Cakes, biscuits and energy bars are, for many people, just staples of everyday life – the snacks that keep them going through the day. But most people don’t realise just how easy it is to over-consume calories while snacking.
South Africa has the highest rates of childhood obesity in the world, with an alarming figure of 13%, while the global average stands at 6%. One of the main causes is the rapid growth of the country’s commercial food industry, and an increased consumption of cheap, easily accessible and ultra-processed food high in sugar.
High-fructose corn syrup has been a scapegoat for American obesity for the past decade and a half, so you might be surprised to learn that sugar and honey both have more fructose than high-fructose corn syrup.
Many studies have already found an association between junk foods and weight gain, but this link has never been investigated with a randomised controlled trial (RCT), the gold standard of clinical studies.
New US government data charts some interesting changes in average bodies over recent decades.
Not all calories are alike. Here's the first big study - out of Harvard - with hard evidence to explain why....
Added sugar in our diet is a very recent phenomenon and only occurred when sugar, obtained from sugar cane, beet and corn, became very cheap to produce. It’s a completely unnecessary part of our calorie intake: it has no nutritional value, gives no feeling of fullness and is acknowledged to be a major factor in causing obesity and diabetes both in the UK and worldwide.
Middle-class South Africans are getting fatter and lazier, despite having access to discounted gyms and knowing the dangers of being overweight. This is according to the 2014 Discovery Vitality ObeCity Index, which measures eating habits, weight, time spent exercising and the mental wellbeing of...
Cases of diabetes and pre-diabetes in the United States have nearly doubled since 1988, suggests new research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, with obesity apparently to blame for the surge. The researchers also found that the burden of the disease has...
A study published in Appetite shows that people who do not taste fat in food are more likely to overeat, adding weight to the growing body of research that points to a connection between fat taste and obesity.
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South Africa has the highest overweight and obesity rate in sub-Saharan Africa: seven out of 10 women and four out of 10 men have significantly more body fat than what is deemed healthy, according to a groundbreaking new study published in the medical journal, the...
Can poor people afford the latest high fat, low carb diet that's taken popular root among South Africa's middle classes? A community service doctor in Mpumalanga challenged herself to a two-week 'Bant' on the budget of a poor rural South African ie on only R150...
Fat-phobia has become a dietary axiom. For 50 years scientists have been presenting evidence linking fats, especially saturated fats like those found in animal products, with cardiovascular disease. Yet new studies show that drinking low-fat milk is like throwing out the...
A new US documentary film, Fed Up, hit cinemas in North America last week. Following the likes of Supersize Me, Fast Food Nation, Food, Inc and the likes, it's destined to ratchet up the anti-sugar pressures that are putting a squeeze on food manufacturers, in...
Consuming full-fat dairy products seems to reduce the risk of becoming obese. This "dairy fat paradox" is the suggestion that if by optin for low-fat versions of dairy products people are more likely to become obese than those who eat full-fat versions....
Since the 1960s, nutrition science has been dominated by two conflicting observations. One is that we know how to eat healthy and maintain a healthy weight. The other is that the rapidly increasing rates of obesity and diabetes suggest that something about...
A global drive to tackle the causes of cancer linked to lifestyle, such as alcohol abuse, sugar consumption and obesity, has been urged by the World Health Organisation as it predicts the number of new cases could soar 70% to nearly 25 million...
Of major importance to the food industry, these four issues are among seven long-term 'megatrends', business growth themes that will change everyone's lives in the coming years and need to be on the investor's radar screens, both from a risk and opportunity perspective, according...
Under government, consumer, media, foodie, retailer, and nutritionist pressures, food manufacturers are responding to remake their products with less added sodium and sugar. But they are doing it quietly. In fact, the industry’s name for the strategy is stealth reduction. Here's...
Bacteria growing naturally in the human gut could be playing a decisive role in determining whether someone becomes overweight or obese according to a remarkable study involving laboratory mice fed with bacterial gut 'fauna' from fat and thin people. The researchers responsible...