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    Nutrition and Weight Management, Third Edition
    Nutrition and Weight Management, Third Edition
    Nutrition and Weight Management, Third Edition
    Ebook189 pages2 hours

    Nutrition and Weight Management, Third Edition

    By Lori Smolin and Mary Grosvenor

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    About this ebook

    Praise for the previous edition:

    "For biology, culinary arts classes, and health classes needing information about the importance of good nutrition, [this] would be valuable...Recommended."—Library Media Connection

    The obesity epidemic in the United States and abroad is growing, and weight has become a rising concern in today's society. Nutrition and Weight Management, Third Edition discusses the concept of weight management as well as the role that social, cultural, and genetic factors play in determining weight and body size. Coverage includes the importance of a nutritious diet and what constitutes healthy eating, the physical and psychological effects of being overweight and underweight, and the pros and cons of various diets.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChelsea House
    Release dateJan 1, 2019
    ISBN9781438143842
    Nutrition and Weight Management, Third Edition

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      Book preview

      Nutrition and Weight Management, Third Edition - Lori Smolin

      title

      Nutrition and Weight Management, Third Edition

      Copyright © 2019 by Infobase

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For more information, contact:

      Chelsea House

      An imprint of Infobase

      132 West 31st Street

      New York NY 10001

      ISBN 978-1-4381-4384-2

      You can find Chelsea House on the World Wide Web

      at http://www.infobase.com

      Contents

      Introduction

      Chapters

      The Obesity Epidemic

      What Is a Healthy Body Weight?

      Health Risks of Too Much or Too Little Body Fat

      Understanding Nutrition to Manage Weight

      How Many Calories Do You Need?

      The Biology of Body Weight

      Achieving and Maintaining a Healthy Weight

      Diets and Other Weight Fixes

      Weight Management in Children and Adolescents

      Support Materials

      Glossary

      Further Resources

      Bibliography

      About the Author

      Index

      Introduction

      A hundred years ago, people received nutritional guidance from mothers and grandmothers: Eat your carrots because they're good for your eyes; don't eat too many potatoes because they'll make you fat; be sure to get plenty of roughage so you can more easily move your bowels. Today, everyone seems to offer more advice: Add kale to your smoothie, only choose organic vegetables and grass fed beef, and avoid GMOs. Nutrition is one of those topics about which everyone seems to think they know something, or at least have an opinion. Whether it is the clerk in your local health food store recommending that you buy supplements or the woman behind you in line at the grocery store raving about her keto diet, everyone is ready to offer you nutritional advice. How do you know what to believe or, more importantly, what to do?

      The purpose of these books is to help you answer these questions. Even if you don't love learning about science, at the very least you probably enjoy certain foods and want to stay healthy—or become healthier. In response to this, these books are designed to make the science you need to understand as palatable as the foods you love. Once you understand the basics, you can apply this simple health knowledge to your everyday decisions about nutrition and health. The Healthy Eating set includes one book with all of the basic nutrition information you need to choose a healthy diet, as well as five others that cover topics of special concern to many: weight management, exercise, disease prevention, food safety, and eating disorders.

      Our goal is not to tell you to stop eating potato chips and candy bars, give up fast food, or always eat your vegetables. Instead, it is to provide you with the information you need to make healthy choices. You’ll come to understand that potato chips and candy are not poison, but they should be occasional treats, not everyday choices. We hope you will decide for yourself that fast food is something you can indulge in every now and then. And while you recognize that you should eat your vegetables, not everyone always does, so you should do your best to try new vegetables and fruits and eat them as often as possible.

      These books take the science of nutrition out of the classroom and allow you to apply this information to the choices you make about foods, exercise, dietary supplements, and other lifestyle decisions that are important to your health. This knowledge should help you choose a healthy diet while allowing you to enjoy the diversity of flavors, textures, and tastes that food provides, and also encouraging you to explore the meanings food holds in our society. When you eat a healthy diet, you will feel good in the short term and enjoy health benefits in the long term. We can't personally evaluate each meal you consume, but we believe these books will give you the tools to make your own nutritious choices.

      Lori A. Smolin,

      Mary B. Grosvenor

      David W. Ambrose

      Chapters

      The Obesity Epidemic

      Do you weigh more than you would like? You are not alone. In the United States today, 70% of adults are either overweight or obese. This percentage has increased dramatically over the past 30 years. In 1990, about 23% were obese; and today, 38% of Americans are obese. Seventeen percent of U.S. children and adolescents ages 2 through 19 are obese. The current crisis of obesity has been referred to as an obesity epidemic. It affects both men and women and spans every age group and culture in our nation.

      Many of us think about extra pounds in terms of how we will look in a bathing suit, but being overweight is more than a matter of appearance. Excess weight as fat increases the risk of developing chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, gallbladder disease, arthritis, breast cancer, uterine cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer. The more overweight a person is, and the longer they have been overweight, the greater their health risks; excess body weight even shortens life expectancy.

      In addition to affecting health, obesity increases health care costs. The current estimate is that excess body weight costs Americans about $147 to $190 billion per year. In addition to this, it also limits the amount and type of work people can do, increases absenteeism, and decreases the length of time people can remain in their jobs.

      By limiting portion sizes at meals people can satisfy their hunger without packing on extra calories.

      Source: Jose Luis Stephens. Shutterstock.

      What Is the Cause of the Obesity Epidemic?

      How much a person weighs is determined both by the genes that they inherit from their parents and the lifestyle choices they make about what they eat and how active they are. Genetic traits explain why your body size, shape, and composition are similar to those of your parents. If one or both of your parents are obese, your risk of becoming obese is higher than someone whose parents are not obese. However, the dramatic increase in the number of overweight and obese people in the United States is not due to changes in our genes. It takes many generations for the gene frequencies in a population to change enough to affect the characteristics of that population.

      Lifestyle changes, however, can occur rapidly. Our increasing girth is likely related to changes in the way we live; our current environment in the US has been labeled obesogenic; that is it promotes a high calorie intake and a minimal level of physical activity. Over the past 50 years, the availability and variety of food has increased, and the need for physical activity has declined. When genetically susceptible people find themselves in an environment where food is appealing and plentiful and physical activity is easily avoided, obesity is a likely outcome.

      The simple reason why people are getting fatter is that they are eating more and exercising less. The calories we consume in food are used by our bodies to keep us alive and moving. When we eat the same number of calories we use, we are in energy balance and our weight stays the same. When we eat more calories than we need, our bodies store the extra, mostly as fat, and we gain weight. This ability to store extra calories as fat is good when food is scarce and you do not know where your next meal is coming from. But it can be bad when food is plentiful and continuously available, as it is for most of us today.

      Nutrition Note: The Obesity Epidemic

      An epidemic is a widespread outbreak of an infectious disease. Throughout human history, epidemics have devastated populations. The Black Death that first struck Europe in the fourteenth century killed about half the population before it was contained. The influenza epidemic of 1918 infected one-fifth of the world's population and killed between 20 and 40 million people. The virus that causes AIDS currently affects about 33 million people worldwide. Now we are faced with what has been called the obesity epidemic. Although it is technically not an epidemic (because obesity is not an infectious disease), there are more than 1.9 billion overweight adults around the world. According to the World Health Organization, at least 650 million of them carry enough body fat to be classified as obese. This means that overweight and obesity now affect more people around the world than the Black Death or the influenza epidemic did in the past, and more than the modern AIDS epidemic.

      The number of Americans who are classified as obese or overweight has increased dramatically since 1990. Obesity affects men and women of all different ages and ethnicities.

      Source: Infobase.

      Why Are We Eating More?

      Americans today eat more than they did in the past. Why has this happened? A quick comparison of the food supply today with that of the late 1970s shows that the availability of tasty, high-calorie foods, the number of food choices we have, and the portions of food we eat have all increased. Our environment has changed and there is a connection between living in an environment where food is plentiful and increases in body weight. Today, palatable and affordable food is readily available to the majority of the population 24 hours a day in supermarkets, fast-food restaurants, and all-night convenience stores. Having more food and more food choices can lead people to eat more. Think about what makes you buy an ice cream cone. Is it because you are hungry or because the ice cream looks good? How do you know when to stop eating? Is it when your ice cream is gone or when your stomach is full? Your appetite may be triggered or inhibited by many things:

      The sight, taste, and smell of food

      The time of day

      Emotions

      Cultural and social conventions

      The appeal of the foods available

      Appetite is the reason we find room for cookies when strolling the mall or dessert after a big dinner.

      Other changes over the past decades also affect how many calories Americans eat. There are now more single-parent households and households with two working parents. This means that many families have less time to prepare meals at home. As a result, meals eaten away from home have increased. These tend to be higher in calories than meals prepared at home. The average American family spends over 40% of their food budget on foods prepared away from home. 

      Portion size changes have also contributed to our increased calorie intake. People tend to eat in units, such as one cookie, one sandwich, or one bag of chips. Increasing the size of the unit causes us to increase our intake. The portions that we consume have increased and research has shown that providing a person with a larger serving increases the amount he or she eats. Portions from fast-food chains are now two to five times their original size.

      Portion sizes at fast-food restaurants have increased dramatically since fast food was first introduced in the 1950s. At that time, only one size was offered.

      Source: Infobase.

      Why Are We Moving Less?

      Along with changes that make it easier to eat more, there have been cultural and technological changes that have decreased the number of calories most people burn every day. Fewer adults work in jobs that require physical labor. People drive to work in automobiles rather than walking or biking. They take elevators instead of the stairs. They mow their lawns with riding mowers, rather than push mowers. All of these simple changes reduce the amount

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