Saturated fat pledge

The Department of Health says

"cutting the amount of saturated fat in people's diets could save lives"

 

 

 A pledge by food manufacturers to cut saturated fat levels is "a drop in the ocean" in the fight against obesity, a top public health expert has said.

Morrisons, Subway and Nestle are among firms signed up to the voluntary "responsibility deal" between industry and government.

But Prof John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health, said the approach "lacked credibility".

The Department of Health (DoH) said it would "make a huge difference".

It says the average man should eat no more than 30g of saturated fat a day, while the average woman should eat no more than 20g.

According to the British Dietetic Association, most people eat about 20% more than the recommended maximum levels - and a survey of 2,000 people for Sainsbury's found 84% of those questioned did not know how much saturated fat was a healthy amount.

Healthy options

Public health minister for England Jane Ellison says more than 500 big companies have pledged their support

The DoH said cutting the amount of saturated fat in people's diets by 15% could prevent around 2,600 premature deaths every year from conditions such as heart disease and stroke.

Almost half of the food manufacturing and retail industry - based on market share - has signed up to this latest pledge to reduce the amount of saturated fat in products, the DoH said.

Measures planned by companies include Nestle altering the make-up of KitKat biscuits, Morrisons reformulating its range of spreads and Subway replacing biscuits and crisps in its Kids' Pak with healthier options.

Other firms which are cutting saturated fat or have pledged to do so include Tesco, Sainsbury's, Aldi and Mondelez International - which will alter products including its Oreo biscuits.

Prof Ashton said that, while it was "a good thing that some companies are making food that has less saturated fat than before", the pledge did not go far enough.

Saturated fat

• Saturated fat is the kind of fat found in butter and lard, pies, cakes and biscuits, fatty cuts of meat, sausages and bacon, and cheese and cream
• Eating a diet that is high in saturated fat can raise the level of cholesterol in the blood, which increases the risk of heart disease, according to NHS Choices
• Most of us eat too much saturated fat - about 20% more than the recommended maximum amount
• The average man should eat no more than 30g of saturated fat a day
• The average woman should eat no more than 20g of saturated fat a day

"They need to ensure that at the same time they lower the sugar and salt that they have used to make foods more tasty as a result of lowering the fat content."

He added: "This announcement is a drop in the ocean in comparison with the scale of the obesity crisis.

"We cannot rely on the voluntary approach of the responsibility deal to solve this problem.

"It now lacks credibility and can be seen as a feeble attempt by the industry to save face."

Labour public health spokeswoman Luciana Berger said: "A few company names on a non-binding plan with no timescale stands little chance of delivering the fundamental change needed to improve our national diet.

"In the week that the chief medical officer warned of the long-term dangers of childhood obesity, we need to go much further."

She said Labour had put forward "bold ideas to set legal limits on our food's fat, sugar and salt content and achieve a cross-party ambition for a more physically-active nation".
'Huge progress'
Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum, also called for regulation, adding: "The much-vaunted voluntary responsibility deal will never succeed until the government takes a grip and makes everybody sign up to it."

Prof Alan Maryon-Davis of the Faculty of Health is concerned little is being done

The DoH said that "by reducing the amount of saturated fat in everyday foods, manufacturers and retailers are helping us lead healthier lives".

"We have already made huge progress through the responsibility deal - there are reduced salt levels in many products, calories on high street menus and better information about alcohol units and drinking guidelines," a spokesperson said.

"We know there is more to be done but today's pledge will make a huge difference to our health."

Prof Susan Jebb, chairwoman of the Responsibility Deal Food Network, said the manufacturers' commitments to help reduce saturated fat were "an important step forward".

The announcement of the pledge comes days after cardiologist Aseem Malhotra, a member of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges' obesity steering group, wrote in the British Medical Journal that the risk from saturated fat in non-processed food was "overstated and demonised".

He said there was too much focus on the fat with other factors such as sugar often overlooked.

He told Radio 4's Today on Saturday that "a sugary drinks tax, banning junk food advertising to children, ensuring compulsory nutritional standards in schools and hospitals... are things that are going to overcome the problems that we face".

Obese children should keep food diaries

Track your ins vs. outs

Keeping tabs on what children eat, and when, could identify bad habits that need addressing
Children who are overweight or obese should be encouraged to keep a food-and-activity diary, say new public health guidelines for England.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence says more needs to be done to tackle child obesity.

It says getting parents and their children to track what they snack on and how much TV they watch could help.

Although rates are levelling off, three in every 10 children aged between two and 15 are overweight or obese.

The guidelines make a raft of recommendations, including greater support from local authorities, but say families are at the heart of managing the issue.

Children from around the age of 12 - depending on their ability - should be encouraged to monitor their eating, physical activity and any sedentary behaviour, say the guidelines.

"For example, encourage them to keep a record of time spent watching television or playing computer games, and what they snack on and when, to identify areas that need addressing," says NICE.

For younger children, parents and carers should keep tabs.

The guidelines also stress the importance of helping parents and carers recognise that their child is overweight.

Life-long changes

A National Opinion Poll involving more than 1,000 parents of children aged between four and seven showed that only 14% of those with an obese child considered that their child was overweight.

Schools already monitor their pupils by measuring and weighing them at around age five when they start primary school and again as they leave at around the age of 11.

NICE says all family members need to be on board, regardless of their own weight, to encourage healthy eating patterns and promote physical exercise - by walking to school, for example.

Prof Mike Kelly, Director of the Centre for Public Health at NICE, said: "We are recommending family-based lifestyle programmes are provided which give tailored advice.

"These programmes will also support parents to identify changes that can be done at home to tackle obesity - and maintained over the long term. Many of them are things we should all be doing anyway, including healthy eating, getting the whole family to be more active and reducing the amount of time spent watching TV and playing computer games.

"Being overweight or obese has a significant impact on a child's quality of life. It can affect their self-esteem and they are more likely to be bullied or stigmatised."

By Michelle Roberts

Health editor

Time for a new approach: Eat less, move more and sleep well

'Sleep - key to tackling obesity'

 

Isn't this appealing when your energy is flagging?

The focus in the fight to tackle obesity tends to be diet and exercise. But what about sleep?

Getting a good night's rest is just as important. It is an undeniable fact that we have a problem with obesity in the UK. The government and the NHS rightly believe that for the health of the nation, levels of obesity need to be reduced.

So we have campaigns based on eating less and more healthily, such as "5-a-day" and exercise - "10,000 steps a day" and the "Change for Life" initiative.

However, given recent reports, these efforts, whilst very well-meaning, are seemingly having absolutely no effect on reducing levels of obesity or increasing rates of exercising.
The conventional line is that this is because we are all victims of the "aggressive advertising" and "easy availability" of sugary and fatty foods and/or that we are addicted to computer games/TV/Facebook etc.

Numerous studies have shown a significant association between short sleep duration and being overweight or obese in both children and adults.

And I believe that it is more than coincidence that, over the last 40 years, as there has been a reduction in our sleep duration, there has also been a rise is the number of people who are overweight or obese.

Using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), poor sleep has been shown to affect the brain areas responsible for complex decision-making and response to rewards causing us to favour unhealthy foods.
Apple - or cupcake?
Poor sleep also causes changes in the levels of our hunger hormones.

There is a decrease in the level of leptin - which regulates food intake and signals when we have enough food, while the level of ghrelin - which stimulates appetite, fat production and body growth - rises.

Getting enough sleep

•  Poor sleep can damage mood, concentration, energy and even relationships
• Try avoiding key things that make it hard to sleep such as a bedroom that's too warm
• Creating a personal sleep profile can help you manage your body clock effectively

Research suggests this causes 24% higher feelings of hunger, a 23% increase in overall appetite but a 33% increased desire for high-fat, high-carbohydrate foods making us feel that we have had insufficient food and thus encouraging us to increase food intake.

Short sleep has also been shown to increase our urge to snack between meals and causes us to excessively season our food, eat fewer vegetables, buy more junk food and buy more food overall.

So the availability and advertising of junk food is seen as the problem.

However, the simple fact is that because of poor sleep, you may actually physiologically want to eat these foods regardless of the efforts of the multi-national purveyors of junk food - though this is in no way trying to absolve them of their responsibilities.

But be honest - when you are sleepy, which would you prefer: an apple or a cupcake?

The "eat less, move more" message, no matter how it is presented and how much money is spent on its promotion, is obviously not working.

Up until now, there has been no serious government or NHS advice or guidance about sleep, no multi-million pound campaigns.

I believe that if we are serious about reducing the weight of the nation and increasing rates of exercise, we need to address the issue of poor sleep.

Isn't it is time for a new approach - "eat less, move more, sleep well"?

 

By Dr Neil Stanley

 

 

Exercise as good as pills...?

Exercise as good as pills...?

Exercise can be as good a medicine as pills for people with conditions such as heart disease, a study has found.

The work in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) looked at hundreds of trials involving nearly 340,000 patients to assess the merits of exercise and drugs in preventing death.
Physical activity rivalled some heart drugs and outperformed stroke medicine.
The findings suggest exercise should be added to prescriptions, say the researchers.
Experts stressed that patients should not ditch their drugs for exercise - rather, they should use both in tandem.

Prescriptions rise
Too few adults currently get enough exercise. Only a third of people in England do the recommended 2.5 hours or more of moderate-intensity activity, such as cycling or fast walking, every week.
In contrast, prescription drug rates continue to rise.
There were an average of 17.7 prescriptions for every person in England in 2010, compared with 11.2 in 2000.
For the study, scientists based at the London School of Economics, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute at Harvard Medical School and Stanford University School of Medicine trawled medical literature to find any research that compared exercise with pills as a therapy.
They identified 305 trials to include in their analysis. These trials looked at managing conditions such as existing heart disease, stroke rehabilitation, heart failure and pre-diabetes.
When they studied the data as a whole, they found exercise and drugs were comparable in terms of death rates.

But there were two exceptions:

• Drugs called diuretics were the clear winner for heart failure patients
• Exercise was best for stroke patients in terms of life expectancy.

Health benefits Doing exercise regularly:

• Can reduce your risk of major illnesses, such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer by up to 50%
• Can lower your risk of early death by up to 30%
• Can boost self-esteem, mood, sleep quality and energy as well as keep weight off
• Moderate activity, such as cycling or fast walking, gives your heart and lungs a work-out

Source: NHS Choices

Amy Thompson, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said that although an active lifestyle brings many health benefits, there is not enough evidence to draw any firm conclusions about the merit of exercise above and beyond drugs.

"Medicines are an extremely important part of the treatment of many heart conditions and people on prescribed drugs should keep taking their vital meds. If you have a heart condition or have been told you're at high risk of heart disease, talk to your doctor about the role that exercise can play in your treatment."
Dr Peter Coleman of the Stroke Association said exercise alongside drugs had a vital role that merited more research.
"We would like to see more research into the long-term benefits of exercise for stroke patients.
"By taking important steps, such as regular exercise, eating a balanced diet and stopping smoking, people can significantly reduce their risk of stroke."
"Moderate physical activity, for example, can reduce the risk of stroke by up to 27%."