Fitness Pudding - Where The Proof Is

A really cool study recently examined 82 women on a hypocaloric diet, who were randomly assigned to an ‘early evening meal group’ (EEM; 7:00-7:30pm) or a ‘late evening meal group’ (LEM; 10:30-11:00pm) for 12 weeks. 1 The EEM group did lose a little more weight, about 4.5 lbs, on average, than the LEM group (15 lbs vs.10.5 lbs), leading the authors to conclude that, “eating an earlier evening meal resulted in favorable changes in weight loss...

Adults might believe that children will only like candy for Halloween. But, with the health concerns and risks of binging on that candy, Yale researchers investigated if non-food treats would work as a substitute for candy on Halloween. Nearly 300 trick or treating children were presented with two identical plates: one with four different types of Halloween-themed toys and another with four different types of name brand candy - all 5 to 10 cents per item....

  A social contagion is a process where the network in which people are embedded, influence their behaviors.  The idea of obesity being socially contagious is not new. 1,2,4 The idea is this: If you live around people who have healthy behaviors, you might be influenced to have healthy behaviors. However, if you live around people with unhealthy behaviors, you might follow suit - thus increasing your risk of obesity. It has been shown, for example,...

A recent study 1 looked at this exact question. Participants used smart phones to scan food barcodes for 4 weeks. The nutrition labels were then displayed for all the products they scanned. They found that the products for which participants viewed the label, and subsequently purchased were about 13% healthier than the products where the labels were viewed, but were not purchased. The authors conclude that, "nutrition labels may influence healthier food purchases by those consumers...

‘Tis the shopping season. Stores are making their big end of the year pushes to get “into the black” (make a profit), alongside the psychological tactics (mostly subconscious) to get us to spend our money. For example, this review on the effects of retail atmosphere on shopping behavior reminds managers that, “...consumers may not always be aware of particular facets of the retail atmosphere, even when it is influencing their behavior. These findings suggest that particular...

The truth is, the overall amount of time that we spend preparing our food has decreased, while, the subsequent consumption of fast food, ready-to-eat meals, and away-from-home foods are increasing. Not having to prepare our own food does save time, but can be more expensive. “In addition, fast food consumption and away-from-home eating is directly associated with higher body weight and risk of obesity. In contrast, involvement in the preparation of food and higher cooking skills...

I am sure you have already noticed the many internet articles and ads popping up about keeping your New Year’s Resolution.  But, what about why we break and abandon our resolutions? I came across a really cool 1972 study by Drs. Marlatt and Kaplan. 4  They examined 135 people and their resolutions over a 3-month period. The majority of resolutions were a desire to lose weight – interestingly, with an average starting weight of only 138 pounds...

Most health and fitness behaviors are organized around goals. We set goals for ourselves, and then enact behaviors that will get us to that goal – at least that is what we hope. We have decades of research on the positive effects of proper goal setting on health behavior change and maintenance. However, recent lay reports are telling us that goals are now bad for us? Why Setting Goals Could Wreck Your Life Why Setting Goals...

Diets, programs, books, and health clubs continue to claim healthy habits can be formed in only 21 days. Recent research suggests that we may need to triple that estimate. Origin of "21 Days" Dr. Maxwell Maltz, a plastic surgeon, wrote a book in the 1960's entitled, "Psycho-Cybernetics", which enlightened us to his views of self-image psychology. From his experiences, he pinpointed 21 days as the time it took his patients to see a change in self-esteem...

Some professionals attempt to encourage us by saying that exercise and healthy eating are easy. Sometimes we even tell ourselves the same thing. Are we making it harder that it needs to be? Definition of Easy: Something you can do. The Challenge: The things that are easy to do are also easy not to do. So true. Since being more active and eating healthier are not that difficult for many people, the larger issue may be that it...