A recent study has found that every serve of fruits and vegetables eaten per day improves the health of your heart!

118 participants who were overweight and had mildly high blood pressure were asked to limit their fruit and vegetable intake to one portion per day for one month. They were then randomly assigned to one, three or six portions of fruits and vegetables per day for a period of eight weeks. Their compliance with the regimen was confirmed by food diaries and blood tests.

It is well known that we are getting fatter with Australia now the fattest nation in the world! Up until the last 2-3 decades human populations have never been significantly overweight so what are the reasons for the steady rise in obesity we are seeing now?

I really enjoy Indian food and it can be healthy if you make the right choices. One big concern though is the type of fat used in the cooking.

I ask whether the chef uses ghee and am often told they use vegetable oil. Ghee is very common as the fat used in Indian cooking. Ghee is a clarified butter without any solid milk particles or water.
It is 65% saturated fat which makes it very unhealthy. Curries with ghee taste better, but other oils are much healthier.

There has been active discussion amongst employers about the value of introducing workplace based wellness programs.

Research carried out by MetLife found that 81% of workers said they improve their productivity through participation in wellbeing programs creating definitive benefits for companies. They also found that 70% of respondents said they participate in wellness schemes because they want to attain a higher level of health, with 85% wanting to lose weight, 84% wanting a chance to exercise more and a further 84% hoping to improve their diet.

We know that 30-50% of people have problems with sleep at any one time. Some simple good measures can help to improve sleep.

Avoid caffeine containing drinks before bed.
Avoid exercise in the hour or two before bed.
Try simple relaxation exercises to settle down.
Try to clear the mind of the day's worries.
Avoid eating a meal before bed.
Keep the room cool, dark and quiet.
Keep the bedroom for sleep and sex only.
No TV, computer or similar in the bedroom.
Think positively about how you are going to sleep.
Try to go the sleep and get up at same time every day.

We have been inundated with enquiries about how to handle the pandemic influenza. Employers need to ensure that they prepare and plan for this (ideally this should have already started). Fortunately so far the swine flu has been very mild and is somewhat of a dress rehearsal for the next one, whenever that may be. If the case fatality rate changes things could get much worse. This occurs with "reassortment" of viral genetic material when it mixes with other flu viruses in an infected person.

Interesting for workplaces new research in Obesity Reviews "Obesity status and sick leave: a systematic review K. Neovius et al (2009) 10, 17–27" shows that obesity leads to more sick leave - up to 10 more days per year particularly for longer spells off work. Also they found that four studies of weight loss intervention led to reductions in sick leave. So you can be reassured that soundly based weight loss interventions in the workplace may be cost effective.

The most effective way is by surgery such as gastric banding, which gives rapid, often dramatic weight loss. It is a drastic measure though and is very expensive and obviously not appropriate for most of us!

This is the first entry on the Good Measures blog. We will add new comments here regularly on a range of health promotion topics. We hope you get value from this information.

We have added a body mass index calculator to the Resources page. Remember that if you have a large muscle mass, the BMI is not always a good indication of whether you are overweight. Give it a try and check the reference range.