The Top 5 Trending Health and Fitness Topics on the Web in 1st Quarter 2014

SAN DIEGO, April 28, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- IDEA Health & Fitness Association's free Web-based tool FitFeed, collates the most popular content being shared by health and fitness experts via Twitter, Facebook and IDEA Client Share. In the year since its launch, FitFeed has tracked over 8 million shares of content.

The most popular topics shared in first quarter 2014 include: the mainstream diet, hidden dangers of "skinny fat," treadmill desks, vigorous exercise and the flu, and diet drinks and heart concerns.

1. The Mainstream Diet: Which diet is the best? That is the question David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, the founding director of Yale University's Prevention Research Center set out to discover. After comparing all of the medical evidence for and against every mainstream diet, the researchers concluded that no diet was clearly best; the findings are published in The Atlantic. There were common elements of diets that were proven to be beneficial, "A diet of minimally processed foods close to nature, predominantly plants, is decisively associated with health promotion and disease prevention."
2. Skinny Fat: According to an article from Time magazine, weight is just one health indicator doctors can use. "The scale is not a proxy for your health," says Timothy Church, MD, MPH, PhD, director of the Laboratory of Preventive Medicine at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge. Normal-weight individuals who eat a lot of processed foods and do not exercise can have the same medical issues as obese individuals. An article from The New York Times points out that BMI measurements do not distinguish between fat and muscle and can inaccurately label healthy people as overweight or obese. Research has found that people with normal BMIs and high body fat are at a greater risk of metabolic issues and death than any other group.
3. Treadmill Desks: New findings show that treadmill desks not only help burn calories, but can improve productivity over time, according to a study reviewed in The Huffington Post. The study found that in the initial transition to using a treadmill, work performance did take a hit, but employees' overall performance, over the course of a year, improved.
4. Vigorous Exercise and the Flu: Engaging in at least 2-1/2 hours of vigorous exercise per week reduces one's risk of developing the flu, according to a BBC News article. The piece looks at findings from the Flu Survey, which has been collecting flu data for the past 5 years. The survey results suggest that if more people engaged in vigorous exercise, about 10% of flu cases could be prevented.
5. Diet Drinks and Heart Concerns: Choosing diet drinks over regular beverages is not better for your health, according to an article from The Huffington Post. "Women who consumed two or more diet drinks daily were not only 30% more likely to suffer heart attacks and strokes, they were 50% more likely to die from some sort of cardiovascular disease, when compared with women who never or rarely drank diet drinks," the article states.

You can find real-time trending headlines and keep up on the latest health, fitness and wellness news by visiting www.ideafit.com/fitfeed. 

About IDEA Health & Fitness Association
IDEA Health & Fitness Association is the world's leading organization of fitness and wellness professionals. IDEA FitnessConnect, is the largest national industry-wide directory linking over 250,000 fitness professionals to more than 16 million consumers. 

Contact:
Kelly Nakai
858.535.8979, ext. 212
Email

Read more news from IDEA Health & Fitness Association.

SOURCE IDEA Health & Fitness Association