Pester power of kids driving junk food??

Could the "pester power" of kids be a significant factor behind junk food consumption? Are time poor parents simply caving in to the demands of kids too often?

Kids drive 97% of cereal purchase.

And where are these kids learning to "want" junk food? 

Marketing to kids is huge business - "pester power" is well documented as a sales tactic, and websites like this one show the statistics from studies into how powerful kids can be when it comes to influencing a purchase.

For example it's no surprise that 98% of the time kids have an influence on which restaurant is chosen when the family eats out. Advertisers that succeed in winning over kids can generate a massive amount of money.

And it's not just TV advertising - marketing of junk to kids on the web has now become even more invasive.

This study monitored the food advertising on four popular children's websites for a period of one year. Here is a summary of what they found:

• A total of 3.4 billion food advertisements appeared on the four websites over the one year period.
• Breakfast cereals and fast food were advertised most often (64% of ads).
• 84% advertised products that were high in fat, sugar and/or sodium (salt).
• Most ads (74%) promoted brands approved by companies for child-directed advertising.
• Even the "healthy" food choices featured in ads were unlikely to meet independent nutrition standards.

So what can we learn from this? I guess two things come to mind:

1. Adults need to talk with kids about healthy food choices, and educate them. We don't want our kids to be "food obsessed" but we also don't want our kids learning about healthy eating from advertisements.
2. Next time the government or regulators talk about putting rules in place to reduce junk food advertising directed at kids, you might consider supporting it.

Reference:

Ustjanauskas, A. E., Harris, J. L. and Schwartz, M. B. (2014), Food and beverage advertising on children's web sites. Pediatric Obesity, 9: 362–372. doi: 10.1111/j.2047-6310.2013.00185.x

Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/design-dog/9730712923
Photo stream: https://www.flickr.com/photos/design-dog/

Top 6 reasons for unhealthy snacking

Keeping clients on track with healthy eating can be incredibly challenging, but it helps if you can "get inside the head" of the client and understand the triggers behind unhealthy snacking.

If you can understand the trigger, it's possible to offer the client a strategy or a mindset that might help them overcome unhealthy habits and adhere to healthier eating. Remember that small changes add up over time and snacking in between meals is often a stack of calories added to the daily intake.

A recent study identified the top six reasons for unhealthy snacking:

1. To enjoy a special occasion - Let's celebrate by eating a massive meal and a bottle of wine!

2. Opportunity induced eating - Someone puts a plate full of donuts in front of you at morning tea.

3. To gain energy - I feel flat, somebody give me a candy bar!

4. To reward oneself - I've eaten healthy all week, let's celebrate at KFC!

5. Because of social pressure - It's a BBQ, everyone else is drinking beer so perhaps I should have a few.

6. To cope with negative emotions - I'm feeling a bit down, a family size bar of chocolate will make me feel better. 

As a personal trainer, being able to offer clients different ways to deal with each of the above situations will help them avoid the trap of unhealthy snacking.

Graphic sourced from www.suppversity.com.

Reference:

Verhoeven, Aukje AC, et al. "It's my party and I eat if I want to. Reasons for unhealthy snacking." Appetite (2014).

Nik Squats 120Kg x 10 slowed to three quarter speed

Recently I was in the gym when my colleague Nik started his Barbell Back Squat warm-up set of 120Kg (265 pounds) x 10 reps.

Nik was kind enough to let me film his movement, and I've slowed it to three quarter speed in the video below.I wanted to add a brief Blog to the video just to highlight a couple of things that can be observed:

1. Unrestricted movement at the knees - yes they can safely travel in front of the toes as outlined in this previous Blog.
2. A wall ball is placed behind Nik to provide feedback on his depth. Nik uses the ball to help remind him of depth late in the sets when he gets tired - one less thing to think about. The wall ball is soft so it also allows contact without the jarring that we might see if we used a hard plyo box.
3. Speaking of depth - what we see in the video is squatting to a very functional depth - deep enough to really test the glutes, quads, calf mobility and postural strength.
4. Nik's spinal posture is (at least in my opinion) amazing to the depth he is squatting. Not a butt wink to be seen - and this should be our goal when squatting to any depth - a rigid neutral spine is your best protection from injury. Keeping that strong neutral spine is more important than squatting lower with poor posture.

One last thing - no weights belt... No worries!

Brazil creates epic guidelines for healthy eating

In Australia, despite the obesity epidemic our Government can't even agree on simple rules for food labels because powerful food industry groups seem to control the rules. 

The food industry does things like donating large sums of money to political parties to ensure they get a seat at the table when our healthy eating guidelines are drawn up. Did you know the food & beverage industry donates about the same amount of money as the mining industry?

The Fast Food industry was locked out.

Recently I became very interested in eating guidelines out of Brazil - you can view a full summary of the ten guidelines here, but what really spiked my interest was that these guidelines were designed by food, nutrition & health experts whilst the food industry (and commercial interests) were deliberately locked out of the room.

This is big news, and I've never heard of it happening anywhere else in the world. The guidelines contained the usual great advice to eat fresh foods, reduce fats, salt and sugars... 

But what I was really impressed with was a number of eating guidelines we have never seen before from a government body, several of them aimed at the social and emotional aspect of eating. Two great examples included:

#5 - Eat in company whenever possible.
#6 - Develop, practice, share & enjoy your skills in food preparation and cooking.

Do you enjoy preparing food?

It's really interesting to see people being encouraged to enjoy the process of cooking and sharing real food, instead of being told simply what to eat (or what not to eat). 

I think these guidelines might help people eat less fast food on the fly, less rushed eating, less gulping of soda, and more planning of healthy foods. All of these things are likely to reduce consumption of empty calories and promote healthier, happier eating.

Of course, commercial interests (like the fast food lobby) do not want you to stay at home and enjoy preparing fresh whole foods with your loved ones... They want you in the drive-through ordering a burger with large fries & a massive Coca Cola to wash it all down.

Another two eating guidelines from Brazil that I have never seen before:
#9 - Avoid fast food chains.
#10 - Be critical of the commercial advertisement of food products.

Probably two of the best eating guidelines I've ever seen, but sadly we will never see guidelines like this in Australia as long as the food industry gets a seat at the table when guidelines like these are designed. 

If you like my Blog, feel free to visit my Facebook page. I use it purely to distribute meaningful information and I'll never try to sell you anything or spam you with crud.


Image acknowledgements from Flickr Creative Commons: 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/snekse/2501155494 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/esotericsean/2186109381

Squats - Should my knees stay behind my toes?

Once upon a time (during 1961 in fact) there was a study conducted on 128 weight lifters which found that squatting "deep below parallel" (i.e. hips well below knee height) produced "loose knees" because it stretched the ligaments in the knee. As a result many people in the fitness/coaching industry reacted to the study by adopting a shallow squat. 

The idea that our knees should stay behind the line of our toes while squatting was born. This simple coaching cue was broadly adopted in the fitness / coaching arena as it helped prevent clients from deep squatting by keeping the movement fairly shallow. It does not appear that "keep the knees behind the toes" was ever actually stated by Klein as a finding of his study. So why do so many PT's & coaches adopt this approach to squatting? 

Fast forward to 2014, the Klein study is now 53 years old and it's probably a good idea to compare and contrast it against some contemporary research on the subject... So let's have a quick browse across at least the last ten years to see if this "knees behind the toes" thing still holds up.

Now... before I dig into contemporary research, I actually found this brief but very well constructed review of the book written by Klein & Allman - it contains several quotes taken directly from the book and I was surprised to learn that on p. 30 Klein states that: "The depth of the squat position should be controlled, with the thighs just breaking the parallel position (Figure 7)."

This is important to note - Klein himself said that the safe depth of a squat allows the thighs to be "just breaking" parallel to the floor... This would place the hips just below knee height at the bottom of the squat movement. 

Thighs just breaking parallel - perfectly acceptable by Klein.

This is big news because if you were to squat to a depth allowing the thighs to "just break" parallel as suggested by Klein - the hips will be slightly below the knees, and you will not be in a shallow squat position.

This position is illustrated by one of my students in the image to the right. The thighs are just breaking parallel, the hips are just below knee height. Perfectly acceptable based on the Klein study from 1961... and if you look at the knees in this position they appear slightly in front of the line of the toes without any excessive forward lean at the trunk. Looks OK to me.

In terms of contemporary research on the knee angle specifically, the ultimate study into knee position is this 2003 study which specifically tested the "knees behind the toes" approach and did a full bio-mechanical breakdown of how it changes/impacts the squat compared to unrestricted movement at the knees. 

That 2003 study tells us that when the knees move in front of the toes, there is an increase in the forces/loading on the knee joint by about 28%. But the article also goes on to state that by restricting the knees to stay behind the toes "The restricted squat also increased forward lean, which was shown to increase lumbar shear forces". Interestingly, the increase in lumbar loading with the knees behind the toes was around 1000% higher than when the knees were allowed to pass in front of the toes.

So you can reduce the forces on the knee by around 30% if you keep the knee behind the toes, but those forces then shift up onto the lumbar spine and actually we get a much bigger increase in forces (around 10x the loading) at the lumbar spine. Is that safe?

Note the image B (from the 2003 study) shows the client has increased forward lean of the trunk when the knees are kept behind the line of the toes. 

The NSCA has also adopted a fairly open approach to squatting technique. They cite this 2007 article which supports all the findings from the 2003 study, and clearly states that "Research indicates that the optimal squat technique is... unrestricted movement at the knees". So the biggest strength & conditioning association in the USA is happy for your knees to pass over the line of your toes during a squat movement.

Other articles which support the notion of deep squatting and unrestricted movement of the knee joint include this one on the biomechanics of deep squatting, you can also watch this video of a presentation free online which walks you through the squat in good detail (50 minutes) and you can actually download the powerpoints from that presentation here.

The bottom line: During 21 years of industry experience and my review of the literature on this topic, I can't find anything to support the idea that knee movement should be restricted in clients that have healthy / normal joint function. 

If you enjoy my Blog, please follow my Facebook page I use it purely to distribute meaningful information and I'll never try to sell you anything or spam you with crud.
Links to references and further reading:
http://startingstrength.com/articles/squat_klein_suggs.pdf

http://www.uspla.org/sites/default/files/downloads/ncsa_articles/Optimizing_Squat_Technique.1.pdf

http://www.lookgreatnaked.com/articles/the_biomechanics_of_squat_depth.pdf

http://www.nsca.com/uploadedFiles/NSCA/Inactive_Content/Program_Books/PTC_2013_Program_Book/Schoenfeld%20PF.pdf

http://www.nsca.com/Pages/ContentRightNav.aspx?pageid=2147491558&terms=squat*

http://www.luciano.si/images/blog015_raziskava.pdf

http://www.luciano.si/blog/po-ep-po-krivem-obsojen-poln-neresnic-in-prepogosto-zapostavljen.php