Who or what's to blame for Americans' sedentary lifestyles? Many argue it's technology. Instead of scrubbing clothes in a wash tub and hanging them out dry we throw them into the washer and dryer. Instead of walking or biking to get to the store or our jobs we drive. Instead of getting up to change the channel we use the remote. Instead of playing active games outside we sit inside and watch TV or play computer or video games. The list goes on and on. Below, you will find the number of calories we miss out on burning by choosing technology (four labor-saving devices) instead of activity. 

Calories Burned Per Day* 

*Source: Lanningham-Foster L, Nysse LJ, Levine JA. Labor saved, calories lost: the energetic impact of domestic labor-saving devices. Obes Res. 2003;11:1178-1181. 

While 110 calories per day doesn't seem like much, this could result in more than 10 pounds gained per year! And this is just four of the many labor-saving devices we use each day!

But, is technology all bad? Are there ways that technology can help us become more active? Post your thoughts and we'll provide ours on next week's blog.

On numerous occasions, the Stand Up & Eat blog has shared data, videos, and other information that demonstrate our nation’s poor calorie literacy rate.  While the problems are legion, they lie mostly in three major areas:

1. The vast majority of people don’t know how many calories they should be eating.
2. Most people don’t have a clue about the calories that are in different foods and beverages. 
3. Very few people can state with precision the number of calories they burn each day in metabolism and in particular, via physical activity.  (Sorry, the “calories burned” feature on most exercise machines is not accurate!)

Not being calorie literate has undoubtedly contributed to people’s lack of balance between calories eaten and calories burned.  This calorie imbalance in turn has lead to the rapid rise in obesity rates. 

Data from the International Food Information Council’s (IFIC) recent food and health survey sheds a little light on the scope of our calorie literacy problem.  In the study, each participant was asked to estimate the number of calories that a person of their same age, gender, body size and physical activity level would need each day.  The good news is that only 29% of those surveyed where unable or unwilling to provide a daily calorie estimate of any sort.  In 2006, 43% didn’t give a daily calorie estimate.  So people just might be learning that calories do count.

Unfortunately, people still can’t count calories accurately.  The IFIC study results showed that while more people gave a calorie estimate in 2008 than in 2006, only 15% of survey participants were able to accurately estimate their daily calorie need.  The survey also showed that 42% underestimated and 14% overestimated their daily calorie needs.  This further elucidates the dire need for higher calorie literacy rates. 

But here’s an interesting paradox.  If nearly one-half of those surveyed underestimated their total daily calorie needs, why is overweight and obesity such a problem?  Simple.  We don’t pay close enough attention to how many calories we actually put into our mouths.  The daily total usually exceeds what we need and far exceeds the total calories that we think we should be eating. 

Check out the Stand Up & Eat calorie needs calculator to learn what is a good daily calorie level for you.  Also, the Healthy Eating blogs and Library have many ways to learn how to cut down your calorie intake without sacrificing good nutrition.

From time to time we will expose the calorie content of certain foods to enable you to make educated decisions when eating out. As mentioned in a previous blog, while some restaurants choose to (or are required to) provide this information, many don't.  And without knowing how many calories you are consuming, how will you know if you've run over your daily calorie recommendation?

This week we're revealing the high, the low, and the holy cow of calories found in various Chinese foods.  But before we get there let's take a quick look at what a recent research article reported about Chinese buffets...

To better understand the relationship between obesity and easily accessible food, several researchers out of Cornell University investigated the differences in eating behaviors among customers at Chinese buffet restaurants. Their results showed that customers with higher levels of Body Mass Index (BMI) were more likely to be associated with using larger plates vs. smaller plates and sit facing the buffet vs. facing away from the buffet. Customers with higher BMIs were also less likely to be associated with using chopsticks vs. forks, browsing the buffet before eating vs. serving themselves immediately, and having a napkin on their lap vs. not having a napkin on their lap. Customers with lower BMIs left more food on their plates and chewed more per bite of food. While these finding can’t show cause and effect (e.g., eating with chopsticks lowers your BMI), they do back up some hypothesized principles of food intake like food convenience – people eat more food when it is easier to access like with a fork or a large buffet immediately in front of them.

So even after you've decided that you'll sit at a booth across the room from the buffet and use chop sticks instead of a fork it is still wise to select a dish that is not sky high in calories. The information below will help you make a calorie-conscious decision:

Lower Calorie Choices*: Steamed Vegetable or Shrimp Dumplings (300 calories), Chicken Lettuce Wraps (400 calories), Buddha’s Delight – Stir Fried Mixed Vegetables (400 calories), Shrimp with Lobster Sauce (400 calories)  

Higher Calorie Choices*: Vegetarian Ma Po Tofu (550 calories), Chicken and Broccoli (660 calories), Moo Goo Gai Pan (660 calories), Black Bean Chicken (675 calories), Szechuan Shrimp (700 calories), Chicken Chow Mein (700 calories)

Extremely High Calorie Choices*: Sweet and Sour Pork (1,100 calories), Kung Pao Chicken (1,300 calories), Combination Lo Mein (1,400 calories), Orange Crispy Beef (1,500 calories), Combination Fried Rice (1,500 calories)

*Calorie content provided by nationwide chains. Lower calorie choices have 400 or less calories per typical serving; higher calorie choices have between 400 and 700 calories per typical serving; and extremely high calorie choices have over 700 calories per typical serving. To lower the calorie content of any meal you can ask the chef to prepare your dish “stock velveted” (with vegetable stock instead of oil), light or with no oil, or with the sauce on the side.

There’s been a lot of press coverage on the study we highlighted in last week's blog about children doing less physical activity as they get older.  We now know that students’ physical fitness declines with age as well. 

The Texas Education Association recently released a report of the results from fitness testing done in Texas schools this spring.  Over 2.5 million children from grades 3 through 12 completed tests to assess physical fitness in six areas – cardiovascular endurance, body fat, abdominal strength, upper body strength, shoulder flexibility, and back strength and flexibility.  The Cooper Institute’s FITNESSGRAM fitness assessment program was used as the testing protocol.  Among third graders, 28% of boys and 32% of girls attained the “Healthy Fitness Zone” for all six tests.  For high school seniors, less than 10% of girls and boys reached the “Healthy Fitness Zone” on all of the tests.  Click here for more information on the Texas schools results. 

This report and the recent Journal of the American Medical Association study tell us that kids get less fit and less active as they get older.  And sedentary habits in childhood can lead to sedentary habits in adulthood.  There are no easy answers to solving this potentially devastating trend.  But there are groups, including The Cooper Institute, that are working hard to find the answers.  In addition to our FITNESSGRAM program, we offer ACTIVITYGRAM, software that assesses students’ physical activity status and provides a report for parents on how to improve their students’ activity level.

Another Cooper Institute youth-related activity is Our Kids’ Health®.  This initiative is aimed at reducing childhood obesity through improved physical activity and healthy eating practices.  Our Kids’ Health® will equip students, schools, and parents with information, resources, and data that will mobilize communities to take action to support and encourage physical activity and healthy eating in our youth.  Click here to learn about Our Kids' Health® and how you can make a donation to help support this important effort.

Being physically active is a key factor in maintaining calorie balance.  Right now, we are at risk for a whole generation being out of calorie balance.  This will lead to even higher levels of obesity in youth and in adults.  Stay tuned to the Stand Up & Eat web site for new resources that parents, teachers, and children can use to learn about calorie literacy.

So what do you think are ways we can keep our kids physically active and physically fit throughout their lives?

It's five o'clock on a Friday afternoon and after a long week of work you and a few friends head out for happy hour. Having meticulously balanced your calories over the week you figure you deserve the treat; and after all, what will one high-calorie meal do to a week's worth of watching calories?

A lot! Despite what you may have heard about the harmlessness (or even the benefits) of splurging one or two days each week, "cheat day" might not be okay for people trying balance calories in with calories out. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis recently reported findings from a study that followed participants over one year of either decreasing their calories by 20% or increasing their daily exercise to have a comparable calorie deficit. What did they find? Before the study started participants consistently gained weight (due to eating more calories and expending less calories) on the weekends but not on weekdays. Although the weekly weight gain was only about 0.077 kilograms, this rate of weight gain could result in an annual increase of 4.0 kilograms, or almost 9 pounds if continued over a year!

And even after the diet and exercise interventions, researchers found this pattern remained the same. Both intervention groups were in negative calorie balance (i.e., they ate less calories then they expended) during the week but on the weekend the calorie restricting group stopped losing weight and the exercising group gained weight–both due to eating too many calories on the weekends.

Still don’t see how a single meal can sabotage an entire week of balanced calories? Do the math… Say Scott determines his daily calorie needs for weight maintenance to be 2300. He is moderately active during the week and sticks very close to his calorie budget each day. But, on Fridays he frequently goes out for happy hour and orders beef nachos (of which he eats 75%) and three light beers totaling 1635 calories. When he arrives home from happy hour he’s usually a little hungry again and eats a few cookies or bowl of ice cream for another 250 calories. Thus, he replaces his typical 450-calorie dinner with a 1885-calorie splurge. While this is only an excess of 1435 daily calories, if he does this just once a week it could lead to an imbalance of 5740 calories over the course of a month, equating to over 1.5 pounds gained if all other calorie conditions remain the same. If he continues this routine for a year it could lead to an 18-plus pound weight gain!

So, yes, every little calorie counts when you’re dealing with the calorie balance scale. And treating yourself to a “cheat day” each week is hard to recover from. However, it is not realistic to forbid yourself from eating high-calorie foods. Instead, allow yourself small indulgences throughout the week (like a square of dark chocolate for dessert); pay close attention to portion sizes when eating high-calorie foods (check out this download - http://www.standupandeat.org/pdf/portion_size_pitfalls_portion.pdf); and plan ahead for times when you know you’ll be tempted to eat more than you’ll expend. An extra walk or bike ride can help to balance out and evening of overeating. 

A long time ago, The American Heart Association had a great educational poster that showed a child lounging on a couch watching television.  The caption read, “Prevent couch potatoes while they are still small fries.”

The poster was prophetic.  A new study published in yesterday’s Journal of the American Medical Association definitively showed that children exercise less – a lot less – as they get older.  As 9 year olds, boys and girls in the study did moderate to vigorous physical activity about three hours a day during the week about the same amount of time on weekends.  By the time they were fifteen, they averaged only 49 minutes per day during the week and 35 minutes per day on the weekend.  This is well below the current recommendation for children of 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity per day.  Girls experienced the biggest drop in physical activity time.  Of course, low levels of physical activity put children – and adults – at risk for becoming overweight and developing chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.

So how do we prevent our “small fries” from being couch potatoes and now in the computer age, “mouse potatoes?”  This study did not determine the reasons for the decline.  But likely, for these children and in the population at large, there are fewer opportunities to be active during the day and after school.  Consider that recess and physical education has diminished if not gone away in most schools.  Some neighborhoods don’t have sidewalks or parks that make it easy for kids to play safely.  And even if they could, many children are not allowed to play outside until their parents or caregiver gets home.  Parents and caregivers need to be made aware of the importance of physical activity in their children’s lives.

The Stand Up & Eat web site is committed to helping people of all ages be active and eat healthier diets.  As the site grows, you will find more tools and resources that you can use to activate yourself, your children, and your community. 

Use the comment section below to let us and others know how you are practicing or promoting active living and healthy eating.

After going for a walk or bike ride, have you ever wondered how many calories you burned?  Or how far you went? 

MapMyFitness, LLC offers a suite of web sites that help you measure the distance and calories burned of your walks, runs, hikes and bike rides.  You simply use your mouse to trace your walking, running or biking route on a map view (looks like a MapQuest-type map).  You can then type the time it took you to do the route into the “Workout Calculator” feature.  Click on “Calculate My Stats” and it will show you the distance and calories burned!  Just remember, the calories given will be an estimate because the system can’t take into consideration wind speed or direction, surface type, or changes in elevation.

You can also save your favorite routes and even share your routes with others.  In fact, one of the best features of the MapMy… sites is that you can learn about local routes from other users.  So if you are traveling to Washington, DC, you can view routes that the locals like.  (There are currently 504 walks listed for the DC area!) You can even save your routes to a GPS device.

There are many other neat features of the site such as a training log, newslestter, user stories and photos, a searchable listing of physical activity events, and much more.  Check out MapMyWalk.com and let us know what you think of this handy web site.

When we created the Stand Up & Eat web site, the product described in this video clip is NOT what we had in mind.

The Onion News Network, a spoof news web site, recently ran this hilarious story about a feedbag that people could strap on their heads so they could eat their favorite fast food meal while standing up (or driving or napping).  One interviewee said he liked the feedbag because he sometimes didn’t like to move his arms.  Talk about a way to eat more and move less.  Yikes!

The feedbag “news” story is very, very funny.  But it is also distressing.  Quoting the pseudo-CEO of the fast food chain cited in the clip, “It’s hot steamy foods in your face right now.”  Mindless eating, whether it is with a feedbag or by mindlessly dipping your hand into a large bag of chips is a sure way to get your calorie balance out of whack.

To learn more about how to combat mindless eating, check out Dr. Brian Wansink’s book, Mindless Eating:  Why We Eat More Than We Think and his resource-rich website.