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Trans Fats Ban in Canada Starting in 2018

- Adam Clare

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Trans fats are really bad for you and governments around the world are starting to ban them. Canada just announced that they too will be banning trans fats alongside the United States next year. The ban is expected to improve the health of the nation, the Heart & Stroke foundation claims that 12,000 heart attacks will be prevented in the next 20 years thanks to the ban.

Eat well everyone!

The oils are the main source of trans fats in foods that raise levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or “bad” cholesterol and lower “good” cholesterol, which can take a toll on our heart health.

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It will apply to all foods sold in the country, including imported products and foods prepared and served in restaurants and food service establishments.

Heart & Stroke said it will reduce the number of heart attacks in Canada and save lives.

Heart & Stroke co-chaired a task force with Health Canada in 2006 that first recommended the ban.

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Finally Americans Are Eating Less

- Adam Clare

The obesity problem in the USA may start to shrink. After years of constantly increasing they caloric intake Americans seem to be getting the message that eating too much can be bad for you. This is the first year that caloric intake has decreased and hopefully it’s a trend of things to come.

As calorie consumption has declined, obesity rates appear to have stopped rising for adults and school-aged children and have come down for the youngest children, suggesting the calorie reductions are making a difference.
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The reversal appears to stem from people’s growing realization that they were harming their health by eating and drinking too much. The awareness began to build in the late 1990s, thanks to a burst of scientific research about the costs of obesity, and to public health campaigns in recent years.

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Have the Fat Gene? Move!

- Adam Clare

The developed world is getting fatter and there’s everything you can do about it as an individual: be more active. As obvious as it sounds, being more physically active dramatically reduces your girth. The best part of some new research points out that even if you have a gene that predisposes you to obesity a little bit of physical activity can go a long way.

The obesity susceptibility gene is found in three-quarters of Europeans and North Americans. It is associated with a 20 per cent to 30 per cent increased risk of obesity.

“People who carry the gene but who are physically active have a reduced risk compared to people who carry the gene but are inactive,” Cambridge University medical researcher Ruth Loos said.

The findings highlight the importance of physical activity particularly in those genetically predisposed to be obese, Loos and her co-authors said in the journal PLoS Medicine.

“Physical activity gives them the opportunity to lose weight. So it goes against the often held view that if it’s in your genes, it’s out of your control,” Ross said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

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Denmark ‘Fat Tax’ Starts Saturday

- Adam Clare 3 Comments

Denmark is moving ahead with a tax on products that make people fat. Denmark already has the lost percentage of obese people in Europe and even they are concerned with the increasing girth of their people. This new ‘fat tax’ will hopefully keep the country’s slim people slim and inspire other countries to institute a similar tax.

Starting from this Saturday, Danes will pay an extra 30p on each pack of butter, 8p on a pack of crisps, and an extra 13p on a pound of mince, as a result of the tax.
The tax is expected to raise about 2.2bn Danish Krone (£140m), and cut consumption of saturated fat by close to 10pc, and butter consumption by 15pc.
“It’s the first ever fat-tax,” said Mike Rayner, Director of Oxford University’s Health Promotion Research Group, who has long campaigned for taxes on unhealthy foods.
“It’s very interesting. We haven’t had any practical examples before. Now we will be able to see the effects for real.” The tax will be levied at 2.5 per Kg of saturated fat and will be levied at the point of sale from wholesalers to retailers.

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Avoid Fat Kids by Owning a Dog

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Recently Canada has been identified as being filled with fat people, and there’s a simple way to stop this waist problem from expanding: own a dog. Families that have a dog have kids who are fit and thinner than non-dog owning families.

Go play fetch and stay fit!

And an Australian analysis of 1,145 children found girls and boys with dogs 50 per cent less likely to be fat.

“If you’re a kid and a dog, you chase balls, you play soccer with them, you rumble with them, wrestle them on the carpet even if you’re watching TV,” said Jo Salmon of Deakin University in Victoria, Australia. “It’s activity and it’s a mind thing as well.”

Children whose families owned dogs were more active, with increased light, moderate and vigorous physical activity, regardless of race or gender, reported Christopher Owen, an epidemiologist at St. George’s, University of London, who led the English study.

“The more active lifestyle of children from dog-owning families is really interesting,” he said. “Is it that owning a dog makes you more active or active families choose to have a dog? It’s a bit of a children and egg question.”

Keep reading the article here.

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