HapBird

Just got around to reading a two-day old San Diego Union Tribune "Focus on Nutrition" column. I've quoted the first few paragraphs below; you can find the entire article online here. They keep their online articles accessible for a month or so.
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Long-term weight loss depends on personality factors

April 13, 2005

During a recent interview, I was asked about a well-known study that discussed characteristics of successful and unsuccessful dieters.

This interesting study, reported in November 1990 in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, was based on interviews with three types of women.

Members of the first group had lost weight but then regained it; they are referred to as relapsers. The women in a second group had lost weight and were able to keep it off; they are referred to as maintainers. The control group consisted of women who had maintained the same non-obese weight.

The participants were questioned on topics including their history of being overweight, dieting and weight loss. They were asked about childhood food experiences, meal and snacking patterns, emotion-related eating and methods used to handle troubling situations.

The data revealed a number of significant differences. Relapsers were more likely to take appetite suppressants and join formal weight-loss programs. More relapsers skipped breakfast, and they often went on restrictive diets that denied them the foods they enjoyed.

While most maintainers said they did not want help from support groups or health professionals, relapsers would have liked even more help.

When using the same approach to weight loss, relapsers adapted their lifestyles to the program, while maintainers usually tailored the program to fit their lifestyles........

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Phil Darby / LAP RNY Dr. Callery 09/27/04........|Max:280+|Min:±155|Now:±175|

HapBird

Fun to watch the Sugar Industry vs. Splenda wars. Wonder who'll win?

I think it's a bit ironic that the sugar folks are getting their knickers into a twist about competition from an artificial sweetener - trying to suggest that the competition's product is "unhealthy" - as if sugar was "healthy" !!!!!

Here's the whole article - available online for a month or so.
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Sweet and sour

Sugar industry and Splenda at war over use of advertising

April 13, 2005

When America's sweet tooth met up with a new product called Splenda back in 2000, it didn't take long for the two to hit it off.

By 2003, Splenda was the country's top-selling no-calorie sweetener, charging past such competitors as NutraSweet, Equal, Sweet'n Low and Sunnett as if powered by a sugar high.

It has since gone on to also outsell, in dollars, any single brand of sugar, and it is added to about 3,500 processed foods and beverages, in addition to its tabletop and home-cooking uses.

Now the competition among sweeteners has turned bitter. The sugar industry is assailing Splenda's marketer, McNeil Nutritionals, a division of Johnson & Johnson, over the way it advertises Splenda. Lawsuits and counter suits have hit the courts.

If you're a Splenda user, here's what you need to know: The controversy centers mainly on Splenda's promotional messages and its claimed link to sugar, not its safety.

At the same time, some critics in the sugar industry contend not enough is known about the long-term human impacts of combining chlorine with sugar to make sucralose, Splenda's base ingredient. The sweetener's approval by the Food and Drug Administration followed numerous animal studies.

"Made from sugar so it tastes like sugar" are the words on the Splenda package and in the Splenda ads that rankle the Sugar Association, a sugar-industry trade group, and its co-plaintiffs in a suit targeting the ad campaign.

In using that slogan, "Johnson & Johnson wants consumers to think that it is natural sugar without calories. The truth is that Splenda is not natural," according to www.truthaboutsplenda.com, a Web site launched by the Sugar Association................

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Phil Darby / LAP RNY Dr. Callery 09/27/04........|Max:280+|Min:±155|Now:±175|

LizardQueen

Great info! Thanks!