Family Meals: Do They Matter?

According to USDA reports, children ages 6 to 18 years old only meet 2% of the dietary recommendations for all five food groups, 56-85% consume soda on any given day, and 30% eat from fast food restaurants. Improving the eating habits of youth and preventing obesity with the use of the family meal was the focus of this year's Eva Goble Lecture Series given by Mary Story. Mary is a professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, and associate dean of academic and student affairs in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota.  She has worked in the area of child and adolescent nutrition for several years. Her research focuses on understanding factors related to eating behaviors of youth; and community and school-based interventions for obesity prevention, healthy eating, and physical activity.

A survey by Teenage Research Unlimited in 2004 found that teens listed eating dinner with their parents as one of the top choices of things they like to do - nearly 80%. Young people know family meals are important and they value them. The main reason for not having family meals during adolescence continues to be busyness. Survey findings from Project EAT, a study of eating among teens, found that a third of teens rarely or never eat a meal together.

So, are family meals associated with dietary intake? A study published in the Journal of the American Dietetics Association in 2004 showed an increase in fruits and vegetables, grains, calcium-rich foods, protein, iron, fiber, and vitamins and a decrease in soft-drinks with an increase in the frequency of family meals. Family meals not only improve dietary intake but are also associated with decrease incidence of high risk behaviors such as alcohol and tobacco use.      

Mary suggested that parents, families, and communities can all help improve the eating habits of youth by implementing some of these simple tips:

• Try to make family meals more of a priority.
• Aim for a least 3 - 4 meals together a week.
• Avoid topics likely to lead to arguments at meal time.
• Avoid scheduling sporting events and practices at times when families are most likely to be eating together.

For more information about Family Meals visit the Center for Families website at www.cfs.purdue.edu/CFF or contact Barb Mayfield at bmayfield@purdue.edu .

Purdue Students May Develop the Next Functional Food!

As the population ages, heath care costs rise, and awareness and desire to improve personal health increases. The marketplace has also seen increase desire for healthful food products. Consumers are seeking foods that provide health benefits beyond basic nutrition. These foods are called "functional foods." Functional foods are defined as foods or dietary components that may provide health benefits beyond basic nutritional value.

The table below provides a brief listing of selected functional foods and their potential health benefits.

Students in Foods and Nutrition 205, a course on chemical and physical composition of foods, and their changes during processing, storage, and preparation, have the opportunity to develop a functional food product. The goal of the project is to design and evaluate a new functional food product by introducing a new functional component to a mainstream food product and learn the scientific method in the process.

Bioactive food ingredients are key components in developing new food products. Bioactive food ingredients are ingredients or composition which is believed to poses unique physiological activity beyond basic nutritional value. Activities are proposed based on epidemiological and/or experimental evidence.  

Students are asked to develop a title, hypothesis, objectives, variables, procedures, and review the literature, before they conduct objective and subjective evaluations on the product. The students will then present the results and discuss their meanings. One student is testing green tea lollipops that would be equivalent to one cup of green tea per candy and another student is testing heart healthy brownies including polyphenol rich dark chocolate and omega-3 fatty acids from fish oils. A hypothesis-driven approach to the development of and evaluation of functional foods is key to advancing the scientific evidence for functional foods and their physiologically active components.

For more information about the functional foods project in Foods and Nutrition 205 contact Mario Ferruzzi at mferruzz@purdue.edu .

Indiana on the Move!

The 2005 Dietary Guidelines recommend controlling calorie intake to manage weight and adults get at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity most days and up to 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity a day to prevent unhealthy weight gain. A program called Indiana on the Move aims to hold off weight gain by encouraging an additional 2,000 steps of walking each day and a decrease in calorie consumption by 100 each day. Indiana on the Move is part of a national initiative, America on the Move. The program hopes to help individuals and communities make positive changes to improve health and quality of life.  

The initiative provides fun, simple ways to become more active and eat more healthfully to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. The message is simple: move more and eat less. Users will be given a free pedometer and then can chart their progress along the Lewis and Clark and other famous trails. The website is filled with fun goal-setting, logging and tracking tools for you to use once you register. For more information on Indiana on the Move log onto www.indianaonthemove.org .