A recent article over at Yahoo Health focuses on the best and worst restaurant menus.

The authors of the article looked at 43 national chain restaurants and judged their food choices based on the nutritional value of the individual items. They judged the menus based on the following criteria:

• healthy vegetable sides
• calories in kid menu items
• healthy, kid friendly adult menu items
• presence of trans fats
• non-soda drinks

The best restaurants on their list included Chick-fil-A, Subway, Boston Markets, and (surprise) McDonald’s. These four chain restaurants score As or Bs on the chart. For the restaurants on the low end in the article, the authors chose Applebee’s, IHOP, Olive Garden, Outback, Red Lobster, and T.G.I. Friday’s. For the rest of the list and more on the criteria they used, check out the article link above.

Listings like this give us all more options when helping our patients to make healthier choices. Keep your eyes open for news items and keep the articles or links so that you can refer your patients to these resources. Another resource is to contact dietitians in your facility or area to get tips from them. Many will have hand outs for you to hold on to so you have things to hand out to your patients when they need that kind of pocket reinforcement.

More nutritional information is available from the authors’ site at Men’sHealth.com at Eat This Not That? Sign up for their free weekly newsletter.

And introducing: Eat This, Not That Mobile! Now get the exclusive healthy eating info you need at any market, restaurant or roadside stand—instantly!

(July 17, 2008 CDC Press Release) — The proportion of U.S. adults who self report they are obese increased nearly 2 percent between 2005 and 2007, according to a report in today’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). An estimated 25.6 percent of U.S. adults reported being obese in 2007 compared to 23.9 percent in 2005, an increase of 1.7 percent. The report also finds that none of the 50 states or the District of Columbia has achieved the Healthy People 2010 goal to reduce obesity prevalence to 15 percent or less.

In three states – Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee – the prevalence of self-reported obesity among adults age 18 or older was above 30 percent. Colorado had the lowest obesity prevalence at 18.7 percent. Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above. BMI is calculated using height and weight. For example, a 5-foot, 9-inch adult who weighs 203 pounds would have a BMI of 30, thus putting this person into the obese category.

The data were derived from CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a state-based telephone survey that collects information from adults aged 18 years and older. For this survey more than 350,000 adults are interviewed each year, making BRFSS the largest telephone health survey in the world. BMI was calculated based on this self-reported information.

“The epidemic of adult obesity continues to rise in the United States indicating that we need to step up our efforts at the national, state and local levels,” said Dr. William Dietz, director of CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity. “We need to encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables, engage in more physical activity and reduce the consumption of high calorie foods and sugar sweetened beverages in order to maintain a healthy weight.”

The study found that obesity is more prominent in the South, where 27 percent of respondents were classified as obese. The percentage of obese adults was 25.3 in the Midwest, 23.3 percent in the Northeast, and 22.1 percent in the West.

By age, the prevalence of obesity ranged from 19.1 percent for men and women aged 19-29 years to 31.7 and 30.2 percent, respectively, for men and women aged 50-59 years.

“Obesity is a major risk factor for a number of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. These diseases can be very costly for states and the country as a whole,” said Deb Galuska, associate director for science for CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity.

For more information on obesity trends, including an animated map, visit http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps

To learn more about CDC’s efforts in the fight against obesity or for more information about nutrition, physical activity, and maintaining a healthy weight, visit http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa.

A study looking at ways to cut childhood obesity and hypertension found that by cutting dietary salt, they could cut down on the amount of sugared soft drinks consumed by children.

The study was released in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association and was conducted by researchers at St. George’s University of London, England.

Here’s the link to the article.

The researchers looked at 2000 people between the ages of 4 and 18 who participated in a 1998 dietary survey. They found that children who had low salt diets consumed less liquid. They correlated a decrease of 1 gram of salt with a decrease of 100 mL of fluid intake. The authors further offered that by cutting average salt intake in half, children would consume 2 fewer sweetened soft drinks per week (amounts to 250 kcal less per week).

This is an important look at how simple changes in lifestyle have major long term health effects. This change in food preparation and choices has a long term health effect on development of hypertension and obesity.