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Enjoying the eating process without focus on dietary restrictions may be key to managing weight and staying healthy, as per scientists who have unveiled a new and effective model for managing eating.

The Satter Eating Competence Model, also known as ecSatter, was created by Ellyn Satter, a registered dietitian, family therapist and author of Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family, Kelcy Press.

Competent eaters are positive, flexible and comfortable with their eating habits and make it a priority to regularly provide themselves with enjoyable and nourishing food. They guide food intake based on the internal processes of hunger, appetite and satisfaction, and rely on the bodys innate ability to maintain a preferred and stable weight.

Satter observes that the eating competence model cultivates effective eating attitudes and behavior by emphasizing permission and discipline:

• The permission to choose food you enjoy and eat it in amounts you find satisfying.

• The discipline to provide yourself with regular and reliable meals and snacks and to pay attention when you eat them.

Being eating competent appears to mirror overall-well being, notes Satter of Madison, Wis. People with high eating competence feel more effective, are more self-aware and are more trusting and comfortable both with themselves and with other people.

Barbara Lohse, associate professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State, directed the research on ecSatter. Lohse underscores the models attention to psychological and biological needs.

"A number of of us have eating problems, because as children, we are forced into eating more or less food than we need. That is traumatic. Eating becomes a mindless activity invested with conflict and anxiety, and not something to be enjoyed. To overcome those feelings, you have to ignore how you feel about eating, just eat," said Lohse.

Research by Lohse and her Penn State colleagues suggests that people with high eating competence do better nutritionally, have healthier body weights, higher levels of good cholesterol and fewer of the components of sticky plaque, todays high-tech approach to predicting the tendency to cardiovascular disease.

The Penn State researcher says ecSatter represents a fundamental shift from the conventional approach to eating management. "If it was successful to have people be uncomfortable and restrictive with what they eat, just going by the rules for the nutrients and calories they need, we would not have an obesity problem," said Lohse, whose findings appear this month (September/October) in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

"We need a different mindset: Weight is not the big issue, but rather being comfortable with how you eat," she added.

As per Satter and Lohse, there are four steps to competent eating:

• Take time to eat, and provide yourself with rewarding meals and snacks at regular and reliable times.

• Cultivate positive attitudes about eating and about food. Emphasize providing rather than depriving; seeking food rather than avoiding it.

• Enjoy your eating, eat things you like, and let yourself be comfortable with and relaxed about what you eat. Enjoying eating supports the natural inclination to seek variety, the keystone of healthful food selection.

• Pay attention to sensations of hunger and fullness to determine how much to eat. Go to the table hungry, eat until you feel satisfied, and then stop, knowing another meal or snack is coming soon when you can do it again.

Posted by: Evelyn    Source

Researchers have shown that when either lean or obese individuals exercise after eating a high fat meal, their fats are broken down and oxidized in skeletal muscle, making them healthier. These results show for the first time how a high fat diet and exercise stimulate the breakdown of fats and may help design ways to reduce excessive fat in the body.

Fat is broken down inside fat cells to generate energy by a process called lipolysis. The resulting fatty acids are released into the bloodstream and carried to tissues that require energy. In obese individuals, too much fat accumulates, compromising lipolysis, but the details of how this happens are not well understood. Also, obese individuals can show altered responsiveness to the stress hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine in their subcutaneous fat.

Max Lafontan and his colleagues investigated how fat is broken down in both lean and obese subjects who exercised after either fasting or eating a high-fat diet. They noticed that after eating a high-fat diet, fats were broken down in both lean and obese individuals. Under fasting conditions, the breakdown of fats was more pronounced in the lean subjects, but the high fat meal enhanced lipolysis in the obese subjects.

The researchers also studied the effects of long-chain fatty acids (LCFAs) which are found in high fat diet on cultured fat cells. They noticed that LCFAs increase lipolysis when it is induced by epinephrine, one of the hormones known to stimulate lipolysis.

By showing for the first time how a high fat diet and LCFAs affect hormone-induced lipolysis in fat cells, this study paves the way for further research on the role of various fatty acids on the metabolism of muscle and blood vessel cells, the scientists conclude.

Article: Acute exposure to long-chain fatty acids impairs alpha2-adrenergic receptor-mediated antilipolysis in human adipose tissue, by Jan Polak, Cedric Moro, David Bessiere, Jindra Hejnova, Marie A. Marques, Magda Bajzova, Max Lafontan, Francois Crampes, Michel Berlan, and Vladimir Stich.


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Youre whale watching in Alaska, longing for a margarita and a spot on a beach. You think to yourself, How did I get here" I hate the cold. Never finished Moby Dick. And I get seasick! A fascinating new study from the Journal of Consumer Research finds that when we long for something intensely like a much-needed vacation a wider array of options will sound appealing, potentially leading to some out-of-character choices. Similarly, when we are particularly hungry and presented with an range of menu choices, we are more likely to deviate from our favorite meal.

This article investigated whether desire-induced perception changes can reduce loyalty to favorite[s], explain Caroline Goukens, Siegfried Dewitte, Mario Pandelaere, and Luk Warlop (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium). In general, these findings point to the power of desires to affect choice making.

For example, in the pilot study, the scientists had participants who were hungry and participants who were satiated quickly decide whether they liked or disliked twenty-eight different snacks by pressing either a red or green button. Hungry participants were asked not to eat within four hours of the experiment. Satiated participants were presented with a large piece of cake upon arrival and told they had to finish the entire thing. On average, the participants who were hungry liked two more snacks than the participants who had cake.

In another study, the scientists then tested whether diminishing desire would have an inverse effect, as they wanted to see whether it was the perceived value of the product category that drove the desire for variety. They accidentally exposed one group of participants to smelly two-day old sandwiches, messily left near one experimenter table. All participants were then asked to choose what they would like to eat every day for the next workweek from a menu of sandwiches as part of an ostensible sandwich shop contest. Among hungry participants who were sensitive to disgustingness (tested separately), the scientists observed that exposure to unappealing, odorous sandwiches eliminated the desire for more variety.

Our hypothesis joins two different ideas. The first is the idea that an active desire increases the perceived value of the desired object class, the scientists explain. The second is the idea that this increase in perceived value can influence variety-seeking tendencies. Our results support the notion that an active desire increases the value of any item that may satisfy the desire: Due to a particular desire, a larger number of items may be considered satisfactory than in the absence of that particular desire.


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University of Minnesota scientists have discovered that a common amino acid, available as a health food supplement, may help curb pathological gamblers addiction.

In a recent eight-week trial, 27 people were given increasing doses of the amino acid, N-acetyl cysteine, which has an impact on the chemical glutamate often linked to reward in the brain. At the end of the trial, 60 percent of the participants reported fewer urges to gamble. The research would be reported in the Sept.15, 2007 issue of Biological Psychiatry.

It looks very promising, said Jon Grant, J.D., M.D., a University of Minnesota associate professor of psychiatry and principal investigator of the study. We were able to reduce peoples urges to gamble.

Those who responded well in the first round of the study were asked to continue to participate in a double-blind study a testing method where neither the researcher nor subjects know who is in the control group until the study is finished.

Of the 16 who responded to the amino acid the first time around, 13 agreed to continue in the double-blind study (three didnt want to risk quitting the drug) for an additional six weeks. About 83 percent who received the supplement, continued to report fewer urges to gamble. Nearly 72 percent of those who took the placebo went back to gambling.

Similar studies using N-acetyl cysteine have shown its ability to curb drug addictions in animals, and a current University of Minnesota study conducted by Grant is investigating whether the drug could help methamphetamine users quit.

This research could be encouraging for a lot of addictions, Grant said.

This pilot study is the first to examine the efficacy of a glutamate-modulating agent in the therapy of pathological gamblers, making the findings fairly significant, Grant said.

Because subjects knew they were taking a supplement during the first phase of the study and since there was a relatively small number of subjects in the double-blind portion, a larger study is warranted to confirm the validity of these findings. University of Minnesota scientists are currently seeking a federal grant to fund it.


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So-called 'miracle diets', such as the South Beach diet, the Atkins diet or the Artichoke diet, lack of scientific foundations and are a danger for health.

- Specialists' recommendations include a daily 500 to 700 calorie deficit, depending on body weight, age and physical exercise, as well as a high-fibre diet to gradually lose 6.5 lbs a month.

NOTICIAS UGR After summer holidays, 'miracle-diet' adherents stick to these diets to lose the weight gained in the last months in record time. Gyms also become overcrowded with people making a final sprint of sacrifice whose results do not exactly match prior expectations and with few benefits for health. "In the field of nutrition, miracles do not exist: in the same way we gain weight as years pass by, weight loss should be equally progressive", states Professor Emilio Martínez de Victoria Muñoz, Head of the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology at the University of Granada (Universidad de Granada) in Spain.

Energy balance.
It becomes clear that the energy needed by the body to carry out its functions comes essentially from food. Nevertheless, a whole range of hormonal and nervous mechanisms take part in body weight regulation, which makes such process a bit more complex.

When the amount of consumed calories is similar to that of calories used during the day, the energy balance is kept stable and, therefore, weight is kept constant. However, when consumed calories exceed used calories this balance is disturbed and weight is gained, as excess calories are stored as fat in the body. As an example, Professor Martínez de Victoria points out that an energetically-balanced girl who is given a chocolate cookie a day during four years will gain 20 lbs (approximately 9 kg) in that time.

Easy lost, easy back.

The researcher affirms that 'miracle diets' are useless to get a stable negative energy balance. There are no scientific foundations behind the vast majority of these diets and they commonly restrict consumption of certain food groups, which entails nutrient deficiency whose consequences are serious health problems. In addition to this, 'miracle diets' only help to lose weight in the form of glycogen and water - not fat - that being the reason why rapidly lost pounds are immediately recovered.

Among those 'panacea diets', and absolutely ignoring all medical recommendations on what a healthy diet should be like, consumers will come across the South Beach diet, a revolutionary plan that allows you to eat as much as you wish while assuring that to lose weight you will have to undergo a two-week purifying period based upon the elimination of sugar and simple carbohydrates. Atkins nutritional method is another example: with this diet you can eat unlimited amounts of fats - such as butter - as well as of meat, fish, eggs and dairy products, whilst restricting vegetables and fruit. These are only two of the endless list of 'miracle diets', in which the Artichoke diet or the Blood Type diet also occupy leading positions.

Keeping weight under control.

Prof. Martínez de Victoria insists that the best way to control body weight is to combine a limited food intake with regular physical exercise. In this sense, he states that with a 500 to 700 calorie deficit, depending on body weight, age and physical exercise, a person can gradually lose 6.5 lbs a month, with the guarantee of not recovering double the weight they lost in half the time they lost it.

In the same way, this researcher stresses the fact that a high-fibre diet helps control obesity, as fibre-rich foods facilitate a lower intake because their mastication time is longer and, due to their volume, produce the filling sensation more quickly. Furthermore, fibre speeds intestinal transit time while slowing food absorption.

All these data have been recently presented in the University of Granada's summer course 'Healthy Food and Physical Activity' (Alimentacion Saludable y Actividad Física),.


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