DASH diet reduces girls weight gain
Once people reach a certain age, health problems that would not interfere with the daily basis lifestyle begin to appear. To control these dysfunctions, one of the possibilities, which has to go through medical approval and control, is changing eating habits. For that matter, several studies and diet plans have been put together, but not all of them are equally effective.
New Results
The Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension, also known as DASH, was originally created to, as the name suggests, prevent hypertension. However, recent studies show that young girls who follow the rules of the DASH diet prove that it can also avoid weight gain during a certain period of development. Some of the institutions which recommend the DASH diet are: The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; The American Heart Association; The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans; and US guidelines for treatment of high blood pressure.
Specifically on this matter, the study was made based on 2,379 girls between 9 and 10 years old. To guarantee the most diversity possible among the participants, they were chosen according to different geographic and economical characteristics. Also, the number of black girls was more than half of the entire group.
Importance Of Discovery
Besides the simple fact of being thinner, senior author Lynn Moore of Boston University Medical Center said “This study is important because it shows that a very simple dietary message focused primarily on increasing intakes of fruits and vegetables and low-fat dairy products has the potential to reduce the risk of overweight and obesity in adolescent girls.”
According to the official site of the DASH diet, the system is based on “an eating plan rich in fruits and vegetables, and low-fat or non-fat dairy, with whole grains.” Also, the lead researcher Jonathan Berz, said “We created a modified DASH food-group score and focused on the seven DASH-related food groups. We found that study participants with the highest intake of DASH-like food groups had the smallest gains in BMI over time and the lowest BMIs at the end of follow-up, and those with the lowest DASH food pattern score (representing lowest adherence) had a mean BMI that was greater than the threshold for overweight as defined by the 85th percentile by age.”