a tough childhood can raise the risk for later disease, mental illness and addiction." https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/09/377569414/to-head-off-traumas-legacy-start-young
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Trauma in early childhood boosts the risk of teen obesity, study says [philly.com]
Teenagers who have suffered adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — such as physical or emotional abuse, or having a parent who is incarcerated or addicted to drugs or alcohol — are at greater risk of being overweight or obese, according to a new study . In fact, the study found that the more kinds of adverse experiences children endured, the more likely they would have excessive weight issues by middle school or high school. “This study adds to our understanding of childhood overweight and...
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Weight Stigma and Health
In one research study, people were pulled out of what they thought was a "shopping psychology" study because they wouldn't fit into the designer clothes set up for the experiment. Afterward, those people had higher cortisol levels than those who weren't excluded. Prolonged exposure to excess cortisol can cause your body to deposit fat in your belly region, which is the kind of fat associated with a greater risk of heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. "Experiencing weight stigma can sort of...
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Welcome to ACES and Nourishment
Adrienne and I are excited to launch this community where anyone can share research, articles, stories and ideas about the connections between food, eating, nutrition, obesity and ACES. As many of you know, the foundational ACES research emerged from an investigation into why participants in an obesity program were dropping out despite initially losing weight. It uncovered how participants' childhood trauma histories affected their weight, risk for metabolic or diet-related disease,...
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What Children understand about Food Insecurity
https://civileats.com/2018/03/26/what-children-understand-about-food-insecurity/
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Why Emotional Eating Can Be a Consequence of Trauma
Research suggests that trauma can be a cause of emotional eating, or the drive to consume “comfort foods,” to manage the negative emotions directly related to past negative events.
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Why Nutritional Psychiatry Is The Future of Mental Health Treatment (theconversation.com)
The link between poor mental health and nutritional deficiencies has long been recognized by nutritionists working in the complementary health sector. However, psychiatrists are only now becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of using nutritional approaches to mental health.
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Re: How to Nourish Your Brain to Improve and Protect It (thebestbrainpossible.com)
Great introduction article to the world of nutritional psychology! I think an important part is also understanding what foods include unhealthy simple carbs ( refined grains, processed foods), sugars ( lactose, malt, carbohydrates), saturated fats, salts, and most importantly and not identified, cholesterol and heme iron. Understanding the importance of protein,fat, and fiber and its forms with the highest nutrient consumption is crucial to the protection of our brains, gut, lungs, and...
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Re: Why We Need to Talk About Trauma in Public Health Nutrition [lucyaphramor.com]
Well written article and fantastic articulation of the approach around trauma and dietary consumption and consultation. There are many great points to this article and is a sector that needs to be crucially explored. Pointing out in addition to these strong points, the importance of exploring the types of foods we consume and the scientific insight of its impact on our physiological health, emotional regulation, and behaviour change. As similar to therapeutic context of defining trauma,...
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Re: Childhood Trauma Can Impact Our Gut Bacteria
"The children with a history of early caregiving disruptions had distinctly different gut microbiomes from those raised with biological caregivers from birth. Brain scans of all the children also showed that brain activity patterns were correlated with certain bacteria. For example, the children raised by parents had increased gut microbiome diversity, which is linked to the prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain known to help regulate emotions." Food and nutrition is such an important...
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Re: Eating Kale May Help Older Adults Slow The Decline In Cognitive Skills (scienceblog.com)
Lots of interesting research around whole foods-plant based diets and cognitive functioning. Though we should always be wary when a single food is correlated to a health benefit.
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Re: Eating Kale May Help Older Adults Slow The Decline In Cognitive Skills (scienceblog.com)
Concurring with you Monica on one single food, although the article has kale in the title, please know the research was on green leafy vegetables. A plant-based diet is so tremendously beneficial, especially when we can eat vegetables (and fruit) grown organically. Impressed with Tufts Human Research Center on Aging, please find more information on a well-balanced diet for older adults. http://hnrca.tufts.edu/myplate...ults/fruits-veggies/ Here's a graphic from Tufts for consideration also.
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Re: Eating Certain Raw Fruits and Vegetables Has Been Linked to Better Mental Health [metro.co.uk/]
This is an important disclaimer from the article: "Obviously, this study isn’t claiming a cause-and-effect link between what you eat and your mental health status. Depression can’t be caused by a lack of vitamins or cured by a surplus. It simply says that there’s an association between what we eat and how we feel." However, I would love to see more research in this area. Original research paper found here .
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Re: Eating Certain Raw Fruits and Vegetables Has Been Linked to Better Mental Health [metro.co.uk/]
Of course. I don't believe there are panaceas or "miracle cures" for anything that ails us. I do believe that every little bit that we can do to improve our health matters, though, including eating plenty of fruits and vegetables. That alone won't cure depression, but it can play a big part along with other lifestyle changes and treatments.
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Trauma and Childhood Obesity – LIVE WEBINAR
Trauma and Childhood Obesity – LIVE WEBINAR CLICK HERE TO REGISTER Presented by: Leah N. Owen, MC, LAC Friday, October 2, 2020 8:30am – 4:30pm (Arizona Time) $50.00 Feel confident working with clients with obesity issues Gain resources to share with clients and their families See childhood obesity in a new way Be more effective in assessing clients and addressing the entire person Training Description The session titled Trauma and Childhood Obesity will begin with an overview of childhood...