You’ve made a decision – you are going to shift the excess weight and get in shape. So you hit the gym and settle into the less-calories-in-more-calories-out formula.

At first, you lose some weight and you’re toning up nicely. But, within sight of your goal, it all stops. Your weight remains the same, you are taut and toned but still… what do you do? Do you give up and accept that you are never going to be a size 8, or do you wonder if there are other factors at play, factors that are perhaps just out of your control?

If that is the case, can you gain control of these factors that affect your life so much?

A Long-Time Survey
A long-running survey in America In America between 1971 and 2008 looked at the lifestyle choices of a pool of over 35,000 people.

The data makes for interesting reading. Whilst calorie intake increased over the course of the study, so too did levels of physical activity.

That said, Millennials are 10% heavier that previous generations. In other words, a 25-year-old today will have to eat less and exercise more to be in the same shape as a 25-year-old from previous generations.

Why is this the case? Researchers think they have identified the causes – medication use has changed over the decades, as have the levels and types of pollutants, genetics, timings of food intake, stress, gut bacteria and nighttime exposure to light.

So, being healthy, trim and slim is not just about eating less and exercising more. Understanding the whole picture about weight gain and why it has changed is one that challenge modern society faces.

Obesity
Obesity is described as a global epidemic, but here’s the rub – the vast majority of obesity societies are those in ‘the West,’ or the developed world. What we need to address is the cause of obesity.

Some health professionals say that for those with weight gain problems, a lack of self-control is the issue. But now experts are asking, ‘why is self-control such an issue?’

One reason is what scientists and psychologists are calling a ‘toxic environment’.

What is a ‘toxic environment’?
Our exposure as consumers to advertising has changed over the decades. The persuasive sales patter of TV adverts and the Internet have packed our daily lives with subliminal messages relating to energy-dense foods and high sugar drinks.

Our disposable income has led to us eating out more and with super-fast and super-easy online food ordering, with everything delivered to your door at the click of a mouse. With this in mind, you can understand why the environment around us has become ‘toxic’.

But there are other factors that all impinge on how we see ourselves and the relationship we form with food:

Genetics, age, gender, race and ethnicity are all factors that affect your diet and your level of exercise. Linked with these personal factors are our emotions.

Previously, it was thought that how we see and connect with food was the only relationship worth considering when looking at why we gain weight, but research has shown that how we react in all manner of situations influences our relationship with food.

These are the physical locations you inhabit – school, workplace and home – as well where and how you receive medical care. Also listed in community factors is where you get your food. With some families relying on charity and food banks during the prolonged period of austerity, this can be a real cause for concern.

These are the messages that we are given about what or how we should look. What does society think is the norm when it comes to shape and weight? There are family pressures too – for example, how many of us were told we had to ‘clear out plate’ at the meal table?

Complex Solutions to Complex Problems
Like most issues and problems, if the habits of healthy eating and losing weight were easy, we would all adopt them.

Understanding the complex issues involved with weight, obesity, decision-making, norms of society and family and so on, are all factors covered in our online healthy eating courses.

To help others adopt a healthy lifestyle, you first need to understand your own relationship with food and your opinions on physical activity, but also ground this with knowledge relating to healthy eating choices.
What do you think makes for a healthy lifestyle? What’s your opinion on the emergence of the ‘toxic environment’ theory?

Ancient Greeks and Romans ate pancakes, sweetened with a drizzle of honey. During Elizabethan times, the pancake was flavoured with spices, rosewater, sherry and apples. Today, the pancake can be eaten with almost any filling, including sweet and savoury options.

Traditionally eaten on Shrove Tuesday, pancakes are a tasty morsel before the fast of Lent began.

But the pancake needn’t be confined to one day a year. And neither do they need to be drenched in sugar and lemon juice, or stuffed with ice cream and chocolate sauce.
There are healthier options when it comes to pancakes, just as there are with other well-known and well-liked foods, something that healthy eating courses highlight.

Guilt-free Pancakes – Go Bananas!

A healthy diet is a balanced one. Pancakes, in moderation, form an important part of your diet. With most things, adding value with healthy options such as fruit makes a pancake more nutritious and filling, meaning you will be less likely to snack on less-than-healthy stuff.

Ingredients

For this recipe, you will need;

Method

You shouldn’t need extra sugar as bananas are sweet but, if you need more sweetness, try the following;

Bananas have a great mix of potassium, fibre and protein, essential for a healthy diet and body. By adding banana to a pancake mix, you have instantly added nutritional value to an otherwise plain mix of egg, flour and milk.

And by using one egg and two egg whites, the calorie count is kept down too, without completing ditching the nutritional benefits of eggs.

Guilt-free Pancakes – A Savoury Option

Great for a quick, healthy, nutritious lunch, this spinach, mushroom and low-fat cottage cheese is perfect.

Ingredients

For the pancake mix:

Method

Why Study Healthy Eating Courses?

There is a growing emphasis being placed on food, our understanding of where it comes from and how we can make our diets healthier.

Britain, like many other developed countries, is gripped in a first world problem: obesity. Being overweight places stress on our bodies, resulting in various medical conditions that the NHS is struggling to cope with. Complications due to type 2 Diabetes, for example, are not uncommon.

Healthy eating courses are for everybody and anybody wishing to find out more about how small changes to their diet can have a positive impact on their health.
With these two pancake recipes as inspiration, you can see just how tasty healthy food can be. Cooking healthy dishes and snacks is also a lot less effort than you think too!

With healthy eating courses you will learn even more about how foods and drink impact on your health, as well as clever ideas and ways of turning the mundane into something delicious – without piling on the pounds or ruining your health!

With a nearly a quarter of adults in the UK thought to be obese according to the latest UK Government statistics, the need to educate and motivate people to live a healthier lifestyle, lose weight has never been more important.

There are all kinds of ways for someone to improve their overall physical health. With exercise and physical fitness also helping to maintain emotional health too, people are turning to the expert help of a personal trainer.

Exercising safely
For someone carrying excessive weight, starting a new exercise regime or training program can lead to injury. This, in turn, exacerbates the myth that exercise or activity if good for them, leading back to a sedentary lifestyle.

For many people, starting something new unaided is a challenge thus, a personal trainer can be the friendly, yet knowledgeable person that they need to give them a helping hand. Many people also use personal trainers when they are aiming for a specific goal.

Thus, if you are looking for information on how to become a personal trainer, here is the essential information you need.

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The UK has the highest rate of childhood obesity in Western Europe (NHS). This sentence alone should be a wake-up call to make changes to how we see food, what we eat and how much. Add to this the strain that this places on the NHS too and you realise that this is a far bigger problem than first thought. With £4.2 billion each year spent on diet-related diseases, there is a need for action.

The various convention approaches to prevention such as social marketing and community-based interventions have not yielded the results that experts thought they would. Their failure to make an impact means that many children are still at risk.

We know what we need to do – this is why there is a collective guilt about not managing to ‘eat five a day’ – and what is good for us, but there is often a gulf between what is good and what we actually do.

The same is true for parents and children. When life is busy, time in short supply and money tight too, with £5 in your pocket that will buy a few pieces of fruit with a short shelf life, opting for the biscuits and other sugary snacks of which there is more and that will last longer quickly becomes the answer.

There are also problems with food labelling and what we understand by some of the phrases and words used. Drinking fruit juice, you may have thought was healthy and one of your five a day; it may be but it may also be laden with a large proportion of your recommended sugar intake too.

So what is the solution?
The answer is hard to come by but organisations and agencies have noted that there are underlying cultural forces that line up to make everyday life unhealthy, for both adult and kids.

‘Food deserts’ are an uncomfortable paradox in our developed country. The UK has a monopoly, like other rich, developed countries on the global food market and yet, in some of the most deprived areas of our own country, people struggle to afford healthy food.

Food retailers are constantly driving down prices to give us cheap, fast food with empty calories and negative nutritional value. Many organisations and health professionals have also highlighted the impact of advertising too. Most adverts are designed to trigger an emotional response, and if there is one thing certain to trigger an emotional need, it is promoting food of some kind or another.

Consumers, some say, need the will power and determination of a well-trained athlete to resist these adverts. And it is a daily barrage with children being bombarded too at every turn, or so it seems. From poster campaigns on main routes through towns and cities, to internet adverts and those on TV too.

There is little comparison between the calories consumed and the weekly amount of exercise that campaigns tell us that we need; the 150 minutes of exercise per week would only work off a quarter of a Domino’s pizza.

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Fast food with little nutritional value is often a cheaper and more convenient alternative to healthier food

High street domination
Empty shops on high streets in deprived areas don’t always welcome new tenants readily but when they do, research has shown that the new tenants are often cheap, fast food outlets.
Newham, a borough in London has the fifth highest child obesity rate in the UK, and a high prevalence of diabetes. The healthy school food ‘movement’ has not worked here, with only 15% of students eating in school canteens. When older students leave school premises at lunchtime, they enter a high street full of fast food outlets.

Research also noted that when there was a fast food outlet within 160metres of a school, obesity amongst students aged 15 to 16 increased by 5% (WAWWD). This is not good news for those directly involved in the tackling the UK child obesity crisis.

More than just food
It isn’t just food. Food spaces, for many young people, equal social spaces. But they are also associated with anti-social behaviour and littering. Chicken based fast food outlets seem to attract young people more than other fast food outlets.

Branding and design, as well as promotion, also pay a key role in how young people and children view food. Creating a ‘must-have’ to be ‘cool’ and ‘part of common, acceptable culture’ places parents under all kinds of pressures. And it’s not just trainers; you lunch box needs to be cool too. Who wants to be seen eating yogurt coated raisins when everyone else has chocolate or sugar coated sweets?

Education and awareness
There is no easy fix. Eating healthy is about changing habits, as well as educating people. Healthy Eating Courses is one means by which the UK child obesity crisis could be tackled. Changing attitudes may a whole lot more difficult…