According to recent research, parents who perceived their children to be overweight or obese were four times more likely to discuss the subject with them. (Rawpixel pic)

OHIO: For people obliged to follow a special diet or those who have undergone bariatric surgery, taking part in meals together as a family rather than alone in front of a computer or television could help maintain balanced eating habits, a new study suggests.

Published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behaviour, the study also indicates that patients were more likely to have family meals when they had good communication and moral support from their loved ones.

The study involved 259 patients, all parents of a child between the ages of 2 and 18, who were registered at accredited weight management and bariatric surgery centres at Ohio State University and Wake Forest University in the USA.

The patients were asked questions about family meal practices, as well as parent-child discussions on specific topics such as diet, weight and body image.

According to the survey, families with younger children were more likely to eat dinner and breakfast together. The researchers also found that parents who perceived their child to be overweight or obese were four times more likely to discuss this topic with them.

Its important to ensure communication directly about childrens weight is not harmful in their development of a healthy body image and behaviours.

That includes older children and adolescents who are at greater risk of developing eating disorders and disordered eating behaviours, points out Keeley J Pratt, a professor at Ohio State University, who directed the study.

Additional research assessing the family meal practices and weight talk in the families of adults pursuing weight loss could yield important evidence that could lead to improved patient outcomes, and safely promote healthy behaviours and prevention of obesity in children, conclude the authors of the study.

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Families who eat together have better eating habits - Free Malaysia Today

Are you trying to gain weight? Trying to gain weight may seem like an easy problem to solve, however, healthily putting on weight may not be as easy as you think. So, whether you are underweight and want to reach a healthy weight or are trying to gain muscle, you need a balanced approach to gain weight.

As a general rule, you need to consume between 300 and 500 more calories than you burn to gain weight. Unfortunately, many people are not aware of the number of calories they eat, or they misestimate it. This is where a weight gain calculator comes in handy. It helps you plan your meals properly with an adequate amount of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates.

What are the risks of being underweight?

Almost two-thirds of the US population is overweight or obese, which can lead to health problems. Similarly, being too skinny or underweight can also be unhealthy. If you have a BMI of less than 18.5, you are considered underweight (1). Not only does being underweight lower your self-esteem, but it can also lead to malnutrition and have a severe impact on your health. A diet that is very low in calories can cause fatigue, nausea, hair, and skin issues. When you are underweight, you can also develop a weakened immune system, osteoporosis (2), infertility, eating disorders, and developmental issues.

Causes of being underweight

There can be many reasons why a person is underweight (3). Sometimes there may be multiple related causes. Often medical conditions can also make a formerly healthy person to lose weight.

1. Family history

Some people have naturally low BMI that may run in their family. If a person has a high metabolism, he may not be able to gain much weight despite eating high calories foods.

2. High levels of physical activity

Some people like sportspeople and athletes burn much more calories, and this may result in low body weight.

3. Infections

Parasites, tuberculosis, HIV, and other infectious diseases can make the body use most of its energy in fighting off these diseases, which may lead to drastic weight loss.

4. Diabetes

When people have diabetes, insufficient insulin levels prevent the body from getting glucose from the bodys cells to use as energy. The body then starts burning fat and muscle for energy, and this leads to weight loss issues.

5. Hyperthyroidism

Hyperthyroidism can accelerate your metabolism, causing unintentional weight loss.

6. Celiac disease

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that can lead to weight loss. The body has an autoimmune response to gluten, and the small intestines are damaged, which affects the absorption of nutrients and causes weight loss.

7. Mental illness

Mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia can affect a persons ability to eat. If you lose bodyweight drastically without making a change to your diet or exercise pattern, you may have one of these illnesses. Seek medical advice and follow a plan to gain weight healthily.

How to gain weight healthily?

Just like a weight loss program, a weight-gain program also needs a balanced approach. Eating calorie-dense junk food may lead to weight gain, but you may still have nutritional deficiencies. Here are some general tips for gaining weight safely

1. Eat frequent meals

Eat three to five meals every day. Eating more meals makes it easier to take in additional calories. You can also increase the number of calories consumed by snacking between meals (4).

2. Add healthy calories

Eating healthy is not difficult. You can increase your overall calorie intake by adding nuts and seeds and cheese to your dishes. Add healthy side dishes. Whole grain toast, sunflower seeds, almonds, and fruits like bananas and avocados are some great options (5).

3. Eat enough protein

Our body uses protein to build lean muscle mass. The RDA for protein is 0.4g per pound of body weight. So if youre trying to gain muscle mass, you should exceed this amount significantly. Some of the favorite calorie-dense high-protein foods include fattier cuts of beef, pork, and chicken. You can also include salmon and eggs in your diet. Peanuts, walnuts, macadamia nuts, and walnuts are also rich in proteins.

4. Consume healthy carbs

Avoid refined carbohydrates and go for whole-food sources of carbohydrates like brown rice, oats, and beans. Sweet potatoes and yams are also good for your diet.

5. Eat healthy fats

Learn to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy fats. Healthy fats are monounsaturated or polyunsaturated, and nuts, avocado, vegetable oils, and fish are rich sources of these fats. Unhealthy fats include saturated fats and trans fats. Limit saturated fats and avoid trans fats.

6. Weight training

Weight training is essential for healthy weight gain as it helps in gaining and maintaining lean muscle mass. You may need to modify your workout over time by increasing the weight or number of sets to continue gaining muscle mass.

People who do weight training break down their exercise routines into specific muscle groups. Some of the leg building exercises include barbell squats, leg press, leg extensions, calf raises, leg curls, and barbell squats. Some of the upper body exercises include dumbbell pullovers, incline row, incline chest press, lateral raise, supine ventral raise, and side pullovers.

7. Cardio exercises

Many people who want to gain muscle try to avoid cardio. However, you must include these exercises into your routine as well. Cardio exercises are great for a healthy heart and lungs. Running, swimming, and walking are great ways to get some cardio exercise.

You can use a weight gain calculator

This weight gain calculator helps you to determine your daily calorie intake for your weight gain goal. You first need to input your age, gender, weight, and height. You then choose the number of meals you plan to eat per day. Since you have to eat more food during the day, it is advisable to divide your intake into more meals.

The calorie boost option is available for those people who find it very difficult to gain weight. The activity level is based on three weight training sessions per week, with little or no cardio. Click on calculate to find out the number of calories you should eat in a day. The results also give you a break-up of the carbohydrates, proteins, and fats that you should eat per meal and per day. As a general rule, only one-third of your fats should be from saturated fats.

How does this calculator work?

When you input all your details in the calculator, it estimates your daily maintenance level using the Mifflin St Jeor formula and adds a percentage of calories to the total (6). The calculator then estimates the optimum levels of essential nutrients to ensure healthy weight gain. Your protein intake is calculated at 1.1 gram per pound of body weight. Around 30% of your intake should come from fats. The rest of your daily intake should come from carbohydrates.

Final thoughts

Being underweight can be extremely bad for your health. When you are underweight, you can also develop a weakened immune system, osteoporosis, infertility, eating disorders, and developmental issues. To reach a healthy weight, you must calculate how many calories you need to eat with a weight gain calculator. Plan a healthy and balanced diet that includes lean proteins, healthy carbs, and fats. You must also incorporate weight training and cardio exercises into your daily routine.

Manveen Sibia had an illustrious career in journalism and writing. She is the mother of a super active 7-year-old. While chasing her around the house, she also finds time to pursue her passion for writing on parenting, education, health, fitness, and entertainment.

Disclaimer: This article is for general information purpose only. Please do not consider this as a substitute for qualified healthcare providers advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

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Healthy Ways to Gain Weight - India Currents

World Food Safety Day: 10 tips to eat safely and healthily during the COVID-19 pandemic  |  Photo Credit: iStock Images

New Delhi: The 2nd World Food Safety Day (WFSD) will be observed on 7th June 2020 to spread awareness about food safety and to reduce the cases of foodborne diseases. With an estimated 600 million cases of foodborne diseases annually - almost 1 in 10 people in the world fall ill after eating contaminated food. Unhygienic foodis an increasing threat to human health. Children under 5 years of age carry 40 per cent of the foodborne disease burden with 1,25,000 deaths every year.

Food safety is everyones responsibility and all of us must work together. The most important is building an environment for Food Safety Culture. While the industry, food producers, and aggregators are adopting technologies to support this function, a lot of onus falls on the consumer side also.

In the pandemic challenges, the world needs a new era of smarter food safety. As a consumer of foods and food products, it is especially important that you keep in mind a few important things with regards to food safety. It could be related to giving close attention to packaging, participating in authentication, information about nutritional facts and day to day normal habits about food safety. Here are a few tips suggested by Mr. Chander S Jeena, Secretary of Authentication Solution Provider Association, to help you eat healthily and safely during the pandemic.

Disclaimer: Tips and suggestions mentioned in the article are for general information purpose only and should not be construed as professional medical advice. Always consult your doctor or a dietician before starting any fitness programme or making any changes to your diet.

For full coverage on Coronavirus pandemic, click here.Join the Times Group initiative #MaskIndia.Share a picture with your home-made mask on your social handles using #MaskIndia. The best picture will be featured in TOI and on maskindia.com

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World Food Safety Day: 10 tips to eat safely and healthily during the COVID-19 pandemic - Times Now

The volunteer organization Food Not Bombs just marked its 40th anniversary. The group collects vegan and vegetarian food from grocery stores that would otherwise be thrown out and shares it with those in need.

Keith McHenry was part of a group of activists living in Massachusetts when he co-founded the group. Now, he lives in Santa Cruz.

As Food Not Bombs celebrates this 40 year milestone, it now operates in over 65 countries. KAZUs Erika Mahoney spoke with McHenry about the virtual celebration that brought people together from around the world.

Erika Mahoney (EM): Let's go back to 1980. Walk me through the beginning of the organization and explain the significance of the name.

Keith McHenry (KM): I was in my early 20s and my friends were doing a lot of protests against nuclear power and nuclear weapons. I was an art student and I worked at a grocery store and I was just appalled at the amount of produce I was throwing away. So I started taking it to the housing projects to give to the people down there. And one day I'm talking to the residents, we're discussing this brand new building across the street, and they say that's where they design nuclear weapons. And I was like, oh, that's crazy you need food over here, but they've got all this money for nuclear weapons over there. And that's where the name Food Not Bombs came from. Then, we had started like doing street theater with the food. And we saw that really caught people's attention. And then we decided we would do a street theater outside the stockholders meeting of the Bank of Boston and we would dress up like hobos. It was just such an inspiring day that just changed my life. And the guys that were there said, you should do this everyday because there's no food for homeless people in Boston. We decided that night we would quit our jobs and do nothing but collect food, take it to housing projects and make meals that we'd share on the streets. And so that's what we did.

EM: Why do you focus on vegetarian and vegan food for distribution?

KM: I was vegan when we started Food Not Bombs, and that was the case for all eight of us. We thought, well, if we're going to be Food Not Bombs, and we're going to be against violence, we should also be against the violence towards animals and towards the environment and the earth. The other thing is, we were very poor. We had no money and we wanted to do this safely. The only way to really do that was to have the vegan diet and that way we wouldn't have to get special refrigeration units and heating tables and everything to safely feed lots and lots of people.

EM: So Food Not Bombs has gotten in trouble for distributing food to the homeless. Tell me about that.

KM: The original time we got arrested, and I was the first to be arrested, was at Golden Gate Park, August 15th of 1988. And nine of us were arrested that day. There was a photo that showed up the next morning in the San Francisco Chronicle. And that really encouraged people to join us the next Monday. So people like started writing us and leaving messages at our answering service that we had, which overwhelmed them, asking how they could start a Food Not Bombs chapter in their community. And so I had taken notes on how I started the second group in San Francisco, and I made a flier called Seven Steps to starting a Food Not Bombs. And I would mail that to you. By the next summer, there were groups in Prague, Czechoslovakia; Brixton in London; in Melbourne, Australia; Victoria, British Columbia; and also at Tompkins Square Park in New York City.

EM: What was the objection to feeding people?

KM: The objection is, and it's still to this day, a big, big issue, is that you see a large number of homeless people standing outside waiting in line to get food. And it highlights the failure of the local government to deal with a crisis that's at hand.(Click here to read a newspaper article published August 16, 1988.)

EM: In Santa Cruz, you work closely with homeless people. Homelessness is affecting all communities across California and the nation and the world. What's something youd like to share about unhoused individuals that maybe people don't see?

KM: Rather than just looking down on people living outside, people should really realize that these are our neighbors, our family members, our friends. And they're really a victim of an economic and political system that has forced people onto the streets.

EM: What do you believe is the best way for our country to deal with hunger?

KM: I think that we need to get to a point where we realize that food and shelter and education and health care are rights, basic human rights. Those things are being withheld for profit and that we need to turn around. And that's, I think where Food Not Bombs has been most effective, is in developing this idea that, it is one of our slogans, is "food's a right, not a privilege."

EM: Do you have a favorite memory over your time with Food Not Bombs?

KM: Here... this is an interesting one. It was a snowy day in Boston and I was trying to deliver to one of the shelters, the food, and they had not come back. I was just sitting there with our van open and I had buckets of tofu that were in ice that were part of what I was going to donate. And this woman, African-American woman, just silently walks up to the van and she points to the bucket of tofu and I say, well it's not cooked. You know, it's frozen. She just didn't say a word and insisted that I hand her the eight ounces of tofu, you know, a little block of tofu. So I hand it to her and before long, my van is surrounded by people eating frozen tofu. They were so hungry. So I think that was one of the most shocking things I've heard. But I could tell you many, many amazing stories about Food Not Bombs. And, you know, in 40 years, it's just, it's magical, the amount of things that have happened.

Keith McHenry co-founded Food Not Bombs, which just marked its 40th anniversary. McHenrys weekly food distributions in Santa Cruz have recently turned into daily ones due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Food Not Bombs Marks 40th Anniversary, A Conversation With Local Co-Founder - 90.3 KAZU

BYSTAFF REPORTS

06/09/2020 02:00 PM

And when it is safe, what should be on your post-lockdown health checklist?

As you prioritize your health to-do list, be aware of coronavirus rates in your area, your personal risk from COVID-19 based on your age and medical conditions, and what experts are advising in your area and for your personal care.

Reschedule missed procedures or screenings

Work with your health care team to reschedule high-priority procedures or screenings, where available.

In arecent report, 16 North American cardiovascular societies issued guidance for health professionals on safely reintroducing diagnostic tests and invasive cardiovascular procedures, with an eye to regions with lower rates of infection.

The pandemic has taken a toll on cardiovascular care, said cardiologist Dr. Robert Harrington,chair of the department of medicine at Stanford University in California. He coauthored the report as president of the American Heart Association.

"We've seen a large drop-off in patients seeking acute care for suspected heart attacks and strokes. There's been a decrease in more elective procedures such as exercise testing, cardiac catheterization and other procedures. Anecdotally, we also hear of people having worsening symptoms at home, with a reluctance to seek care for issues such as heart failure management."

Among other concerns, the new report stresses the need for cardiovascular care providers to prioritize procedures or tests with the most benefit for the most people, and to balance risk of further care postponement against risk of further spreading COVID-19.

"Video and phone visits remain the preferred mode for care for the near future as social distancing,masksand good hand hygiene remain critical to prevent and reduce the risks of infection," Harrington said. "There should be local protocols for all of this in the clinical environment that also take into consideration recommendations from local public health departments."

The American Cancer Societyaddresses similar questionsabout resuming cancer screenings and exams, urging people to talk to health care providers about their personal situations and whether they're having symptoms. Among the considerations: balancing the risk of the cancer being screened for against the risk from COVID-19, how involved the screening is, how common coronavirus infections are locally and what local officials advise, and precautions taken by individual medical centers to prevent COVID-19's spread.

Make a catch-up appointment with your primary care doctor

People who have missed routine medical care can schedule a catch-up visit, including by telephone or video. Primary care providers will want updates on their patients' health during the pandemic, including any weight or diet changes, depression symptoms, sleep problems, and COVID-19 or other illness. They'll want to know how home monitoring of chronic conditions has been going.

Also, primary care providers can help people balance their personal health vulnerability against local COVID-19 infection trends to determine whether and when to pursue in-person visits for routine care like vaccinations and dental checkups.

It's safe for most people to return to health care facilities, said Mercedes Carnethon, an epidemiologist and vice chair of the department of preventive medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago.

"Health care delivery teams have been thoughtful about setting up their offices in a way to reduce the probability of exposure by wearing protective health equipment such as masks and gloves, reducing the number of patients in the waiting room at any single time and converting those visits that can be done remotely to telehealth. In most cases, the health care provider's office will welcome questions about safety from patients," she said.

Take care of your lungs

Given that COVID-19 is a respiratory disease, keeping the lungs healthy should be high on the to-do list, Carnethon said.

Because smoking and vaping cause lung damage that's preventable, she said, "Don't start smoking now, and search for resources to help with quitting."

Make a plan for future medical care

Any health care checklist can include discussions with family about future health decisions in the case of serious illness, with the goal of recording those wishes in advance health care directives.AARPand theAHAprovide resources to help.

Set and follow through on health priorities

"The same principles of a healthy lifestyle hold true in our post-COVID world as they did pre-COVID," Carnethon said. "Individuals will thrive by committing to a lifestyle where they are thoughtful about what they eat, how much they move and how much they sleep." In particular, physical activity can promote both physical and mental wellness, she said.

Harrington additionally advises people to take medicines as prescribed and reduce stress through yoga, meditation or other methods.

People ready to venture back to the fitness center should evaluate whether the risk of COVID-19 transmission is low or high in their community. Either way, Harrington said, "social distancing and masking when near others and using good hand hygiene remain important."

Editor's note: Because of the rapidly evolving events surrounding the coronavirus, the facts and advice presented in this story may have changed since publication. Visit Heart.org for the latest coverage, and check with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials for the most recent guidance.

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Life after lockdown should start with this healthy to-do list - Cherokee Phoenix