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A Possible Solution on: How to be Healthy & Lose Weight

A reflection on a nutritional study conducted in France

By Doors to LifePublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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A Possible Solution on: How to be Healthy & Lose Weight
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It's one thing to be able to lose weight but be not eating anything or selecting specific diet choices doesn't necessarily mean that it's a "healthy" choice. For example, skipping meals or avoiding all fats can increase risk for complications with the gallbladder. As the gallbladder is known to store bile which emulsifies fat or breaks it down. Bile is like a salt, so it's produced by the liver and released from the gallbladder when we consume fats. However, when we decide to purposefully skip meals and avoid all fats, the liver and gallbladder will feel that they don't need to produce bile anymore. So, what happens to the stored bile in the gallbladder? Well, it can become gallstones since bile is like a salt causing other complications. On the other hand, when we eat too many fats the liver will "feel" overwhelmed to produce more bile than necessary which can also lead to more gallbladder complications. Unfortunately, that's just one example and there are many more examples; it's just goes to show that it's important to eat, but to also eat with more good foods than bad. As well as figuring out what the best-balanced nutritional intake is best suited for you.

It's pretty clear that college students have to pay lots of money for their tuition, books, etc. The stress build-up can also lead to over- or undereating as well. On top of that if they work part-time, they may want something quick and easy to-go. Sounds familiar right? Like fast food options, usually high in the bad fats (saturated) and high in sodium.

Many students in college are constantly worried about their money and are willing to pay for food that is nutritionally bad for them. In this research that was conducted in France of 2017, the research conductors gathered students and assessed them on the “effects of the Nutri-Score label”- which demonstrates the nutritional quality of students' food purchases. To put it into simple terms, Nutri-Score is like a grading scale of how “healthy” a food product may be. The scale is graded on positive points for when student's purchased products containing ingredients such as fruits, veggies, nuts, fibers and proteins. However, it is also graded on negative points for ingredients that contained unhealthy qualities such as high sugar, high sodium, and saturated fats. In this study, it will assess students (the participants) if a Nutri-Score label would have any effects on their choices of food.

The subjects in the research trial were eligible 18-25-year-old students who were studying in France and “engaged in grocery shopping”. The researchers chose this group not only because this fits in with the majority of the college age group population, but at this time there are higher risks for increase weight and poor food choices among this group. There were a total of 2907 participants who were part of this trial and were broken down into 3 groups. Those three groups are the participants who shop with the Nutri-Score label, the Reference Intakes, and no label. So, one group had the scoring process, the other used reference intakes, and the last group used nothing during their grocery shopping.

This was a randomized controlled trial where the participants were randomized into “1 of the 3 study arms (Nutri-Score, Reference Intakes, no label)”. Then they were invited to purchase groceries from an experimental Web-based supermarket that the researchers have created for this trial to work. During the study, the researchers focused primarily on the “overall nutritional quality of purchases”. They measured this by following the modified version of the Food Standards Agency Nutrient Profiling System.

Results have shown that the score of the Nutri-Score group had a higher score for Nutrional quality than the Reference Intakes group. In addition, there was an observation made that the shopping cart contents were lower in calories and saturated fatty acids, in addition to contents higher in the fruits and veggies for the Nutri-Score label group than the other groups. The Nutri-Score label appeared to improve the nutritional composition of students' food purchases relative to the Reference Intakes label or no label.

After doing some additional research, the Nutri-Score label can be found on multiple products. It is an efficient graded and color-coded label which indicates if the food product is healthy for its nutritional quality that is found in the food. The color coding helps individual get an easier idea on what foods to get, instead of having to read a lot, which can lead to confusion or misunderstandings. I have noticed that as a college student myself, once people start college, it is easier carrying poor dietary habits into their future and adulthood too. Good news is that “The Nutri-Score label has been demonstrated to have a positive effect on the nutritional quality of food purchases of consumers in the general population”, (Egnell, M., 2019).

References:

Egnell, M., Boutron, I., Péneau, S., Ducrot, P., Touvier, M., Galan, P., … Julia, C. (2019). Front- of-Pack Labeling and the Nutritional Quality of Students’ Food Purchases: A 3-Arm Randomized Controlled Trial. American Journal of Public Health, 109(8), 1122–1129. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost- com.lopes.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=s3h&AN=137304713&site=eds- live&scope=site

Research Team in Nutritional Epidemiology (EREN). (2019). Retrieved from https://world.openfoodfacts.org/nutriscore

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About the Creator

Doors to Life

Welcome! Everyone has gone through multiple doors in their lifetime, so let's continue to discover more hidden door's about life. What will the next door lead you to? Let me tell you what I discover in life one door at a time!

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