Easter food temptations hard to resist
Chocolate, chocolate everywhere and all for you to eat. That’s Easter, but don’t delay your return to healthy eating.
For most of us, Easter is a difficult time to resist temptation. Chocolate eggs, hot cross buns, chocolate cross buns, chocolate chocolate. But this year it seems the calendar gods (sorry, Jesus) have conspired to give us more long weekends and even greater temptation to overindulge. For those who need reminding, obesity is becoming more common and risks serious health problems. The National Health and Medical Research Council has guidelines for healthy eating, including: be physically active and choose amounts of nutritious food and drinks to meet your energy needs; enjoy a wide variety of nutritious foods from the five food groups each day and drink plenty of water; and limit intake of foods containing saturated fat, added salt, added sugars and alcohol.
No two diets are the same and CSIRO behavioural scientists have identified five types of dieter, with the over-thinking anxious perfectionist the most common.
After surveying more than 28,000 Australian adults, the scientists were able to break down personality types into five categories: the thinker (41 per cent), whose overthinking and worrying about failure leads to stress that can derail diet progress; the craver (25 per cent), who craves delicious foods and finds it hard to beat temptation; the foodie (15 per cent), who loves making, eating and experiencing food; the socialiser (15 per cent), who won’t let food restrictions stifle their social life; and the freewheeler (4 per cent), who makes spontaneous and impulsive food choices and finds it hard to plan meals. “Knowing your personal diet type helps you maintain a healthy eating plan because you are more aware and equipped to manage moments of weakness,” says CSIRO behavioural scientist Sinead Golley.
People who watch cooking shows may do it from the couch but a survey suggests celebrity chefs still may influence what they do in the kitchen.
Reetica Rekhy and Robyn McConchie from the University of Sydney and Aila Khan from the University of Western Sydney surveyed more than 500 people and found those who watched a video of a celebrity chef cooking vegetables were likelier to buy vegetables and cook them up. They found 44 per cent of respondents who watched the cooking show intended to try new ways to prepare meals using vegetables, compared with just 29 per cent in a control group who didn’t watch the show.
There is evidence that doing the right thing is good for you. Researchers from the Menzies Institute for Medical Research at the University of Tasmania surveyed 1155 people at two points, five years apart. They were interested in four positive behaviours: eating breakfast, limiting takeaway food to no more than once a week, taking at least 10,000 steps a day and watching no more than two hours of TV each day.
Lead researcher Kylie Smith says those who followed the four behaviours at both survey times had lower weight gain than those who didn’t. Also, in a sign that it’s never too late to try, those who weren’t engaged in the behaviours in the first survey but were five years later were found to have a similar weight gain to those who followed the behaviours all along. “Our analysis clearly shows the association between the behaviours and weight gain,” says Smith, after the research was published in BMC Public Health.
You may have noticed that food packaging keeps changing, and some boxes and packets are now emblazoned with a health star rating allowing consumers to compare the overall nutritional profile of packaged foods in any category. Assistant Health Minister David Gillespie says the federal government is working with the food industry and public health groups, through the Healthy Food Partnership, to address problems with portion size, the ability of consumers to make healthier choices and the formulation of packaged foods.
“Members have agreed that some quick and meaningful changes can be made through reformulating foods — such as increasing wholegrain and vegetable content as well as cutting down on sugar, salt and saturated fats, looking at portion size strategies and working with the food service sector including the takeaways, pubs and clubs to produce healthier menu choices,” Gillespie says.