Category: Diet & Nutrition

New dietary guidelines include pregnancy, breastfeeding and early childhood recommendations for first time

Guidelines recognize the role of nutrition during pregnancy in influencing lifelong health outcomes for mother and baby

For the first time ever, the newly released 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans focus on a lifespan approach to nutrition, with specific sections dedicated to nutrition during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and infancy and early childhood.  

The OHSU Bob and Charlee Moore Institute for Nutrition & Wellness provided testimony on the science of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) to the scientific committee compiling the recommendations for the updated guidelines.

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Veggie Rx: using food as medicine

It’s not just about more food; it’s about the right kind of food

Veggie Rx is just what it sounds like: a doctor-ordered vegetable and fruit prescription. Why would a doctor prescribe fresh produce? Because fresh food can be used like medicine to manage and prevent diseases caused by eating an unhealthy diet. Diseases like heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes.

The reality is that even though our nation produces an ample supply of high-quality produce and whole foods,

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Why school meals matter

How you can help improve the nutritional environment of your local school

School meals matter. Children consume as much as one-half of their daily calories at school. As a result, the food kids eat at school can either be an opportunity to encourage healthy eating behaviors and curb America’s childhood obesity epidemic, or can be a contributor to poor health and increased chronic disease risk.

Increasing the availability of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy products as part of school meals can be an effective strategy to improve healthy eating behaviors among children.

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Often overlooked, adolescent nutrition plays key role in health

Nutrition is important at all stages of life, but during adolescence it plays a particularly important role.

Any parent who has had to buy their child three different sizes of pants over the course of one school year will know that adolescents grow more during this time period than at any other time except infancy. So it goes without saying that adolescents have increased nutritional needs.

About half of a healthy body mass is gained during adolescence.

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Why SNAP Matters

Proposed cuts would cause poor health outcomes in this generation and the next

The next few weeks will see plenty of news stories about the potentially devastating effects of President Trump’s proposed budget, especially the proposed 29 percent cut to SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or what used to be known as food stamps.

A program that’s been around since the 1960s, SNAP has been studied extensively and consistently been shown to be effective in lifting people out of poverty and reducing the number of people who are food insecure.

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Success story: one university’s attempt to improve the health culture on campus

George Fox University implements Nutrition Matters Program to weave nutrition importance throughout campus culture

When you think of food on college campuses what comes to mind? For most of us we probably picture dorms with cafeterias offering mystery meat burgers, pizza, corn dogs, fries and soda dispensers. But George Fox University decided it wanted to change all of that.

George Fox is located just outside of Portland in Oregon’s growing wine country. The campus has a 14:1 student to faculty ratio, helping the 4,000 plus students form a tight-knit community.

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The seeds of heart disease risk are planted before birth

Once rare, heart disease is now world's leading killer

Heart disease, rare only a century ago, is now the most common cause of death worldwide. Many explanations for this meteoric rise have been put forth, but most have fallen well short of explaining how this once rare chronic disease could kill the equivalent of the population of Portland, Oregon each year.

About 25 years ago an English epidemiologist named David Barker found that areas of England with high rates of infant deaths following WWII had high rates of adult death from heart disease 50 years later.

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What’s wrong with the American diet?

Too much and too little

What’s wrong with the average American diet? Too much and too little. We consume too much salt, fat, sugar and calories and too little nutrients from fresh whole fruits and vegetables.

Three-quarters of Americans don’t eat the recommend five to nine daily servings of fruits and vegetables. More than half exceed the recommendations for protein and grain consumption, but this is made up of red meat, high-fat dairy and refined carbohydrates,

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Boys grow dangerously in the womb

Men pay price with shorter lifespans for rapid growth before birth

It won’t surprise anyone to hear that boys and girls are very different creatures, but to find that these differences are noticeable at the earliest stages of development has surprised even scientists. Differences in growth patterns are seen from the moment of fertilization and have long-term implications for adult health.

Upon fertilization, an egg is already carrying the entire genetic blueprint of a new individual, including the sex,

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A New Year’s resolution that could help end heart disease

Nutrition now means a healthier you and a healthier community

January is a time to think about positive changes, and often our resolutions have to do with health and healthy eating. As you work toward meeting your resolutions this year, take heart and get some added motivation by knowing that your food choices today may eradicate chronic diseases by the end of the century. Incredible, right? But true.

A growing body of research has given us new insight into the origins of chronic disease and indicates that susceptibility to diseases like obesity,

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My experience “westernizing” my traditional Chinese diet

As western diets spread, so too do associated chronic health problems

I love Chinese food! Not just because I am Chinese, but I love the cuisine because of its flavor and variety. Growing up in Hong Kong in a traditional Chinese family and then moving to the U.S. as a young adult, has allowed me to see the effects of each food culture on the health of its population. The differences between my traditional Chinese diet and the western diet are stark.

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Food as medicine

How a healthy diet now can end chronic disease in future generations

You may already know that the food a woman eats while pregnant and breastfeeding has a direct effect on her developing baby, but you may not know that what a woman eats prior to conceiving is just as important.

Good nutrition before becoming pregnant creates a healthy body that will be ready to nourish a developing baby. While a woman provides the environment that supports and nurtures her developing child,

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What is “good food?”

Hint: no barcodes

The message that we should be eating better is nothing new. We hear it everywhere. But making sense of the advice on what to eat or not eat seems to be constantly changing – one minute eggs are good for us, the next minute eggs are bad. We’re told our health problems result from all that saturated fat we consumed, no wait it’s carbs that are making us fat, or maybe it’s all the added sugar,

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How dad’s nutrition impacts children’s health

What males eat before becoming fathers affects their children's chronic disease risk

What a woman eats while she is pregnant has implications for her developing child. But what about the role of men? Does what a man eats have an impact on his future children? It may seem strange, but emerging research shows that the nutrition of fathers does have a role in their children’s risk for developing chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes and obesity later in life.

Just as a woman’s diet has a role in affecting the health of her children and grandchildren,

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