Food and Health Problems

Junk Food: The New Prescription for America's Health

A. Our focus on junk food as causative of health problems

2. Healthy food types versus portion control

B. Proposition: How much we eat is more important to our health than what we eat

1. Argument against: junk food makes us fat and unhealthy

a. Health benefits of calorie restriction

b. Mechanism of calorie restriction - B. Sears

C. Junk food versus portion control: reason for lack of studies

D. Tool for teaching calorie restriction: The Smart-Carb Guide

E. Argument in favor of portion control education over food policing

Common belief and recommendations by health professionals and the USDA posit that a healthy diet is determined by eating healthy foods; conversely, a diet composed of fast food and other processed foods is perceived as being a major cause of weight gain and disease in the United States. However, missing in this analysis is a "weighing in" of the roll of portion size versus that of food types consumed. This paper presents the argument that amount of calories we consume may in fact be more important than the types of food we eat in determining our weight and health. Support for this view comes from the field of anti-aging science that indicates extreme benefits in health and longevity may be achieved by simply reducing calories. It follows that to reverse obesity and related health problems, Americans should be educated on portion control, reg

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s laboratory animals live longer, healthier lives? Which substance or lifestyle could do the same for humans? Researchers have found that the one thing that keeps animals young and healthy and extends life up to fifty percent, the equivalent of a human living one hundred and twenty years as opposed to eighty, is calorie restriction. In all organisms studied, from yeast to mice to rhesus monkeys, restricting calories thirty to fifty percent significantly prolongs life and improves an organism's health throughout its lifespan (Ingram, et al., 2004). If the same holds true for humans, then even if our food is not particularly healthy, we may be able to reap the benefits of calorie restriction - long life and superior health - simply by reducing how much we eat. In The Anti-Aging Zone (1999), biochemist and nutritional expert Dr. Barry Sears makes the case that calorie restriction may be our best hope for combating disease and delaying or even reversing the aging process. Sears explains that many of the health beneficial of a calorie-restricted diet stem from controlling the food-storage hormone insulin that further controls other powerful and ubiquitous hormones, located in every cell of the body, called eicosanoids. The biological

Category: Medical - F