Nutrition News by Charlyn Fargo

Want to know how teens successfully lose weight? By drinking less soda, increasing exercise level, weekly self-weighing and consuming diets higher in protein. The successful losers also spent less time watching television. The study, published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association's December 2009 issue, compared 62 overweight adolescents who lost weight in the past with 68 overweight adolescents who did not lose weight. The teens responded to questions regarding weight control behaviors during the past year, physical activity, sedentary activity and dietary intake.

Adolescent obesity now affects one out of every three young people, resulting in 4 to 5 million overweight youth in the United States. And research shows that one of the strongest predictors of adult obesity is adolescent obesity, with 70 percent of obese adolescents becoming obese adults. Only a few studies have examined individuals who have been successful at weight loss. Findings of the National Weight Control Registry, which is an ongoing study of adults who have been successful maintaining long-term weight loss, showed that the most common strategy was consumption of a low-fat diet, adherence to monitoring food intake, increased physical activity and regular breakfast consumption.

Participants in the teen study were from the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn., Metro area. Researchers, from the University of California in San Diego and the University of Minnesota, wrote that the results gave them a ''glimpse of optimism'' that adolescents can lose a significant amount of weight and maintain the weight loss. They also felt that ''there are no magic solutions,'' and the tried-and-true strategies of eating more fruits and vegetables, eating less fat and decreasing sedentary time offer the most promise for success.

Q AND A

Q: Breakfast is often said to be a vital meal. But it seems crazy to force myself to eat if I'm not hungry. Should I eat breakfast?

A: Start by considering whether your current eating pattern seems to be working for you. When you don't eat breakfast, do you have energy to get through your morning, eat a healthy lunch and avoid overeating the rest of the day and evening? Do you reach recommended amounts of the healthy foods your body needs? Are you maintaining a healthy weight? If your answer to all these questions is ''yes,'' then there's probably no reason to force yourself to eat breakfast, unless you have a medical condition or take medicines that necessitate a morning meal.

However, if you answered ''no'' to any of those questions, perhaps you should reconsider.

Studies show that people who eat breakfast tend to overeat less throughout the rest of the day. Many people who report lack of early morning hunger are those who eat large amounts of food through the evening. Because this pattern often involves lots of excess calories and ''junk food,'' perhaps once you address the evening eating problems, you will want breakfast.

Some people run around so frantically in the morning that they don't have time to notice or respond to hunger signals. Whether they call it breakfast or a morning snack, they often find that if they take time to refuel with a balanced selection of healthy foods once the initial frantic activity subsides, it does help the day go better than when they wait until they're famished to grab candy, a donut or whatever's handy. — American Institute for Cancer Research

WEB ADVICE

To find out how many servings of fruits and vegetables you should be eating, go to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's new site, www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov. The site gives personalized advice based on your age, sex and level of physical activity, replacing the old rule of five a day for everyone.

RECIPE

This recipe for Slow-Roasted Brown Sugar and Dill Cured Salmon made Cooking Light magazine's ''Best of 2009'' list. Slow roasting the cured fish gives the salmon a velvety, silken texture.

Slow-Roasted Brown Sugar and Dill Cured Salmon

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/3 cup chopped fresh dill

2 tablespoons kosher salt

1 (3-pound) salmon fillet

Cooking spray

1/2 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

Combine first 3 ingredients in a bowl. Place fish, skin-side down, in a 13-inch by 9-inch baking dish. Rub sugar mixture over fish. Cover and refrigerate for 8 hours. Preheat oven to 175 degrees F. Wipe off remaining sugar mixture from fish with a paper towel.

Coat a jelly-roll pan with cooking spray. Place fish, skin-side down, in pan. Bake at 175 degrees F for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork or until desired degree of doneness.

Combine mayonnaise and mustard; stir well. Serve mayonnaise mixture with fish. Makes 8 servings, serving size about 5 ounces of salmon.

Per serving: 333 calories, 33.9 g protein, 3.6 g carbohydrate, 19.5 g fat, 100 mg cholesterol, 402 mg sodium.

Charlyn Fargo is a registered dietitian from Springfield, Ill. For comments or questions, contact her at charfarg@aol.com. To find out more about Charlyn Fargo and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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