Latest ARS Food & NutritionBriefs Posted

The Agricultural Research Service has posted the January 2001 issue of the Food & Nutrition Research Briefs to its web site at:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/np/fnrb/fnrb101.htm

The Research Briefs is a quarterly newsletter containing the latest ARS findings in human nutrition, food freshness and safety, and new foods and varieties.

Included in this issue:

• A generation of "TV-dinner" kids might be learning poor eating habits. Overweight children in a Houston-area survey reported eating 50 percent of their dinner meals in front of the television, compared to just 35 percent by normal-weight children.

• Parents who tightly control what their children eat actually might be promoting a preference for "off limit" foods and a less-than-healthy relationship with food.

• Older people may regain some of their youthful resting metabolic rate and get off the slow boat to obesity by regular muscle-building exercises.

• The potential of different lines of broccoli to stimulate a key enzyme that may protect against certain cancers can vary greatly.

ARS is the chief scientific agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Contact:Judy McBride, ARS Information Staff, Beltsville, Md., phone(301) 504-1628, fax (301) 504-1641, jmcbride@ars.usda.gov.