An Inexpensive Way to Poor Health

® Jack in the Box Inc.

One of those "found while looking for something else" news items. According to the Washington, DC based, non-profit Cancer Project, buying many of the cheap fast food deals may be a way to fight the immediate recessionary concerns of your wallet but may not be of any help to your long-term physical health. The Cancer Project identified the following as the worst deals for your health, starting with the worst deal:

NUMBER 1 WORST
Jack in the Box's $1.00 Junior Bacon Cheeseburger with 400 calories, 23 grams of fat, "including 8 grams of saturated fat and 1 gram of trans fat," and 860 milligrams of sodium (Jack in the Box's web site claims 803.5 mg of sodium). To their credit, for those who take the time to go to their web site, Jack in the Box does make suggestions for making wise decisions as part of your balanced lifestyle and diet...by substituting or even removing ingredients to reduce calories or otherwise customize your food. [Jack in the Box - Our Food: Lifestyle Choices]

NUMBER 2 WORST
Taco Bell's $0.89 Cheesy Double Beef Burrito with 20 grams of fat, including 7 grams of saturated fat, as well as 460 calories and 1,620 milligrams of sodium.

NUMBER 3 WORST
Burger King's Breakfast Sausage Biscuit with "420 calories and 27 grams of fat, including 15 grams of saturated fat. 1,090 milligrams of sodium."

NUMBER 4 WORST
McDonald's $1.00 McDouble sandwich with "390 calories, more than 43% of them from fat. 65 milligrams of cholesterol, more than 42% of the recommended daily value. 920 milligrams of sodium, 38% of the recommended daily value."

NUMBER 5 WORST
Wendy's Junior Bacon Cheeseburger with "310 calories, 46% of them from fat. Two strips of hickory-smoked bacon, a processed meat. 670 milligrams of sodium."

Hey, let's go for lunch!

Run (and eat) well, y'all,
Bob

(All restaurant/chain names and menu item names are registered trademarks or copyrighted by the respective companies.)

Sources:
Los Angeles Times, Jack in the Box burger tops unhealthful list, by Jerry Hirsch, 9 December 2008
Wall Street Journal Health Blog, From the ‘Worst’ to ‘Least Bad’ on Fast Food Value Menus, Posted by Sarah Rubenstei, 9 December 2008

Want to Live a Long Life? Run.

Now here's the kind of news that makes me happy! Read the whole article here.

Here are some key (read "interesting to me") findings from a Reuters' news article reporting a study published on Monday by Stanford University in California. All participants were 50 or older (I can relate):

... middle-aged members of a runner's club were half as likely to die over a 20-year period as people who did not run ... At [After] 19 years, 15 percent of runners had died compared with 34 percent of controls

Running reduced the risk not only of heart disease, but of cancer and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's.

... runners exercised as much as 200 minutes a week, compared to 20 minutes for the non-runners.

... the runners groups continued to accumulate more minutes per week of vigorous activity of all kinds.

... people cannot use the risk of injury as an excuse not to run -- the runners had fewer injuries of all kinds, including to their knees.

So, get out there and run like your life depends on it -- well, actually, it does. I'm going out in the morning for 8 miles toward a healthier life.

Update: Saturday, 16 August, 8:21 pm

Dean Karnazes commented on this in his blog, Dean's Blog, on 12 August.

Run well, y'all,
Bob

Decadent Indulgence

(or, How to Kill Yourself in 1 Quart)

Weighty Matters is a good, general health blog written by a Canadian physician, Yoni Freedhoff, who wants to ferret out the truth about weight and health. He's a good blogger -- entertaining and unafraid to speak his mind about health.

In today's blog, he spotlights Baskin-Robbins' (large -- 32 oz) Heath® Shake. Check out that monster! A single serving (32 fl. oz.) contains 2310 calories, 2.5g trans fat, 1560mg sodium, and 266g sugar (Freedhoff says that's 66.5 teaspoons or 1.5 cups of sugar). Check the ingredients' list -- sugar, corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup are featured multiple times.

When I read that to my wife, her comment was, "That much sugar in a milk shake would kill you!" Yeah, eventually that much sugar could well do it.

Run (and eat) well (and smart), y'all,
Bob

Being Healthy Costs More

One of life's little pleasures is NPR. Granted, I don't always agree with their perspective but I almost always learn something new or interesting -- often something that seems worth sharing. Such was the case this afternoon on All Things Considered. It's counterintuitive and, at first glance (well, or at first hearing), seems to go against all the studies touting the benefit of being healthy and maintaining a normal weight.

Study: Healthy People Cost Governments More
(You can listen to the report from the above link.)

All Things Considered, February 5, 2008 · There are a lot of good reasons for people to lose weight and stop smoking — but saving money on lifetime health care costs isn't one of them, according to a study out of the Netherlands.

The researchers found that healthy people cost governments more in the long run because they live years longer: an average of 4.5 years longer than people who are obese, and seven years longer than smokers.

(Van Baal, "Lifetime Medical Costs of Obesity: Prevention No Cure for Increasing Health Expenditure")

Where did this spring weather come from? It was 52° at 5:00am and 74° when I left the office at 5:00pm. Still, a good run this morning -- 5.3 miles at an 8:32 mpm pace. Tomorrow is a tempo run -- Oh, joy!

Run well, y'all,
Bob
Richmond