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Restaurants Add Lower Calorie Options After Calorie Display Laws, But Keep Old Favorites on Menus

Our research suggests that restaurants are bringing lower-calorie options to their menus now that they are required to display calorie labels on their menus.

WeightControl.com Interview with:
Anna H. Grummon PhD , Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Nutrition
Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health

WeightControl.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: As of 2018, large chain restaurants in the US are required by law to display calorie information on their menus. A number of researchers have looked at how consumers respond to the new calorie labels. What was not yet known was how the industry responded to the calorie labeling law. Our study is the first to investigate whether nationwide rollout of the calorie labeling law spurred restaurants to change the types of foods they offer. We found that the rollout of the calorie labels appeared to prompt restaurants to introduce lower-calorie items to their menus, but did not spur changes to existing menu items.

WeightControl.com: What should readers take away from your report?

Response: Our research suggests that restaurants are bringing lower-calorie options to their menus now that they are required to display calorie labels on their menus. These new options could help Americans find foods that meet their health goals when they get take-out or dine at restaurants.

At the same time, existing menu items did not change after the labels were rolled out. This suggests that additional policy changes might be needed to nudge restaurants to make these existing items healthier. The calorie labeling law is important in providing consumers with information about menu items that was hard to find previously. Future policies can build on this success.

WeightControl.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work?

Response: Our study examined restaurant menus, not what consumers buy or eat. So we don’t yet know how these changes to menus will affect what consumers eat and drink at restaurants, or ultimately how this policy will affect health outcomes. Future studies can examine how consumers respond to both calorie labels and to changes in the types of items sold by restaurants.

WeightControl.com: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Response: Mandatory labelling may have spurred restaurants to introduce new, lower calorie items to their menus. These calorie labels also allow consumers to easily view the calorie count of their meal, information which was difficult to find before the law.

No disclosures.

Citation:

Grummon AH, Petimar J, Soto MJ, et al. Changes in Calorie Content of Menu Items at Large Chain Restaurants After Implementation of Calorie Labels. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(12):e2141353. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.41353

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Time-Restricted Eating Studied for Weight Control and Health Benefits

If anyone is interested in tracking their own eating pattern and setting personal goals for when they eat, they are welcome to use the smartphone app that Dr. Panda’s lab created called myCircadianClock.

WeightControl.com Interview with:
Satchidananda Panda PhD
Professor, Regulatory Biology Laboratory
Salk Institute for Biological Studies
La Jolla, CA

WeightControl.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Our bodies have internal rhythms to help keep everything happening in the body at the right place and the right time. These internal rhythms play a large role in our health and can increase the risk for disease when compromised. Time-restricted eating (TRE) maintains a consistent eating time to help support these circadian rhythms and overall health.

WeightControl.com: What should readers take away from your report?

Response: Limiting food and beverages to a consistent 8-10 hours is an important part of a healthy lifestyle and can help prevent and treat chronic disease. Many studies have shown moderate weight loss (3-5%) as well as other health benefits including improved glucose regulation, decreased blood pressure, and decreased cholesterol.

WeightControl.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work?

Response: This review highlights the need for larger and longer term Time-restricted eating trials in diverse groups including those who are healthy as well as individuals with chronic diseases. It is also important that all TRE trials assess the timing of eating before and throughout the study to understand how eating patterns change and adherence to the intervention.

WeightControl.com: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Response: If anyone is interested in tracking their own eating pattern and setting personal goals for when they eat, they are welcome to use the smartphone app that Dr. Panda’s lab created called myCircadianClock. The app is available on iPhone and android phones, is free to use, and data is only used for research purposes. You can sign up at www.mycircadianclock.org.

Disclosures: Dr. Satchin Panda is the author of The Circadian Code.

Citation:

Emily N Manoogian, Lisa S Chow, Pam R Taub, Blandine Laferrère, Satchidananda Panda, Time-restricted eating for the prevention and management of metabolic diseases, Endocrine Reviews, 2021;, bnab027, https://doi.org/10.1210/endrev/bnab027

Freshman Fifteen: Lifestyle Changes Can Help Prevent Weight Gain

We found that first-year college students’ BMI increased, with an average weight gain being a little over three pounds across the first semester.

WeightControl.com Interview with:

Yangyang Deng
Ph.D. Student | Sport Pedagogy
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Children’s Physical Activity, Fitness lab
University of Georgia

WeightControl.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: The idea for this study was to test whether freshman 15 is really a myth or is there some truth to it. Maybe more importantly, we wanted to test what are the main factors that may impact unwanted weight gain. Of course, we also wanted to help college students to improve their health. Previous research has shown that freshman students are especially vulnerable due to the transition to a new environment, and they are more likely to adopt negative health behaviors, e.g., sedentary habits and unhealthy diet. Previous data has shown that less than 50% of college students engage in the recommended minimum of 150 weekly minutes of moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA). Moreover, first-year college students’ dietary behaviors are getting unhealthier, students are eating excessive amounts of trans fats/fast food and not consuming the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables, and consuming too much sugar-sweetened beverages.

Reduction in Cancer Risk Following Bariatric Surgery

WeightControl.com Interview with:
Vinod K Rustgi, MD, MBA
Professor of Medicine
Clinical Director of Hepatology
Director, Center for Liver Diseases and Liver Masses
Professor of Epidemiology
Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
New Brunswick, NJ 08901

WeightControl.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Obesity is a burgeoning problem in the USA and globally. It is estimated that over $100 billion are spent in healthcare expenditures each year on those patients with fatty liver disease related to obesity-induced problems.

Lifestyle modification is very difficult to achieve on a sustained basis. Insurance companies have strict criteria for bariatric surgery. Our study of a database of over 100 million lives spanning the years of 2007 to 2017 showed a marked reduction in all malignancies after bariatric surgery and particularly in obesity-related cancers such as colorectal, esophageal, pancreatic, ovarian, uterine, postmenopausal breast and kidney cancers.

Retail Outlets Promote Impulse Buys of Sugary Items in Check-Out Aisles

Placement of these items may drive impulse buys, and because these stores sold products for children, parents and caregivers should be aware of these practices at the outset.

WeightControl.com Interview with:
Corey Hannah Basch, Ed.D., M.P.H., CHES
Professor and Department Chair Public Health
William Paterson University

WeightControl.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: There are many factors that influence food choices, which are not limited simply to access and availability. This study focused on exposure to opportunities for unplanned food and beverage purchases, specifically candy, snack foods, and sugary beverages are available in checkout lines in a convenience sample retail chain stores in New York City that sell products for children.

The main findings are that most of the stores in the sample sold at least one form of convenience foods at the checkout. In addition, “corral-style” checkout lines had a more diverse sample of snack foods available throughout the line.

Personalized Coupons, Recipes and Education Helped Shoppers Make Healthier Food Purchases

we are interested in scaling this work so it can reach more US adults and help them improve their diet quality and diet-related health.

WeightControl.com Interview with:
Maya Vadiveloo, PhD, RD
Assistant Professor
Nutrition and Food Sciences
University of Rhode Island

WeightControl.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: We conducted this study with the goal of helping people make healthier dietary choices while at the grocery store. We know that food companies use personalized messages and discounts that prompt people to buy unhealthy foods. We tested whether similar approaches could be used to encourage people to buy healthier foods by sending people 2 personalized, healthy food coupons each week to make these foods more affordable. We also wanted our recommendations to reflect people’s dietary preferences, so we only sent people coupons that aligned with preferences they told us at the beginning of the study .

The coupons were directly linked to people’s loyalty cards and they also received a brief nutrition message and recipe via email every week.

Overall, we found that people liked the personalized healthy food incentives, that it prompted them to purchase more healthy foods, and improved the overall diet quality of their grocery purchases.

Lockdown Effects of Obesity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Our research suggests that we have to look beyond the direct effect of COVID-19 and mortality, and need to consider the medium- and long-term effects on non-COVID diseases such as diabetes.

WeightControl.com Interview with:
Dr Amitava Banerjee MA MPH DPhil FHEA FAHA FESC FRCP FRCP (Ed) FFCI
Associate Professor in Clinical Data Science and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist
Institute of Health Informatics, University College London
Adjunct Associate Professor in Public Health
Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi, India

WeightControl.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Severe obesity was on the UK government’s list of moderate risk conditions for severe COVID-19 on 16 March 2020(1), with increased importance for social distancing and other measures. Obesity is in itself a risk factor for chronic diseases, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease, which themselves increase the risk of severe COVID-19. We aimed to project the number of excess deaths in severely obese individuals. In addition, the lockdown can lead to prolonged periods of inactivity and weight gain, which could lead to increased burden of chronic diseases, particularly diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. To provide these projections, we used national electronic health records representative of the UK population.

Successful Weight Loss Counseling with Both In-Clinic and Remote Primary Care Visits

Primary healthcare, even in under-resources rural settings, has the capacity to offer effective weight loss counseling through different types of patient visits

WeightControl.com Interview with:
Christie A. Befort, Ph.D., Professor
Associate Director, Cancer Prevention and Control
Co-Leader, Cancer Control and Population Health Program
KU Cancer Center

WeightControl.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Primary care clinics are an important place for patients to get help with weight loss, especially for those who are at risk from obesity-related health complications or who have other medical conditions that may make weight loss more difficult. This is especially true in remote rural areas where obesity prevalence is higher and there is less access to effective programs.

WeightControl.com: What are the main findings?

Response: Rural primary care clinics are able to offer weight loss counseling to their patients with clinically meaningful long-term weight loss after 2 years for approximately 2 out of 5 patients. In-clinic group visits have a small advantage over in-clinic individual visits for weight loss outcomes.

Mediterranean Diet Linked to Liver Fat Reduction

WeightControl.com Interview with:
Anat Yaskolka Meir RD Ph.D.
Post-doctoral fellow
Department of Epidemiology
Faculty of Health Sciences
Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel

WeightControl.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: In the past 15 years, Prof. Shai’s group at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev has conducted several large-scale, long-term clinical trials among over 1000 participants. Results from our previous DIRECT, CASCADE, and CENTRAL trials indicated that the Mediterranean diet is superior to other diets in terms of reducing cardiometabolic risk (e.g., by achieving lower blood lipids levels). Moreover, specific plant components named “polyphenols” (secondary metabolites of plants with antioxidant properties) might associate with this beneficial effect observed. Following the conclusions from these trials, we designed the DIRECT PLUS trial, aimed to examine whether we can enhance the observed and known effect of the Mediterranean diet by adding specific polyphenol-rich food items. Specifically, we enriched the Mediterranean diet, naturally rich in polyphenols, by adding specific components: Mankai aquatic plant (as green shake), walnuts, and green tea, which provided additional 1240 mg polyphenols a day. We also instructed the participants to avoid red and processed meat.

The main finding from this study is that the green Mediterranean diet, the enhanced version of the Mediterranean diet, rich in walnuts, green tea, and Mankai aquatic plant and low in red/processed meat, was the most successful in liver fat reduction. This group showed the greatest reduction of hepatic fat (-39%), as compared to the traditional Mediterranean diet (-20%) and the healthy dietary guidelines (-12%). The results were significant after adjusting for weight loss (currently, the primary treatment for fatty liver). Moreover, the prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases was reduced in the green group by 50%.

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Fried Foods Linked to Cardiovascular Disease

WeightControl.com Interview with:

Fulan Hu
School of Public Health
Shenzhen University Health Science Center
Shenzhen, Guangdong
People’s Republic of China

WeightControl.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Increasing number of studies has explored the association of fried food consumption and risk of cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality. However, the association remains contradictory and dose–response association is unknown.

In this meta-analysis, we found that total fried food consumption was significantly associated with increased risk of major cardiovascular events, coronary heart disease, and heart failure. A linear association was observed for the relation of fried food consumption and major cardiovascular events, coronary heart disease, and heart failure.