Fast food is a difficult subject. For families on the go, students and traveling business workers the fast food option is inevitable at times. It is a quick alternative to a home cooked meal. This speedy alternative, however, is a quick way to eat a lot of calories. Fast food chains like Mcdonalds, Burger King and Starbucks give their health information on-line. Subway often advertises their calorie menus at their stores or on-line. This is not enough for city health officials in New York, however. The New York Times’ article “City Tries Again With Labeling Fast-Food Menus” discusses the new proposed plan that would make restaurants with 15 outlets or more across the country have to show their calorie information on their menus.

They want to have this information posted to help obesity. What I do not get, however, is how this will help. The general public knows how bad fast food is for you, yet they still resort to going there. Calorie information is publicized on television and can be found on the internet. If people care about the calories they consume they will not be going to fast food. If they must go to one of these restaurants and want to know the calorie information they will look it up. Once the customer is already making the stop to this restaurant they probably already intend to buy something, so why would the calorie information influence their decision. It is obvious that the more fries or the bigger the burger you have, the more fattening it will be, so who needs a menu to tell them how much more. If this menu is what people want to see then it should be posted, but I do not this it will help obesity.

Fast food is not the only factor in obesity either. If the person’s lifestyle lends itself to ending up with fast food every night then I would say it is the life style that is poor, not necessarily the fast food. Not saying that fast food is not bad, but if you have fast food once in a while it is not going to cause obesity. Obesity starts with bigger issues like genetics or poor habits and fast food adds to these issues, probably does not cause them. There are much greater factors that play into becoming obese. Trying to decrease obesity must begin somewhere, but I am skeptical this step will help much.

Do Research

Before exercising do your research.

Calories:
If your goal of exercising is to burn calories the first thing to do is learn about what a calorie is. Your body needs certain calories. Every diet needs to be healthy and should not be over done. Before starting a diet plan of counting and cutting calories, you should always learn about what you are actually doing to your body and if it will be beneficial.

Exercising:
If it is the calories you are worried about, however, a simple activity such as playing tennis will do the trick. The American Heart Association has a very helpful chart that indicates about how many calories a person would burn doing a particular exercise for an hour. This chart can give insight to how valuable each exercise can be.

Health:
The American Heart Association website is a very helpful site to refer to with other questions about diet and exercise as well. The tips they have are coming from a health perspective, and are all very important to keep in mind when choosing to diet. There are short and long-term benefits of diet and exercise, all of which should be motivation in helping pursue your goals.

Spice up your routine

When you decide to begin your diet plan, while it is good to have a schedule and stick to it, this routine may become boring. To stay motivated and engaged in your exercising plans it is very beneficial to mix it up. If you have decided to do your exercises through buying tapes or dvd’s to watch and work out to that could be best for you. After a while, however, you are going to become a pro at what you are doing and you might not even get as much out of it as before. Some fun alternatives might be:

Invite a friend over:
Be the instructor for the day and do all your favorite exercises while trying to challenge you and your friend.

Go outside:
Set up music and find a place in your backyard or somewhere flat where you can do your exercises in a different atmosphere.

Find other videos:
Dieting has become such a craze that it is so easy to find information. Diet.com has so many quick exercise videos. Take one day, go through many different videos and see what other ideas people have to add to your plan.



Stay creative:
Once you are bored of the same old routine, don’t be afraid to mix up different exercises from different sources to create your own routine. The benefit to making your own routine is that you can target the areas YOU want and you can pick and choose the exercise YOU like. This way when you go to exercise, it is what YOU want to do and can be fun!

Search the web:
The internet has so many websites out there that offer dieting tips, from eating right, to exercising right. Many of these sites can be helpful. Browse few some and one just may spark your interest and may make your diet complete.
A few ideas to start with:
An on-line fitness magazine
WebMd
Diet.com

Training outdoors

In light of recent events, running is on the mind. After the Chicago Marathon was stopped due the excessive heat, runners around the country have been worried about their own race. It would be awful to have been training for years to compete in a race and get stopped half way through. Having just completed my first half marathon, I was certainly dreading waking up that morning to a hot, humid day. Luckily October 13 in Hartford Connecticut was a crisp, cool beautiful fall morning.

While training, athletes should try to accommodate for any condition that they may face. If your event is outside training in the heat or the cold is very crucial. There are many effects heat could have on a person that range from dehydration, to heat exhaustion which could eventually lead to heat stroke. The cold, however, can be just as bad. If you are working hard and sweating, the water on your body could lead to pneumonia. Either way you can prevent your body from getting hurt by the weather just by training in different atmospheres. If you have an event that takes place outdoors where you can not predict what mother nature is going to bring that day, you have to prepare for anything.

The New York Times addresses this issue well with a list of other ways to prepare before a race as well.

Childhood Obesity

Growing up in the 21st century is hard for kids these days. There are so many video and computer games that do not require any movement from the kids that they are becoming very static. Childhood obesity is a growing epidemic that needs to be addressed. With video games, television and motorized toys, children no longer exert energy when playing. It is just as important for a child to exercise daily as an adult. Kids need to get into good, healthy habits when they are young so they can continue the habit when older.

It is a good idea to start children in a sport young because it can be very beneficial. It teaches discipline going to practice everyday, it is a form of socializing and making close friends with teammates, and it encourages exercising, which is always good. If a child is not interested in sports, however, it could be as little as going outside to play jump rope, hopscotch, tag with friends or a walk with younger siblings or a pet for them to get their daily activities more exercised based. In the winter time it is harder when it is cold but some fun options could be to go to a school to play basketball in the gym, go sledding on a huge hill multiple times or find an indoor pool and go for a swim. Kids do not have to exercise hard at a young age, but just being active and doing fun exercises will be beneficial.

In a recent New York Times article entitled Video Game Teaches Kids About Diet- Then Turns Off by Reuters addresses the obesity issue and offers some alternatives as well. There is a new video game available entitled “The Incredible Adventures of the Amazing Food Detective” that teaches kids about healthy eating and exercising. There is also a time limit for this game so that kids are not staying motionless for so long. This is a very good idea and more games should focus on exercising and eating healthy.

YouTube video demonstrates childhood obesity factors

Update

As a continuation to the first post, The Today Show has a great site called Five Secrets of Successful dieters by Elizabeth Somer. This is also an introduction to dieting. The ways in which she breaks it down are helpful. As an addition to the first post, this article can be informative when thinking about a diet.