Very active people need to eat much larger amounts of carbohydrate than usual. You may feel that you already know a lot about diet. But athletes, like everyone else, can have their facts wrong. Many foods that you believe are good sources of carbohydrate are even better sources of fat. For example, chocolate is 55 [...]

Summary of main points. • The psychological understanding of obesity has moved through several phases in recent times. • Behaviour modification techniques were initially used widely to change habits. • Cognitive approaches have been used to change thought patterns. • Rational Emotive Therapy (RED is an example of a ‘pop’ psychology approach to changing thought [...]

Thermogenic responses Thermogenesis describes increases in the MR above RMR in response to things such as food intake, exposure to cold or heat and the body’s physiological responses to fear or stress. Thermic effect of food. The thermic effect of food (TEF), also called diet-induced thermo-genesis, represents increases in MR above RMR resulting from the [...]

Some forms of diarrhoea are emotionally based. The intestine is a good barometer of the body’s inner feelings and of the brain in particular. These are called ‘non specific diarrhoea’. ‘Most of the young children whose mothers say they have loose, frequent or bulky stools do not suffer from malabsorption. Their physical growth is normal [...]

‘You know, any sort of emotional situation can often be reflected in this manner. Other children may show it in different ways, perhaps by developing aches and pains in different parts of the body. I have a little chap who regularly throws asthma attacks when he feels he is being neglected. Others throw tantrums, develop [...]