Why fasting could beat calorie-counting for weight loss

Slimmers on a ‘4:3’ diet — eating significantly less three days a week — lost more weight than those who trimmed their calorie intake every day, according to a study

 [source : The Times]

- - - - - - -

Intermittent fasting is more effective than calorie restriction for weight loss, new research has suggested.

People on a “4:3” intermittent fasting regime, where calorie intake is restricted for three days in a week, lost slightly more weight over a 12-month period than those on a daily calorie restriction diet.

Intermittent fasting diets have been popular with celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston, Kourtney Kardashian and Halle Berry, and many people prefer them due to the days where no restriction takes place.

• How extreme is your daily routine? Ask the new health-obsessed

In the clinical trial conducted by scientists at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, 165 overweight adults were randomly assigned to a 4:3 intermittent fasting diet or a calorie-restrictive diet.

In the research, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, participants who undertook intermittent fasting lost 7.6 per cent of their body weight, while those who restricted calorie intake daily lost 5 per cent of their body weight by the end of the 12 months.

As well as participants losing more on average, more participants lost at least 5 per cent of their body weight in the intermittent fasting condition, with 58 per cent achieving this, compared with 47 per cent in the calorie-restriction group.

Victoria Catenacci, the lead author of the study, said: “Participants in the fasting group also achieved more favourable cardio-metabolic outcomes including systolic blood pressure, total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, and fasting glucose level.”

The research team said their findings suggested that because fasting does not require participants to focus on counting calories and restricting food intake every single day, it may result in “greater adherence” and should be considered within the range of evidence-based dietary weight loss approaches.

Those in the fasting condition had to restrict their calories by an 80 per cent energy restriction on their fasting days, meaning they would eat approximately 500 calories per day if their baseline was 2,500 calories daily.

• The dangers of fitness trackers — and when to stop using yours

Those in the calorie-restriction condition reduced their intake by 34.3 per cent, roughly equating to 1,640 calories for a person whose usual intake should be 2,500 calories.

The participants were also given a free gym membership and were advised to exercise for five hours each week. They were also given group-based behavioural support and received instructions on calorie counting and “macronutrient” guidelines for a healthy diet.

• Overindulged? Why it’s harder to get back on track after a blowout

Adam Collins, associate professor of nutrition at the University of Surrey, said: “The study’s main finding was that a 4:3 approach gives more weight loss than conventional calorie restriction, despite participants [being] prescribed the same overall calories. Yet, this is not a magic property of the 4:3 approach per se, but because they achieved a bigger calorie deficit.”

He added: “Adherence to any diet over 6-12 months is challenging at the best of times, but this may explain why the 4:3 group were closer to the calorie deficit target overall. Nevertheless, it does support the notion that, in the real world, intermittent energy restriction protocols outperform conventional everyday calorie restriction both in terms of compliance and results.”

 

 

 

 

Plain packaging worked to reduce smoking. Unhealthy food should be next

 From the Irish Times, 14.8.2024

 

Removing branding from cigarette boxes has reduced smoking among young people. We must now do the same with unhealthy food and drinks as childhood obesity can trigger disease in later life 

Prof Donal O’Shea

Donal O’Shea is professor of medicine in University College Dublin, a consultant endocrinologist at St Vincent’s University and St Columcille’s Hospitals, and the national clinical lead for obesity with the Health Service Executive. He is supporting Safefood’s ‘Building a healthier food environment’ campaign.

 

Tobacco brands were among the best-known and most popular consumer brands of the 20th century, thanks in no small part to their instantly recognisable packaging and advertising. Nowadays, most people under the age of 40 would most likely struggle to differentiate one brand of cigarettes from another. The cigarette box, once a fashion accessory and a signifier of self-image, was wiped of its branding with the introduction of the Public Health Act in 2015. It’s an initiative that’s gone a long way to addressing the problem of smoking in young people. Almost 10 years on, the time has come to apply the same thinking to unhealthy food and drinks – especially those targeting children.

Plain packaging involves removing all branding and standardises the packaging to a uniform colour and design. This would help in reducing the consumption of high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar food and drinks; a critical step if we are to make headway with our obesity problem.

Our health service is under enormous strain because of obesity. One in five Irish children have either overweight or obesity, a problem that will track into adulthood. Childhood obesity is linked to accelerated weight gain in the fourth decade of life, the time when we gain most weight at a population level. We are now coming to terms with managing obesity itself as a disease, not a lifestyle choice and realising that, for decades, we have been treating the complications of obesity, such as Type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart disease and dementia. In the same way that we learned smoking tobacco can cause cancer, heart disease and many other illnesses, we now know that a poor diet can have long-reaching health effects and impact our life spans. The health burden of obesity is snowballing, and we need an array of measures that will change the trajectory of our food environment which over time has become increasingly unhealthy.

The proliferation of unhealthy foods and drinks promoted and marketed to us is now a bigger driver of disease than smoking

There is agreement that no single measure will buck the trend of unacceptably high obesity rates. That, however, must not stop us from pursuing changes within the system that might ultimately help. The sugar tax was one step in the right direction. Calorie posting on menus is another evidence-based and effective measure. Three ministers for health (two of whom have gone on to be taoiseach) promised to legislate for it, but it has been successfully opposed by the food and drinks industry. It appears to be dead in Government Buildings.

[ Higher rate of obesity in children from disadvantaged areas in Ireland, conference hearsOpens in new window ]

[ ‘Tide is turning more rapidly than ever in terms of obesity management’Opens in new window ]

We know that plain packaging works – we have the evidence from the tobacco area. Young people immediately find cigarettes less appealing and find the health warnings more striking against a plain background. If applied to food and drinks, plain packaging would ensure that the labelling with all the nutritional content of the product will not be crowded out. Combine this with measures that prevent access and you begin to transfer the learnings from successes in the tobacco space to the childhood obesity space. Healthy vending machines and removing the placement of unhealthy foods away from checkouts would build on the tobacco lessons.

Brand is everything – especially for younger people. Coca‑Cola has been promoting Christmas since the 1920s, sponsoring the Olympics since the 1930s and putting peoples’ names on bottles since 2011. The latter resulted in a surge in consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks by young people in particular – and reversed a downward trend. Plain packaging would have made the “Share a Coke” campaign impossible.

One in five Irish children have either overweight or obesity, a problem that will track into adulthood. Childhood obesity is linked to accelerated weight gain in the fourth decade of life, the time when we gain most weight

There is evidence that children are particularly open to the power of packaging – and that changes to make it plain would reduce the appeal of the products. The food and drinks industry have a very scientific approach to establishing the “bliss point” for a child’s palate for a particular product – the point at which maximal enjoyment is reached for a particular offering. They know that this is different for a three year old, a seven year old and a 12 year old, and they know that different-aged brains will respond differently to cartoon characters, fonts and enticing images. They influence children’s choice and pattern of consumption. Increasingly, the display of products targeting children in shops is at that child’s eye level – just look at the shelves of sweets and confectionery in your local supermarket and compare what is higher up versus closer to the ground.

[ Western diets high in fat and sugar can lead to bowel disease and cancer, Irish study revealsOpens in new window ]

Protecting children’s health is at the heart of Safefood’s new public health campaign, “Building a healthier food environment”. This five-year initiative represents a new approach to public health campaigning, focusing on the factors that influence consumer decision-making, including how foods are packaged and sold to us. Safefood is asking consumers to start a conversation with one another about the food environment and consider ways we can change it.

[ ‘Soup and shake’ diet puts almost a third of type 2 diabetes cases in remissionOpens in new window ]

From a health or economic perspective, we can’t afford to continue as we are. The proliferation of unhealthy foods and drinks that are promoted and marketed to us is now a bigger driver of disease than smoking. Bold public policy is essential in shaping a food environment that protects our children’s health, so we need to learn from the positive impact of plain packaging on cigarette-smoking behaviour in young people and apply it to unhealthy food and drinks.

 

 

 

 

 

Larger plate sizes bring bigger appetites

 from the Irish Times

Eating dinner from a bowl is a fundamental error, says one culinary nutrition expert

Charlie McConalogue, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, has been on a crusade to tackle Ireland’s food waste problem, urging restaurants to serve smaller portions and decrying the use of “doggy bags” for customers to take home what they are unable to finish. In France and Spain, the official approach is the opposite – restaurants can be fined for not providing takeaway containers for diners who request them.

But the food waste problem isn’t confined to restaurants, indeed many restaurateurs and chefs would argue that it is not a problem for them: food is too expensive a commodity for them to waste and still make a profit. It is in our homes that the greatest amount of food is discarded – almost a third of Ireland’s food waste mountain of about 750,000 tonnes a year is generated by private households.

In my kitchen cupboard, there are large off-white plates and plain white bowls, large and small, that we eat dinner from every day. The bowls are what we reach for most often, their shape more suitable for the weekday pastas, stews, curries and bakes that we eat on rotation at this time of year. The plates come out when a knife is required rather than optional.

When I am watching what I eat, I reach for the smaller bowls, but more often than not I choose the larger ones, trying but not always succeeding, to keep the portion size the same. It is true that we eat with our eyes first, before we taste a morsel, and to me food just looks better if not crowded on to a plate or bowl.

But plate sizes have gradually increased over the years, and with it our appetites. Many of us have got used to eating more than we need to, and more than is recommended by dietitians for a healthy lifestyle. Sarah Keogh, a dietitian and lecturer in culinary nutrition at Technical University Dublin (TUC), estimates that the average dinner plate is a number of inches bigger that it was in the 1960s and 1970s. And if there is space on the plate, we are to going to be tempted to fill it, aren’t we?

“Average dinner plate sizes, if you go to buy one today, have gone from roughly an 8-inch diameter (20cm) to a 12-inch diameter (30cm) and beyond,” Keogh says. “And the problem is, if you go back even 25 years ago, it might have been an 8-inch plate, but there was a rim and you put the food within the rim, whereas there are a lot more rimless plates now, but the plate is still the same size, so people are inclined to fill the plate.”

The extra and often unnecessary calories on a large plate serving can mount up alarmingly. “There is up to an additional 600 calories on a plate, and dinner should be around 600 calories in total. Even breakfast bowls are twice the size that they would have been 20 years ago, so you’re having double the bowl of cornflakes that you did have.”

“I’ve seen this a lot in clinics with people who are trying to lose weight,” says Keogh, who is the founder of Eatwell, a nutrition and dietetics consultancy, as well as having a private practice in Dublin. “The mantra I get from so many people is, ‘I eat healthy food, I don’t know why I am putting on weight’. And I say, well let’s look at the size of your plate. There are many things involved in weight, but one of them is the total amount of calories you consume in a day. And whether it comes from healthy food or less healthy food doesn’t matter in terms of weight.”

‘A bowl is always a mistake’

Plate size apart, I am making a fundamental error in eating my dinner from a bowl, according to Keogh. “My advice is never eat your dinner out of a bowl, unless it’s soup, because you can pack up the sides of that bowl really quite high. A bowl is always a mistake, even for pasta. I’d never serve pasta in a bowl, always a plate.”

Putting Keogh’s advice to the test, I weigh and measure my dinner and present it on a plate, and in a bowl, keeping to the Health Service Executive (HSE) published recommended portion sizes. The one cup (200ml) of cooked basmati rice, along with 100g of lemon and coconut dal, looks reasonably generous on my 28cm plate (which actually dates from around 30 years ago), but in the bowl – how I would normally serve it – it looks like a child’s portion in comparison. I also have a plate of steamed broccoli on the side, and dinner at these quantities leaves me no longer hungry, but not full either, which is ideal, according to Keogh.

“What is interesting is your perception around what was in the bowl and what was on the plate,” Keogh says. “There is some really good research in this area. For example, if you have a tall slim glass, you will drink less than if you have a short, fat glass and if you have the same amount of liquid, you’ll feel like you had less in the short glass than in the tall glass. At the end of the day, we just don’t need the giant plates.”

Bigger plates and larger portion sizes are not just confined to home, where we are in charge of what is served. Keogh believes portion sizes have increased across the board in recent years. “If you look at the size of doughnuts and cupcakes and pastries in the last 20 years, they’re nearly three times the size. When I was little and you got a fairy cake, it was about the size of the fist of a two-year-old. Whereas today, you’re getting a cupcake and it’s just huge. We see that growth in portion sizes everywhere.”

However, Mr McConalogue’s suggestion that portion sizes in restaurants are far too large, and are contributing to unnecessary food waste, is contested by some restaurateurs and chefs. Will Beckett is co-founder and chief executive of Hawksmoor, the steakhouse chain, with restaurants in the UK, the US and Dublin. “I think restaurants have done a great job in working on food waste over the years. Last year we set targets for water and waste reduction using three years of baseline data to ensure greater accuracy and dedicated action, and all our food waste is turned into biogas. If anything, I read more in the press about smaller portions (shrinkflation) rather than larger. It’s part of the art of restaurants, isn’t it – getting portion sizes right is about value for money for customers. In my experience all restaurants hate waste, even if they’re not sustainability-focused, because it impacts their profits,” he says.

Wade Murphy, a chef who owns and runs 1826 Adare in the Co Limerick town with his wife Elaine, agrees. “Portion control and costing everything within an inch of its life are vital in order for a restaurant to survive. When we first opened, we served potatoes as a side dish with every main course ordered as we thought that’s what people expected. When we saw how much we were throwing out, we decided to look at it. It costs money to bring them in, cook them and then dispose of them and it didn’t make sense. Now each plate is garnished with a potato or a starch and if people want additional sides, they can order them.”

Grainne O’Keefe, chef proprietor at Mae restaurant in Ballsbridge, also believes restaurant portion sizes have not increased in recent years. “In a fine dining restaurant with a set menu, you are likely to get smaller portions of food than in a gastropub, but you get a lot more courses, which overall would likely amount to the same amount of food. It is important that people don’t leave a meal feeling hungry regardless of what type of establishment they are dining in, but I don’t think that portion sizes have had to increase to accommodate that.”

Gareth Mullins, executive head chef at Anantara The Marker hotel in Dublin 2, says that guests asking to take away unfinished food happens rarely in his Forbes Street restaurant, with the occasional exception of very large steaks. “If someone orders a sharing steak like a T-bone or Tomahawk and doesn’t finish it, they might ask to bring it home, which of course is not a problem.” Conversely, smaller portions of steak are proving popular at his restaurant. “I recently added a 6oz (170g) fillet steak to my à la carte menu as well as an 8oz (227g), and I am surprised at how well the 6oz is selling and shows some guests are happier with a smaller cut of meat.”

‘People would complain’

Even a 170g/6oz steak is still way beyond the 50-75g lean protein recommended serving size in the HSE guidelines, something O’Keefe takes issue with. “I don’t think that is realistic. If a restaurant was to serve even 75g of protein, people would complain.” However, even with larger portions, and four courses on her set menu dinner, food waste is not something she encounters in her restaurant. “Very rarely we have guests asking to bring leftovers home, as there is never really much left, with the exception of a dessert that they may want to finish later.”

At Hawksmoor, the average ordered weight of steak per diner “is probably circa 300g,” according to Beckett, but not all of it always gets eaten on site. “We love doggy bags! Everyone should be able to ask for one, and we’ve had periods of actively pushing them, and putting recipes (like our steak sandwich) into the bag as well to give people a bit of inspiration. I suspect very few doggies actually end up eating them, but can confirm that in the Beckett household Blanca the blind great dane and Bruno the whippet have had quite a bit of leftover steak through the year.”

 

YouGov health survey portrays nation of tired, overweight layabouts

The YouGov survey questioned a representative sample of 1,000 people in eight countries: the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Chile, Australia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. It found that only 29 per cent of Britons do sport at least twice a week, far less than the global average of 43 per cent.

The study also suggests government messages encouraging people to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day are not getting through. More than half of the Britons surveyed admitted they don’t eat fruit every day and an even greater proportion (58 per cent) said they don’t regularly eat vegetables, excluding those already included in pre-prepared food or meals. Only the Turkish eat less of these healthy foods.

Obesity rates - world atlas - the predictions for Ireland and Greece

More than a billion people around the world will be obese by 2030 – double the number there was in 2010, according to new global estimates.

No country is on track to meet the World Health Organization’s (WHO) target to halt obesity by 2025, with one in five women and one in seven men predicted to have the condition by 2030.

Obesity has been rising fastest in low- and middle-income countries. Over the next eight years, the number of people with obesity is predicted to triple in low-income countries, compared with 2010.

The new figures come from the fourth World Obesity Atlas, produced by the World Obesity Federation. Its chief executive, Johanna Ralston, said political and health leaders needed to recognise the gravity of the situation and act.

See pages 33-35 for Europe, at the World Obesity Atlas.

Across the European region, almost 1 in 3 men (29.42%) and women (29.97%) are predicted to have a BMI of ≥30kg/m2 by 2030. This equates to approximately 102 million men and 113 million women in the region at risk of the complications of obesity by 2030. Of these, over 26 million men are predicted to have a BMI of ≥35kg/m2 and almost 6 million are predicted to have a BMI of ≥40kg/m2 , while 44 million women are predicted to have a BMI of ≥35kg/m2 and 14 million a BMI of ≥40. 63 million men and 83.5 million women in the European region had a BMI of ≥30kg/m2 in 2010. 

Countries in the European region with the highest estimated prevalence of obesity amongst women by 2030

Country                     Prevalence 2030 

Turkey                                       50% 

United Kingdom                     37% 

Ireland                                  35% 

Malta                                         33% 

Azerbaijan                                32% 

Georgia                                     32% 

Lithuania                                 31% 

Belarus                                     31% 

Greece                                  31% 

Croatia                                     31% 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Countries in the European region with the highest estimated prevalence of obesity amongst men by 2030

Country                         Prevalence 2030 

Malta                                     37% 

Hungary                                37% 

United Kingdom                  37% 

Ireland                               34% 

Turkey                                   34% 

Bulgaria                                 34% 

Czech Republic                    33% 

Luxembourg                         33% 

Israel                                     33% 

Croatia                                  32%

HSE food errors

 

Letter to the Editor, The Sunday Times - Ireland, Sunday 16.1.2022.

The full paper, co-written with my colleague Dr Audrey Tierney is here

Why do we need to talk about obesity?

from SMC Express, November 2021

According to the latest available data, Ireland has the second highest rate of obesity in EU, with more than a quarter of the adult population classified as such. A survey on weight by Eurostat found that 26 per cent of Irish adults were obese in 2019, well ahead of the EU average of 16 per cent and trailing only Malta, where the rate was 28 per cent. In a 2015 survey of World Health Organisation (WHO), by 2030, Europe will face an obesity crisis of “enormous proportions”. In terms of obesity alone, the estimates show a big jump for women in the Irish Republic, soaring from 23 per cent to 57 per cent. The proportion of obese Irish men was expected to increase from 26 per cent to 48 per cent.

The full article is here, page 1.

Clinical Impact Potential of Supplemental Nutrients as Adjuncts of Therapy in High-Risk COVID-19 for Obese Patients

 The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) disease (COVID-19) in China at the end of 2019 caused a major global pandemic and continues to be an unresolved global health crisis. The supportive care interventions for reducing the severity of symptoms along with participation in clinical trials of investigational treatments are the mainstay of COVID-19 management because there is no effective standard therapy for COVID-19. The comorbidity of COVID-19 rises in obese patients. Micronutrients may boost the host immunity against viral infections, including COVID-19. In this review, we discuss the clinical impact potential of supplemental nutrients as adjuncts of therapy in high-risk COVID-19 for obese patients.

 

 

the full article is available here.

diet advising : is it so simple?

It's positive people having strong views on diet, sustainable agriculture and diseases. Phrases though like "is Mother Nature a psychopath?" (like the one tweeted yesterday by Joanna Blythman) do not help a forward discussion. Let me clarify...

I love Scotland, its culture, Athens of the North (Edinburgh), its music, its malts and salmon, St Andrews (Uni and friends) etc...
Does this mean that Scottish diet is healthy?
Far from it.

I am copying from here.
"Around 22% of all premature deaths in Scotland – 4,600 a year – are caused by CVD¹
Today, cardiovascular disease (CVD) continues to affect the lives of millions of people and is one of the largest causes of death and disability in Scotland. Premature CVD death rates in Scotland have fallen 78% over the last 40 years,¹ largely thanks to BHF-funded research, advances in treating conditions like heart attack and stroke and the decline in smoking, as well as lifestyle changes. But progress has slowed since 2011. The reasons are unclear. We must do more "

BHF (2018) analysis of Office for National Statistics (2017) and National Records of Scotland (2017) mortality data for 2014-16

The most deprived people in our society shoulder the greatest burden of death and disability from CVD. For instance, people living in the local authority with the highest level of average deprivation – West Dunbartonshire – are 1.6 times more likely to die prematurely from CVD compared with people in East Renfrewshire, which has the lowest average deprivation in Scotland [9 BHF (2018) analysis of Office for National Statistics (2017) and National Records of Scotland (2017) mortality data for 2014-16].


In order to tackle CVDs and other inflammatory diseases, we need to talk seriously about the diet and the lifestyle of the Scots, the Irish, the Greeks etc.
Obesity is a major problem as discussed here.

People eat junk food not out of choice! But out of lack of choice.
If the personal income is low, people will look for the cheapest food (i.e. the most processed, the least fresh, with the most chemicals, the most sugary, salty etc etc).

Have a look at this graph:

Obesity as per social class group

 
<sup>According to the authors
"Figure 1 illustrates the proportion of Irish children who
had overweight or obesity based on their social class group
in 2019. A significant difference in overweight/obesity
levels based on social class group was apparent (P = 0·02).
Those from the highest social class had the lowest overall
prevalence of overweight/obesity at 13 %, in comparison
with those from the lowest social class who had the highest
prevalence at 25 %. The same pattern was observed for
abdominal overweight/obesity as the proportion of children
with a WC ≥ 85th percentile was significantly higher in the
lowest social class group at 36 % in comparison with 20%
in the highest social class group (P = 0·006)"

"Health inequalities resulting from social class have
been labelled as one of the main drivers of the obesity epidemic(
35). Prevalence of overweight and obesity in children
in Ireland was starkly different based on social class in
2019. Levels rose steadily from 13 % in children from the
highest social class group to 25 % in those from the lowest,
with a comparable pattern observed for abdominal
overweight/obesity. Similarly, it has been reported that a
higher proportion of children attending disadvantaged
schools had overweight/obesity compared with those
attending non-disadvantaged schools(36). Furthermore,
inequalities in overweight/obesity prevalence have also
been described in American and British children(37,38).
These findings highlight the continued widening gap in
overweight and obesity levels based on social class in
children, with those from a lower social class being more
predisposed to this disease.
In comparison with overweight and obesity, children
with morbid obesity are three times more likely to experience
immediate health issues such as worsened cardiometabolic
risk profiles, high blood pressure, and suffer from
depression and anxiety(39–42). In 2019, 1·2 % of children
had morbid obesity, with a slightly higher level of morbid
obesity observed in boys at 1·7 % than girls at 0·7 %.
Moreover, a higher prevalence was observed in children
from a low socio-economic background. A similar level
of morbid obesity was found in the COSI at 1·5 % in
2012/2015 with higher rates occurring in children attending
disadvantaged schools(43). Across Europe, a recent assessment
of the prevalence of morbid obesity found that of
the children who had obesity, at least one in four had
morbid obesity, with the highest rates observed in
Southern Europe(44)."</sup>

In a nutshell: yes, Scottish food is Great; Irish food is Great, Italian pasta, Spanish tapas, Greek mezedes etc. So, how do we have so many millions suffering from chronic diseases in all these countries with great food and cuisine? Lack of guidelines? Education? Information? Poverty?
Guidelines are super (according to the dieticians); food is great and healthy according to Journalists, Chefs, Hospitality Managers, Tourist Boards.
Statins will save the world...not just yet.
So...what is bloody wrong? Why people die from NCDs? Why is obesity rising?
Do we need a different approach? Perhaps?

What about this: inflammation is the killer.
The sooner we realise it, the better. Anti-inflammatory diet is the way forward...not the black and white discussion about animal/plant diets.

Yannis Z.
 

on the roots of obesity in Ireland

In 2018, three boys in St Munchins College, Limerick, they developed this project:

"The Impact of Diet and Exercise on BMI in Secondary Students in Ireland"

Darragh, Rory and Nathaniel @ the Department of Biological Sciences, UL

They screened diet and lifestyle habits in year 1 boys of St Munchins College, Limerick by using a questionnaire.  From advice from the SciFest judges in May 2018 (bronze medal in their category), they also conducted a survey on present Transition years.

They then chose 20 volunteers from their survey from first years and transition year and investigated the body composition indicating their weight, Fat % , Fat Mass , Fat Free Mass, Muscle Mass, Total body water (TBW), TBW%, BMI, Desirable range fat%.

The monitoring of their body fat and BMI was conducted using a Tanita body analyser in the University of Limerick and they found that the boys who exercise regularly had a  lower  BMI  whereas the boys who exercise less had a higher BMI.

A clear correlation between lifestyle choices and BMI was found. These results highlight the value of adhering to dietary guidelines of Irish Food and the Mediterranean diet Pyramids.  This study is the first of this type in Ireland and we hope that it will bring a new insight on the origins of obesity of young people in Ireland.

In orange, the control groups (no exercise) and in blue the groups of boys who exercise regularly.





In orange the control groups and in blue the boys who exercise regularly. Clear differences were observed between the control and exercise groups.

"Our volunteers from our first year group have low consumption of fruits and vegetables (61% consume < 2 portions of fruit per day whereas 50% consume <2 portions of vegetable per day). The monitoring of their body fat and BMI was conducted using a Tanita body analyser in the University of Limerick and we found that the boys who exercise regularly have a mean BMI of 21.8 whereas the boys who exercise less  have an average BMI of  26.5 (overweight region).

We found similar results  from our Transition year students the average BMI for TY students who do sport was 21.8(healthy range) while the overall BMI for TY students who don’t do sport was 26.5(overweight region).

The fat content data follow similar trends for both years and both groups.

This is solid proof that exercise lowers BMI.

A clear correlation between lifestyle choices and BMI was found. These results highlight the value of adhering to dietary guidelines of Irish Food and the Mediterranean diet Pyramids.

We suggest: 1)  the vending machines in schools to offer healthy options(e.g  fruit bars and fruits /protein bars) and 2) to create a newsletter, promoting Mediterranean Diet and exercise, to be circulated in our school " 

[The lads were Dublin Finalists in January 2019, BTYS and they presented their project in UL, in May 2019]

= = = = = = = =

Few days ago, this paper was published: 

The prevalence of overweight and obesity in Irish children between 1990 and 2019

 The following figure (fig 1 in the paper) is from this paper.

Obesity as per social class group

According to the authors
"Figure 1 illustrates the proportion of Irish children who
had overweight or obesity based on their social class group
in 2019. A significant difference in overweight/obesity
levels based on social class group was apparent (P = 0·02).
Those from the highest social class had the lowest overall
prevalence of overweight/obesity at 13 %, in comparison
with those from the lowest social class who had the highest
prevalence at 25 %. The same pattern was observed for
abdominal overweight/obesity as the proportion of children
with a WC ≥ 85th percentile was significantly higher in the
lowest social class group at 36 % in comparison with 20%
in the highest social class group (P = 0·006)"

"Health inequalities resulting from social class have
been labelled as one of the main drivers of the obesity epidemic(
35). Prevalence of overweight and obesity in children
in Ireland was starkly different based on social class in
2019. Levels rose steadily from 13 % in children from the
highest social class group to 25 % in those from the lowest,
with a comparable pattern observed for abdominal
overweight/obesity. Similarly, it has been reported that a
higher proportion of children attending disadvantaged
schools had overweight/obesity compared with those
attending non-disadvantaged schools(36). Furthermore,
inequalities in overweight/obesity prevalence have also
been described in American and British children(37,38).
These findings highlight the continued widening gap in
overweight and obesity levels based on social class in
children, with those from a lower social class being more
predisposed to this disease.
In comparison with overweight and obesity, children
with morbid obesity are three times more likely to experience
immediate health issues such as worsened cardiometabolic
risk profiles, high blood pressure, and suffer from
depression and anxiety(39–42). In 2019, 1·2 % of children
had morbid obesity, with a slightly higher level of morbid
obesity observed in boys at 1·7 % than girls at 0·7 %.
Moreover, a higher prevalence was observed in children
from a low socio-economic background. A similar level
of morbid obesity was found in the COSI at 1·5 % in
2012/2015 with higher rates occurring in children attending
disadvantaged schools(43). Across Europe, a recent assessment
of the prevalence of morbid obesity found that of
the children who had obesity, at least one in four had
morbid obesity, with the highest rates observed in
Southern Europe(44)."

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Points arising:
1. how do schools tackle the problem of adolescent obesity? Are they any "healthy eating" initiatives in place? Newsletter? Quality of food provided in canteens?
2. how do councils approach the societal gaps in relation to nutrition and obesity?
3. does the Irish Food Pyramid need updating? We believe it does.
But how do the competent authorities approach this problem?