Training For Life

Myths—no one knows how they get started. Usually there’s a grain of truth but it fast gets twisted as the story spreads. Nutritional myths are especially long lived. Here are the top 10 nutritional falsehoods.

1. You Can Eat Whatever You Want—As Long As You Exercise.

Yes, exercise burns a lot of calories, but no, you cannot eat that whole ice cream cake yourself just because you pumped iron today. Sorry. Exercising is great but there still are only so many calories you can burn in a workout session. Besides, if you’re working out your body needs healthy food to fuel it through your treadmill routine, so why would you want to eat chips after you get home from the gym?

2. All Carbohydrates Are Bad.

Not at all. Of course there is a difference between a cream cheese slathered bagel and a healthy serving of whole grains. But carbohydrates in general are your body’s preferred source of fuel. Skimp on carbohydrates and you’ll wind up feeling tired, cranky, and light-headed.

3. Okay Then, All Fat Is Bad.

Wrong again. Not all fat is bad, either. You need a little fat in your diet. And certain types of fat—specifically, the mono-unsaturated fatty acids found in nuts, chocolate, olive oil, and seeds as well as the omega-3s found in fish—are really quite good for you.

4. Skipping Meals Helps You Lose Weight.

This could not be more wrong. Skipping meals tricks your body into going into starvation mode, so it instinctively resists weight loss. Plus, how long can you really go without eating? Eventually hunger will take over and you’ll binge on junk.

5. Low Fat Or Fat Free Is Better.

No, it’s worse. Food manufacturers simply replace the fat with sugar or with nasty chemical additives so that the product still tastes good to you.

6. Dairy Products Make You Fat.

If you’re worried about calories in dairy products, just go for the skim or 1% versions. That way you won’t miss out on the calcium and Vitamin D you need. By the way, calcium actually helps you maintain a healthy weight.

7. Eating Late At Night Makes You Fat.

Your waistline does not know what time it is. If you overeat at any time of the day, you will gain weight. If you have a rough day and don’t end up eating your healthy dinner until 10 pm, no harm done.

8. All Vegetarians Are Healthy Eaters.

Vegetarians actually have to work pretty hard to ensure they get the protein, zinc, and iron they need every day, because animal sources are still and always will be the best sources of these nutrients. Whether you include animal products in your diet or not, the overall healthiness of your diet—or the lack thereof—all depends on making wise nutritional choices every day and striving for balance and reasonable portions.

9. Brown Sugar Is Better For You Than White Sugar.

This is not at all logical.

Brown sugar does have trace amounts of certain minerals which white sugar lacks. But in order to get your RDA of these minerals from brown sugar alone, you would have to eat a lot of it. And eating a lot of sugar is not good for you, no matter what color it is.

10. Red Meat Is Unhealthy.

Red meat has a higher saturated fat content compared to some other meats. But the truth is, a chicken thigh can contain just as much saturated fat. Red meat is a great source of iron, so instead of abstaining completely, just buy the leaner cuts.

As determined as you may be to start eating healthier, it’s going to be tough to do if your pantry is overflowing with unhealthy temptations. Dieting is hard enough. Make it easier on yourself by keeping the good food convenient and the bad food out of sight and out of mind. The very first thing you should always do when starting a new diet or exercise regime—whatever it may be?

Give that pantry a makeover!

You’ve no doubt heard of all those trendy detoxifying diets, right? Well you might be better off just detoxifying your pantry. I think that would be a lot easier.

Here’s how to do it in 5 easy steps:

Step 1: Replace anything white with its darker alternative. This includes white flour, white rice, white bread, white pasta. Instead buy whole grain bread and whole grain pasta. Both have come a long way as far as taste and texture go.If you tried them out back in the ‘90s and haven’t given them another chance since then, you might be pleasantly surprised. Buy brown rice and whole wheat flour. Also banned from the pantry: pretzels, tortillas, and any other snacks made of white flour. Why? Because white flour and everything made of it breaks down into glucose in the body, messing up your blood sugar levels and making you gain weight. Whole grains feature more complex sugars that keep you fuller longer.

Step 2: Take a closer look at whatever oils you’re cooking with. If it’s olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil, or safflower oil, you’re in the clear—these are mono-unsaturated fatty acids that are heart-healthy and reduce inflammation while targeting belly fat. If, though, you are using corn oil, blended vegetable oil, or shortening—or perhaps you are actually still using butter—you are increasing your risk of high cholesterol and cancer, and you may be hampering with your natural immune function.

Step 3: If it came individually wrapped in colorful plastic packaging, you should seriously considering tossing it. In general, the more processed a food is, the less nutrients it offers you—and the more toxic chemical additives it features. Cookies, crackers, chips, candy, luncheon meat, gravy mix, frozen dinners—these are all classic examples of overly processed, unhealthy food options. When it comes to any food, remember this: the less time spent between the farmer’s fields and your dinner table, the better.

Step 4: Cut out all the sugar. That means all of it. This is one case where just trading white for brown won’t help you—those all natural cane sugars are no less likely to cause diabetes, obesity, and tooth decay then the traditional white table sugars. Remember that sugar has many disguises—it may be called “dextrose” or , “dextran”, or  “sucrose”, or  “fructose.” It can hide out as “galactose”, or a s “glucose”, or as  “lactose”.  Maybe even “maltodextrin.”

Step 5: No fake food. Take a good look at those frozen ‘blueberry” waffles—chances are there is not a real blueberry to be had in there. Just “artificially flavored blueberry bits.” Why eat artificially flavored blueberry bits when there are plenty of real fresh blueberries out there at the grocery store?

A pantry makeover doesn’t have to be too difficult or expensive. If you are willing to put the time into reading labels, and into planning out a grocery list before you go shopping—and sticking with it!—you should do fine.

You may have read a post from a few weeks ago about why you could be wasting your time with long, slow fat-burning workouts.

There’s more news today. Check out this excerpt from the Science Daily:

“The usual excuse of “lack of time” for not doing enough exercise is blown away by new research published in The Journal of Physiology.

The study, from scientists at Canada’s McMaster University, adds to the growing evidence for the benefits of short term high-intensity interval training (HIT) as a time-efficient but safe alternative to traditional types of moderate long term exercise. Astonishingly, it is possible to get more by doing less!

“We have shown that interval training does not have to be ‘all out’ in order to be effective,” says Professor Martin Gibala. “Doing 10 one-minute sprints on a standard stationary bike with about one minute of rest in between, three times a week, works as well in improving muscle as many hours of conventional long-term biking less strenuously.”

HIT means doing a number of short bursts of intense exercise with short recovery breaks in between.

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The authors have already shown with young healthy college students that this produces the same physical benefits as conventional long duration endurance training despite taking much less time (and amazingly, actually doing less exercise!) However, their previous work used a relatively extreme set-up that involved “all out” pedaling on a specialized laboratory bicycle. The new study used a standard stationary bicycle and a workload which was still above most people’s comfort zone -about 95% of maximal heart rate — but only about half of what can be achieved when people sprint at an all-out pace.

This less extreme HIT method may work well for people (the older, less fit, and slightly overweight among us) whose doctors might have worries about them exercising “all-out.” We have known for years that repeated moderate long-term exercise tunes up fuel and oxygen delivery to muscles and aids the removal of waste products. Exercise also improves the way muscles use the oxygen to burn the fuel in mitochondria, the microscopic power station of cells.

Running or cycling for hours a week widens the network of vessels supplying muscle cells and also boosts the numbers of mitochondria in them so that a person can carry out activities of daily living more effectively and without strain, and crucially with less risk of a heart attack, stroke or diabetes.

But the traditional approach to exercise is time consuming. Martin Gibala and his team have shown that the same results can be obtained in far less time with brief spurts of higher-intensity exercise.

To achieve the study’s equivalent results by endurance training you’d need to complete over 10 hours of continuous moderate bicycling exercise over a two-week period.

The “secret” to why HIT is so effective is unclear. However, the study by Gibala and co-workers also provides insight into the molecular signals that regulate muscle adaptation to interval training. It appears that HIT stimulates many of the same cellular pathways that are responsible for the beneficial effects we associate with endurance training.

The upside of doing more exercise is well-known, but a big question for most people thinking of getting fit is: “How much time out of my busy life do I need to spend to get the perks?”

Martin Gibala says “no time to exercise” is not an excuse now that HIT can be tailored for the average adult. “While still a demanding form of training,” Gibala adds, “the exercise protocol we used should be possible to do by the general public and you don’t need more than an average exercise bike.”

The McMaster team’s future research will examine whether HIT can bring health benefits to people who are overweight or who have metabolic diseases like diabetes.

As the evidence for HIT continues to grow, a new frontier in the fitness field emerges.”

Folks as a fitness consultant, I finally started seeing big results in my clients and athletes when I began incorporating a high amount of HIT in their programs.

As I’ve said before, long, slow aerobic fat-burning workouts certainly have a time and place. For example, one such time and place is in the morning, for anywhere from 20-60 minutes when you need an extra fat-burning boost IF you can still find the time to do intervals and metabolic resistance training later in the day.

Another use of such workouts would be to train your body for a competition, and gain the mental and physical tolerance to sit in a bicycle saddle for five to eights hours, or to stay on your feet during a marathon for two and a half to five hours.

But don’t fool yourself into thinking that you’re getting significantly fitter during these long sessions, especially when compared to fast interval training, and only rely on these long sessions as part of an endurance training program that includes intervals, or as part of a fat loss program if you can still find the time to do intervals.

Does that make sense?

Maybe you’re strapped for gym time and are wondering how those precious minutes would best be spent—with the dumbbells or the barbells? Or maybe you’re trying to put together a home gym without spending a small fortune—should you shell out for dumbbells or barbells? Do you really need both?

Generally, bodybuilders will say that barbells are better for building muscle mass, and dumbbells are for defining muscles and getting that “ripped” appearance. This is partly true, but both dumbbells and barbells have their own unique set of pros and cons, and you should learn a little more about the difference between them, because both can play an important role in your strength training routine.

In weightlifting, negative is actually good thing—negative resistance, that is. Negative resistance refers to the stress put on your muscles when you lower the weights back down to the starting position, and it’s just as important—if not more important—than the positive lifting phase. Imagine you’re performing one of the most popular barbell exercises—the bench press. Once you’ve hoisted that barbell up, you can only lower it down so far—eventually you’re going to have to stop when the barbell returns to your chest. Now picture doing a bench press with a pair of dumbbells. You can lower the dumbbells a lot further—all the way down to your sides.

Most people find that one side of their body that is stronger than the other—more than likely it’s the same side that your dominant hand resides on. When you push a barbell, your dominant side can compensate for the weaker side. But when you hit the dumbbells, each arm is working independently of the other, so that moocher weak side has to pull its own weight for a change. This helps correct strength imbalances across the body.

Plus, the struggle to balance the two dumbbells gets all your little stabilizer muscles in on the action.

Barbells beat out dumbbells when it comes to gaining pure strength in the major muscle groups. When you lift a barbell, the weight on each end is connected through the bar to the other end— you are essentially spreading the load so that it becomes easier to move. Thanks to this even distribution of weight across your body, you can lift bigger numbers and perform higher reps for faster muscle growth. So barbells are especially ideal for strength training newcomers needing to build up a starting foundation of muscle. And if you want to get an ego boost from the number you can lift or love to brag to everyone in earshot about what you bench, then barbells are just the thing for you.

A little earlier, I mentioned that dumbbells are great because they get all the stabilizer muscles involved. This is a dumbbells gift—and curse. Yes, it’s important to train those stabilizer muscles, but they can also hold the major muscle groups back from reaching their full potential. Let’s go back to the bench press example—when you do a bench press with dumbbells, you are demanding much more of an effort from the triceps than you would pressing a barbell. Your triceps are probably never going to be as tough as your chest—they’ll fatigue much earlier and you’ll have to call it quits before your chest muscles were actually worked to exhaustion. So again, for improving strength or and increasing mass in the major muscle groups, a barbell is your best bet.

There’s a lot of weight loss advice out there. You probably know the basics already—now you just need to tweak your strategy and toss a few helpful secrets into the mix. Here, the ten commandments of successful weight loss:

1. First things first: set the right goals. You have to power to make—or break—your ultimate weight loss success before you take even one bite of all that healthy food you just bought, before you curl one dumbbell. When you set astronomical goals for yourself you are setting yourself up for failure—and this more than anything will discourage you from sticking with a diet and exercise plan. Instead, come up with small, reasonable goals—this week I will exercise twice, this month I will lose 5 pounds. And remember your overall motivation—it’s not all about getting skinnier, it’s about getting healthier.

2. Avoid the temptation to cut too many calories too quickly. Your brain is a little paranoid, and if you lose too much body fat too fast, your brain will think you’re starving to death. Not good, because then you’ll find yourself irresistibly attracted to any food item put in front of you. Two pounds per week is great.

3. Keep a food journal. Just jot down whatever you eat, how much, and when. Research has shown that people who keep food journals consume an average of 500 to 1,000 fewer calories. The practice helps you spot unhealthy patterns in your diet—like if you only binge late at night while watching TV.

4. Strength train. Strength training is slightly better than cardio when it comes to weight loss—it will boost your metabolism 24/7 and build up lots of calorie-demanding muscle. Active muscles can burn over a hundred extra calories a day.

5. Rock out while you workout. A study by the North American Association for the Study of Obesity found that you are more likely to stick with an exercise routine if you listen to music that gets you pumped while you pump iron.

6. Get enough sleep. When you don’t get enough sleep, stress hormones spike in the brain. Then that meddling brain of yours will think that conditions are bad out there and that you obviously need more food in order to survive. According to the American Journal of Epidemiology, one study showed that people who slept an average of 5 hours a night were an average of five pounds heavier than people who slept an average of 7 hours a night.

7. Drink lots of water— make it cold water. Drinking 8 glasses of ice water a day for one year burns enough calories to lose 5 pounds. And keeping your body hydrated is important because it helps keep your metabolism running at optimum performance.

8. Keep yourself on track by weighing in regularly. I know nobody likes to confront the scale—but it’s important to catch plateaus or little mishaps like gaining back a pound or two before they escalate into something bigger.

9. Eat protein at every meal—it fills you up better than carbohydrates so you eat less overall through the day, and it helps you build those muscles we talked about.

10. Reward yourself. For every weight milestone, give yourself a reward—bonus points if it’s a healthy reward like cool new workout gear or something that’s fun and physically active that you’ve always wanted to try. You deserve it!

Wake-Up Call #1: Time flies when your workout’s not done.

So instead of hitting the gym, you hit the sack – annoyed that you missed yet another workout.

That’s why you should exercise first thing in your day. In fact, about 90% of people who exercise consistently do it in the morning. It’s the only way to guarantee you won’t skip it. 

Wake-Up Call #2: Your metabolism won’t boost itself.   You roll out of bed, throw on some clothes and stumble out the door on your way to another busy day. Are you even awake yet? Your metabolism certainly isn’t.

The average person can expect the metabolic boost to last for 30 to 60 minutes post-exercise. EPOC typically accounts for a few paltry calories – 10 to 60, depending on the intensity of the workout.

But don’t let that discourage you! It adds up over time, and because it only takes a daily deficit of 500 calories to lose one pound in a week, every calorie counts.

Not only does morning exercise help you burn calories during the actual workout, but its effects linger after you’re finished. It’s called EPOC – excess post-exercise oxygen consumption – and it’s a fancy way of saying you burn extra calories even after your workout’s over.

Wake-Up Call #3: It’s your choice to be a night owl or an early bird.
Tick-tock. You have an internal clock that thrives on routine. It’s your circadian rhythm, and it regulates your body on a 24-hour cycle.

Give yourself a strict bedtime, force yourself to wake up when your alarm goes off (no snoozing!), and exercise each day – even if it’s only for 10 minutes.

Over time – a few days for some, a few weeks for others – your body will learn the new routine. It will gently wake you up, no earsplitting alarm required. You’ll feel rested and energized, and will actually start looking forward to your workout.

Wake-Up Call #4: Morning exercise helps you sleep better in the p.m.
Hitting the gym in the morning helps you hit the sack at night. A study published in the scientific journal Sleep showed that overweight or obese women who began a regular morning exercise routine slept better than those who exercised regularly in the evening.

Why? Evening exercise stimulates your body. You become restless and alert, making it very difficult for your brain to turn off and your body to drift into restful sleep.

Exercise is like the ignition in your car – it turns your body on, not off. Get yourself going in the morning.

Wake-Up Call #5: A morning workout is better than coffee.
Oxygen, not caffeine, is what your brain wants in the morning. So instead of reaching for the coffeepot, reach for your sneakers and you’ll get all the brain-boosting benefits you need.

Studies show that exercise can increase your mental sharpness for 4 to 10 hours after your workout, a benefit you can really use at the start of your day.

So, get up and get moving.

When you think of a service that is catering to you and your needs, the first thing that comes to mind is “how much is this going to cost me?” When it comes to our health you can’t afford to not work with a personal trainer!

Humana released the estimated 2009 costs of being overweight. Here’s what they have projected for this year:

On average, every American who is overweight will have to spend $19.39 for each extra pound. That’s $1,037.64 for each overweight American this year alone. The burden on the American health care system for 2009 will be 127 billion dollars. Just for being overweight.

But this is just the average. These costs go up as age and weight increase. (The average overweight person is carrying 29 extra pounds; the obese carry 82 extra pounds.)

An overweight 25-year-old will spend $10.25 for each extra pound, but a 64-year-old will spend $26.32. So, an overweight 25-year-old will pay $209 this year just for being overweight, but if he is obese, he will spend $960. That overweight 64-year-old will have to come up with $610 this year, but if she’s obese, she’ll be spending $2,300. This year.

As you get older, your health care costs will increase for each extra pound, so you can’t afford to put off getting in shape. You can’t afford to neglect exercise and proper nutrition. Yes, it may seem to be unaffordable to hire a personal trainer, but compared to the costs of being overweight, it’s obvious that getting fit this year could save you thousands of dollars in the coming years. Just this year alone, you could save hundreds of dollars.

Currently, there are 122 million overweight and obese American adults. Based on current weights, the average added health care cost this year for each of these people is $534 for the overweight and $1,614 for the obese.

If you are 25 and obese today, and you continue to be obese until you’re 65, you will spend $179,000 in added health care costs. Just for being obese. You can’t afford to not do something.

Here are some other points to consider when assessing fitness training for youself and your family:

Can reduce or eliminate your current number of doctor visits and medications. Many people who lose weight are able to eliminate medications for hypertension and diabetes, for example.

Will give you the tools to make healthier food decisions, potentially cutting your current food bill in half!

Could reduce the amount you spend on clothing by allowing you to buy the sizes on the rack and also those items that are regularly on SALE!

A healthier you can result in workplace perks, such as lower health insurance rates.

Some workplaces have health incentive programs such as bonuses for perfect attendance or no injuries over a given period. When you are fit, your immune system is stronger, so you will miss fewer days of work due to sickness. A strong body also helps to resist injury in your day to day activites, which can ultimately increase your productivity and keep you from missing work.

Have you tried the local gym, but didn’t see the results you expected or just didn’t like the gym environment?

A personalized program gives you structure and focuses on attaining your goals, which will show results much faster than just picking and choosing activities on your own from time to time.

A personal trainer will help you to correctly use your body to avoid injuries.

An in-home trainer is a great choice for those who have children at home. You don’t need to find and pay for child care or pack up the kids and take them to the gym.

Having a personal trainer saves you gas and time travelling to and from the gym — I come to you! No need to worry about your things being stolen at the gym, and no worries about contacting bacteria, diseases or fungus from the gym or locker room.

 Just consider changing one or two things in your buget, that could save you thousands over your life time.

For example not stopping for coffe every morning could give you and extra one hundred dollars a month. If you started making your lunch instead of going out to eat you could save four hundred dollars a month. These are very low estimations. You owe it to yourself to begin a path of healthy living. The cost is minimal compared to the reward.

 I want it now, now, now!”

Does this sound like the mind-numbing rant of a spoiled 7-year old in a toy store? Sure it does, and if you’ve ever heard a similar dialogue from a child, then you understand instinctively that the child in question is all too accustomed to getting their way.

However, it may come as a surprise to you that adults of all ages and from all walks of life exhibit very similar behavior on a regular basis – especially when it comes to physical fitness!

It today’s age of medicines, technologies, supplements, and highly advanced exercise techniques, people have – quite mistakenly – been lead to believe that they can have their most highly desired fitness results RIGHT NOW.

Read below to learn how this mistaken philosophy is applied on a frequent basis when people practice the 3 basic tools of fitness: Cardiovascular Training, Resistance Training, and Nutrition

CARDIOVASCULAR TRAINING

You either don’t watch TV or you don’t read magazines if you’ve never seen an advertisement that shows some buff young girl or guy pounding out miles while running on a beach, or happily sweating profusely while cruising on an elliptical or enduring an intense Spinning class.

These young models always look extremely satisfied to be working their bodies so hard, and they also share one other common characteristic: they are already in shape! Have you ever seen a commercial for a gym or exercise device that showed a 5-foot, 300 lb person grinning from ear to ear?

This is a common example of how the media and fitness industry retailers promote the mass-confusion over cardio. The ads scream messages like, “Buy our pill, put on some sexy clothes while running on the beach, and you’ll look just as good as our models do!”

Gym owners do it, too. “Join our gym now and we’ll give you one month free! Just by joining and then attending our Award-Winning Spinning Class, you will look just like Cindy, the Supermodel we hired to do our commercial!”

It’s ridiculous how the “powers that be” portray cardiovascular exercise as some effortless activity that you can easily use to gain the body of your dreams just by purchasing their product or joining their facility.

The truth of the matter is that cardiovascular training works. The additional truth of the matter is that it can range from moderately to intensely difficult, and that it will take you weeks, months, or maybe even years of combining cardio with resistance training and proper nutrition to attain the body of your dreams.

Is that what you wanted to hear about cardio? Probably not, but it’s the truth. If you think there is some shortcut to being buff, young, tan, and in complete control of your life, then you should go turn on the TV. There is a commercial on right now that is just waiting for you to call in your credit card number!

RESISTANCE TRAINING

The hype surrounding resistance training isn’t quite as appalling as the myths about cardiovascular training, but it still exists. Regardless of what you have seen, heard, or been taught, the truth is this: everyone needs resistance training.

It doesn’t matter if your goal is to be a bodybuilder or a 90-year old who can tie your own shoelaces, you need resistance training. Listing the many reasons for engaging in a consistent resistance training routine is beyond the scope of this article, but there are some myths about weight training that need to be brought to light.

1. Weight Training makes you big and bulky. Actually, the size of your muscles is determined primarily by your gender, the type and intensity of your training program, and your nutrition. If you think you will just “magically” turn into a muscle-bound athlete because you picked up a couple of dumbbells, just ask any bodybuilder how much time, energy, and raw will power goes into building his or her incredible physique. It does NOT happen by accident.

2. Using any given device or exercise will “sculpt” your abs, biceps, butt, or any other muscle. There is one thing and exactly one thing that determines the shape of your muscles, and that is your DNA. It is quite impossible to “sculpt” any part of your body – that job belongs to your chosen deity. You can control the size of your muscles, but you cannot control the shape. Anyone who says otherwise is straight up lying.

3. Resistance training is just for men.

Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to be healthy, strong, and have a great metabolism and energy level? Then weight training is for you. Period.

PROPER NUTRITION

You need to learn one word and one word only if you want to maximize your nutrition program. That word is Cumulative. Cumulative means the combined effect over the course of time.

You will not put on 5 lbs by eating a hamburger. You will likewise not lose 5 lbs by eating celery for dinner. You will not reap the lifetime benefits of vitamin, mineral, and fiber intake by eating fruits and vegetables for 1 week. You will likewise not destroy your body’s balance of vitamins and minerals by straying from your nutrition program once in awhile.

Do you see where all of this is going? If you want to reap the health and weight loss benefits of a proper nutrition program, you cannot practice proper nutrition “once in awhile”. You must consistently stick to your nutrition program over the long term to realize the cumulative effects. You are just kidding yourself if you think otherwise.

As you can see, Cardiovascular Training, Resistance Training, and Proper Nutrition all play a vital role in your health and fitness program. In addition, they work together as a team in order to keep you healthy and on track with your fitness goals. Just practicing one or two will not be good enough.

At this time you can make a choice. You can either choose to believe a bunch of bald-faced lies and misleading truths about physical fitness, or you can choose to embrace the real truth of the matter. The real truth is that weight loss and physical fitness require time, effort, and dedication.

Remember: Anything worth having is worth working for!

I find the facts in this article alarming.  This is just more proof that what we consume as adults and children is affecting our health.  The process in which foods are prepared for us as consumers I believe is a major factor for alot of these numbers.  I myself struggle with eating whole foods, meaning foods in their most natural state.  We live in a grab and go world.  We owe it to ourselves and our kids though to start making healthier food choices.  Just make small changes daily on your path to a healthier diet.

I find the facts in this article alarming.  This is just more proof that what we consume as adults and children is affecting our health.  The process in which foods are prepared for us as consumers I believe is a major factor for alot of these numbers.  I myself struggle with eating whole foods, meaning foods in their most natural state.  We live in a grab and go world.  We owe it to ourselves and our kids though to start making healthier food choices.  Just make small changes daily on your path to a healthier diet.
High cholesterol puts 1 of 5 teens at risk of heart disease
One out of every five U.S. teenagers has a cholesterol level that increases the risk of heart disease, federal health officials reported Thursday, providing striking new evidence that obesity is making more children prone to illnesses once primarily limited to adults.
A nationally representative survey of blood test results in American teenagers found that more than 20 percent of those ages 12 to 19 had at least one abnormal level of fat. The rate jumped to 43 percent among those adolescents who were obese.
Previous studies had indicated that unhealthy cholesterol levels, once a condition thought isolated to the middle-aged and elderly, were increasingly becoming a problem among the young, but the new data document the scope of the threat on a national level.
“This is the future of America,” said Linda Van Horn, a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University who heads the American Heart Association’s Nutrition Committee. “These data really confirm the seriousness of our obesity epidemic. This really is an urgent call for health-care providers and families to take this issue seriously.”

Earlier research found that the obesity epidemic has been accompanied by an increase in a host of health problems in youths that were previously found mostly among adults, including high blood pressure, diabetes and arthritis. The new data detail the obesity’s effect on cholesterol levels, which can increase the risk for a variety of illnesses, including diabetes and heart disease.
“The current epidemic of childhood obesity makes this a matter of significant and urgent concern,” said Ashleigh May, an epidemic intelligence service officer with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s division for heart disease and stroke prevention, who led the analysis.
Although the latest government data suggest that the obesity epidemic might be leveling off after increasing for decades, at least one-third of youths are overweight or obese, and the heaviest boys continue to get heavier.
“People are worried that this generation is going to grow up to have more cardiovascular disease than the current generation,” said Denise Simons-Morton of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. “This problem is poised to negate all of the advances we’ve made in cardiovascular health.”
In the new study, published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, researchers analyzed data collected from 3,125 youths through the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which is conducted every two years.
According to data from surveys conducted between 1999 and 2006, 20.3 percent had abnormal “blood lipid” levels, which includes low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or the “good cholesterol”; high levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the “bad cholesterol”; and high levels of triglycerides, which can also clog arteries.
The percentage of teens with an abnormal blood lipid level varied by weight, ranging from 14.2 percent of those whose weight was normal to 22.3 percent among those who were overweight to 42.9 percent among those who were obese.
The findings support a 2008 recommendation by the American Academy of Pediatrics that children and adolescents get blood tests to see whether they need to be treated for abnormal lipid levels if they are at risk for heart disease because of a family history of high blood cholesterol or early heart disease or if they are at risk because they smoke, have high blood pressure or diabetes or are overweight.  - Washington Post