According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), obesity is growing at an alarming rate. More than one-third of U.S. adults - over 72 million people - and 16% of U.S. children are obese. Obesity rates have doubled in adults since 1980, and tripled for children. Aside from the physical consequences, obesity has serious psychological, social and financial ramifications.
The developers of Balance Bands aim to combat this trend with their innovative product that promotes weight loss and encourages healthier eating and better nutritional awareness.
What are Balance Bands?
Balance Bands are a safe, effective and drug-free method to lose weight by encouraging people to eat more fruits and vegetables every day. The product itself consists of five thin bracelets worn on the right wrist first thing in the morning. Each bracelet represents a serving of fruit and/or vegetables. Every time a fruit or vegetable serving is eaten throughout the day, the wearer moves one bracelet to the left wrist. The goal is to have all five bracelets on the left wrist by the end of the day. The bracelets work as a visual cue, reminding and motivating the wearer to make healthier nutritional choices.
Fulfilling the daily fruit and vegetable requirement is easy, it just requires a few simple adjustments to your regular diet. For example, add a sliced banana to your breakfast cereal and have a glass of orange juice to drink, and you've already got two servings of fruit. Top your pizza with some chopped bell peppers for lunch, and there's one vegetable serving. Mix some sliced strawberries to your yogurt for another fruit serving. With a bit of creative tweaking, it won't take long until all five Balance Bands are on the left wrist.
Balance Bands Product Development
Balance Band creators Pam Skinner and her business partner Millie Starks have a passion for fitness and healthy living. They developed their product as a way of encouraging busy parents and their children to stay healthy without the use of weight-loss drugs. Pam Skinner was inspired by the idea for the product while observing new moms wanting to lose their "baby weight" but having difficulty making progress. Skinner and Starks began to make their Balance Bands by hand, and gave them to their women acquaintances to test them out. They were an instant success, and the initial positive feedback encouraged Skinner and Starks to set about further perfecting and developing their product.
Who Can Use Balance Bands
Anyone can use Balance Bands. While they are useful for weight loss, Balance Bands are also great for someone trying to incorporate more fruits and vegetables into their diet. There are bracelets for men, women, and children in the product line, so there's a Balance Band designed for everyone in the family.
How Fruits and Vegetables Enable Weight Loss
Everyone is familiar with the old saying "an apple a day keeps the doctor away", but there's truth to the mantra, as higher fruit and vegetable consumption will help keep the weight down and the body functioning at a more optimal level. Besides the excellent nutritional benefits of fruits and vegetables, the key to weight loss is in the fiber. Fiber acts as an appetite suppressant, as high-fiber food absorbs water, causing it to swell, resulting in a feeling of fullness. Fiber can also impair the ability of the body to absorb sugars and fats. High-fiber foods generally require more effort to chew, thus slowing down consumption time. Aligning the body and brain's fullness response makes overeating less likely. Using Balance Bands to eat more fruits and vegetables will increase your fiber intake, and thereby aid in the weight loss process.
A Final Word: Balance Bands Go Back to Basics
In IDEA Fitness Journal (March, 2008), Pam Skinner talks about nutritional basics: "I've been teaching fitness for 25 years and most of those years I steered clear of nutrition information, unless I brought in a guest to lecture my clients. As a result, I think my clients did not enjoy the results they could have had, if I had incorporated some basic nutrition. It is very hard to argue with eating more fruits and veggies".
Read this article to learn how to supplement your diet and maintain a healthy weight with a daily multivitamin.
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