A Georgia Tech College of Computing Ph.D. candidate, Andrea Grimes Parker, has shown that playing health-related video games on a mobile device can help adults learn to live more healthfully by making smart diet choices.

OrderUP! seeks to educate players about how to make healthy eating choices in situations nearly everyone encounters regularly in their lives. By casting players as virtual restaurant servers, Order UP! forces players to make healthy — and fast — menu decisions for a group of demanding, impatient customers.

“We found that, after playing OrderUP! for just three weeks, we saw people engage in behaviors and thinking consistent with the processes of change identified by the TTM,” Parker said. “In particular, we found that people learned how to make healthier choices when eating out, reassessed the healthiness of their current eating habits, began having productive conversations about healthy eating with people in their social network and, finally, actually started introducing healthier foods into their diet.”

“The most important finding from the OrderUP! project was how the game was integrated into conversations players had with other players and non-players about things that they had learned, particularly things that confronted their assumptions about healthy choices.”

The game works like this: One at a time, 10 virtual “customers” approach the counter with three possible food choices; for example, the choices could be a fried chicken thigh, a jerk chicken breast or gumbo. They’re then asked to make the healthiest choice, with only a few moments to pick before the customer gets impatient and leaves. Players start with 1,000 health points, and as they make unhealthy choices for their customers (or as the customers get tired of waiting and leave) their health points drop. The object of the game is to continue serving food as long as possible.

OrderUP! fits into a larger research profile within the College of Computing of trying to determine how the ubiquity of mobile devices can be leveraged to improve users’ health.

Future development of OrderUP! will include a longer study to measure player behavior change over an extended period of time, as well as an expanded game with more levels, more food choices and more nutritional information available to the player.

[Sciencedaily]

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Most people, including myself, eat very little in the morning and then increase amounts of meals throughout the day. The pyramid method suggest to swap this around so that your first meal is the largest and then size decreases for the rest of the meals throughout the day.

I haven’t really managed to follow it strictly, but it’s been in the back of my mind lately and so I have adjusted my meals somewhat according to it. It seems better to get more energy early on, which I guess should be logical. The big thing causing some hiccups in my trial is the delicious dinners I’m served by my wife!

In addition to structure meals like a pyramid the method also emphasize:

• Getting enough proteins early on
• Eating low glycemic index foods
• Eat frequently
• Drink enough water
• Keep track of your energy levels

To read more in-depth about it head over to Lifehacker and have a look at the article.

[Lifehacker]

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I think it’s a great idea which can get you started of on a healthier pattern. Even if you don’t do it every day of the week, try at least a Meatless Monday. Everything helps;  for your own health, the environment and the animals.

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A new study from researchers at Lunds University in Sweden have investigated the combined effect of a specific diet rather than focusing on single components. The results are quite staggering, and eating their diet show a reduction of cholesterol by 33%, blood lipids by 14%, blood pressure by 8% and risk marker for blood clots and inflammation in the body was greatly reduced while memory and cognitive function were improved.

These are quite impressive results, and it also show how it’s necessary to consider the diet as a whole instead of focusing only on single elements. No previous study has managed to produce similar effects on healthy subjects. They don’t know what specifically triggered the positive effects, but that’s also the idea behind it, that it’s the interaction of food together which is important and not each single component. Maybe the joint effort of healthy food is greater than the sum of its parts.

On a question as to how much meat the participants consumed in the test diet Maria Johansson replied:

The subjects consumed lean meat and lean ham. Meat intake was restricted maninly due to the fact that the active diet contained proteins from other sources e.g. fat fish, soy, whey. Usually the subjects had one sandwich with lean ham for lunch and for dinner meat was served about two times per week.

This is most probably within the guidelines of 300 grams of red meat per week as set forward by the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research in their 2007 report. It would have been interesting to see what the results had been if the study had been performed using a completely plant based diet.

Tthe diet used was called the “Active Diet” which includes a number of food features with recognized physiological effects. The categories they focused on can be summarized as follows:

• Low glycemic index (ex. viscous fibe-rich muesly, cinnamon, vinegar),
• Cholesterol-lowering (ex. plant stanols, soybeans/soy protein, almonds),
• Antioxidants/anti-inflammatory (cinnamon, blueberries, omega 3 fatty acids),
• Probiotics and prebiotics (Lactobacilli, viscous dietary fibers),
• Whole grain (dietary fiber, antioxidants, bioactives),
• Barley

The Control diet was non-vegetarian, contained limited amounts of the active components and was formulated according to Swedish nutrition recommendations. In the study alcohol was not excluded, but limited.

The study has a politically explosive power, emphasize Inger Björck, professor of food-related nutrition at Lund University and head of the University’s Antidiabetic Food Centre. Björck also states that:

“We hope that these results on healthy subjects will inspire more intense preventive efforts in society.”

I really hope so as well!

A video with a presentation going through the study is available here.

A summary of the study is given below:

Purpose

Find out which preventive effect can be obtained on established risk markers by combining food concepts with an expected positive impact on inflammation.

Hypothesis

A diet combining foods capable of reducing risk markers may result in an improved overall effect

Method

Forty-four healthy, overweight people between the ages of 50 and 75 took part in the diet study. For four weeks they ate foods which are presumed to reduce low-grade inflammation in the body, a condition which in turn triggers metabolic syndrome and thus obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Diet

The test diet was high in antioxidants, low-GI foods (i.e. slow release carbohydrates), omega fatty acids, wholegrain products, probiotics and viscous dietary fiber. Examples of food the test subjects were eating are: barley, soy protein, blueberries, almonds, cinnamon, vinegar and a certain type of wholegrain bread and oily fish (and meat 2 times per week as mentioned in the article).

[Alphagalileo] via [Sciencedaily]

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After Bill Clinton had his bypass surgery, his arteries clogged up and he needed a stent. He didn’t want it to happen again, so he researched the topic, and found that 82% of heart patients who went on a plant based diet becomes healthy again. He changed his diet to a plant based one, and the video is an interview with him where he explains why and where his doctors, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn and Dr. Dean Ornish, explains more about the benefits and some of the research behind a plant based diet.

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