Barb Andresen Nutrition Services

12/30/2020

https://www.today.com/today/amp/tdna204784

The USDA and HHS just released the 2020-2025 dietary guidelines for Americans. They aim to offer advice on dietary patterns to promote health.

02/29/2020

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-020-0035-8

Popular ideas about the Mediterranean diet are reviewed and questioned with respect to regional data on food intake and cultural diversity. With the UNESCO declaration of the Mediterranean diet as an Intangible Cultural Heritage, a far more holistic approach to food habits and environmental patterns...

01/05/2020

"Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go. They merely determine where you start."
~ Nido Qubein

11/20/2019

From the Winston Salem Journal
Athletes and eating disorders

In a recent Reuters article, “Tailored Treatments Could Help Athletes with Eating Disorders,” the author emphasizes the role of psychology and nutrition in helping athletes with their body image. I am surprised the Journal has not written about the increased risk athletes face for eating disorders. I’d be remiss, as a collegiate athlete who is immersed within a population that’s hindered by this mental illness, not to shed more light for your readers on how awareness leads to earlier recognition.

With my experience as an athlete, I have an immense understanding of the negative relationship between perceived societal expectations and the intrapersonal need to meet such expectations. When the pressures of athletic competition are added to an existing cultural emphasis on thinness, the risks increase for athletes to develop eating disorders.

Three risk factors are of alarming concern as they are thought to contribute to a female athlete’s vulnerability to an eating disorder: social influences emphasizing thinness, performance anxiety and negative self-appraisal of athletic achievement. In a study of Division 1 NCAA athletes, over one-third of female athletes reported attitudes and symptoms placing them at risk for anorexia nervosa.

Awareness and education can lead to prevention and early diagnosis with treatment for these athletes. Familiarity with eating disorders can also lead to increased consciousness and empathy for those who are suffering/ struggling while decreasing the stigma often associated with these mental illnesses.

We all have the power to create change and positively impact the mental health of athletes.

Hannah Wagner

Winston-Salem

10/22/2019

09/28/2019

Instead of tracking calories and steps, try these 5 mindful apps
You can now enlist your smartphone to self-monitor your way to wellness goals.
You can now enlist your smartphone to self-monitor your way to wellness goals.
By
Ellie Krieger
Columnist, Food
September 18, 2019 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
Nowadays it’s common to look to your smartwatch or phone for confirmation that you’ve taken enough steps or eaten the right number of calories on a given day. But while tracking apps and devices can be helpful motivators for many, they are not right for everyone. Taking a numbers-focused approach to health — defining it in terms of calories, steps and pounds — can detract from the inherent pleasures of eating well and being active. It can also be anxiety provoking and even dangerous for some: There is evidence, for example, that using a tracking device exacerbates symptoms of eating disorders. Instead of zeroing in on numbers, it may be better to self-monitor in a more intuitive way and with a wider-angle perspective, evaluating eating patterns and activities based on how they make you feel and whether they contribute to your long-term goals. Luckily, you can now enlist your smartphone to help you do that, too. These five e-tools are designed help you reach your wellness goals more mindfully.

Ate Food Diary is an app that, from my experience, lives up to the description on its website: “It’s visual, mindful and nonjudgmental. Instead of calories, we focus on how meals make you feel.” Type your wellness goal into the app (I wrote “eat better” and later, just to see what would happen, “lose weight”) and it prompts you to select specific steps you will take toward that goal from dozens of behavior-based options such as “cook more often,” “no snacking after dinner” or “eat most of your food from plants.” Refreshingly, even when I chose “lose weight’ as my goal, none of the actions referred to body weight or calories. To start a log, you take a photo of your food, choose whether what you ate was “on path” or “off path” and answer multiple-choice questions such as why you ate, who you ate with, where you ate and how the food made you feel. At the day’s end, you get a visual recap of your food images plus stats on the percentage of meals that were “on path,” the frequency of your meals and the length of your overnight fast. There is an option to share your journal with friends for support and a system for making your feed available to your health professional or coach. The basic version of the app is free, but you can personalize the questions and get other benefits, the ability to log beverage intake and customize the way you track mood and feelings, by upgrading to premium, which costs $5.99 monthly.

Good for: those who want the accountability and awareness that comes with keeping a food diary, without the calorie-counting or diet mentality.

07/14/2019

Home made pesto on fancy pasta!
Recipe for pesto -
3/4 cup toasted pine nuts or toasted pistachios - chopped
3/4 cup grated Cello parmesan
2 garlic cloves
6 cups fresh basil (pick early morning for best flavor)
3/4-1 cup Trader Joe's Sicilian Olive oil
Blend to smoothness you prefer.
I use my Bullet food processor
Serve over warm pasta and enjoy!

07/02/2019

Find a Dietitian

Want to unlock the potential of food? Dietitians work with you to provide personalized nutrition advice and practical solutions, without fads or gimmicks.

Love this! Found on Dietitians of Canada webpage

06/05/2019

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/eating-disorder-cases-have-doubled-globally-new-research-shows-20190531-p51t45.html

New research has found that the global rate of eating disorder prevalence doubled from 3.4 per cent of the population to 7.8 per cent between 2000 and 2018.

05/17/2019

Delicious Cuban Tapas!! Finished off with guava cheese pastelitos!!

05/16/2019

Cuban Tapas class at Southern Home & Kitchen

05/13/2019

My 8 month old Grand(est) nephew loves asparagus!!!