The woman sitting next to me in the concert hall was fanning herself vigorously with her program. It was not hot in the hall; indeed most people had on sweaters or jackets as the hall was drafty and it was very cold outside.

“Hot flushes?” I asked knowingly. “Yes,” she replied, “and they never seem to end. They are particularly bad at night.  I don’t think I have slept through  for months. I wake up  hot and sweaty, get  cold, go to sleep and then wake up hot again.  But my doctor suggested I go on antidepressants. He said they might help.” At this point the lights dimmed so I said nothing.  I wondered if she realized that the therapy for her hot flushes might bring with it another set of problems: weight gain.

A new study in the Journal of School Health reveals that children with healthy diets perform better in school than children with unhealthy diets. Led by Paul J. Veugelers, MSc, PhD of the University of Alberta, researchers surveyed around 5000 Canadian fifth grade students and their parents as part of the Children’s Lifestyle and School-Performance Study.

Information regarding dietary intake, height, and weight were recorded and the Diet Quality Index-International (DQI-I) was used to summarize overall diet quality. The DQI-I score ranges from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating better diet quality. Less healthful dietary components included saturated fat and salt, while healthy foods were classified by fruits, vegetables, grains, dietary fiber, protein, calcium and moderate fat intake.

“How do they stay so thin?” I asked my husband for the 100th time as we walked down a main street in Amsterdam. Everyone was eating. There were hot French fries dipped in globs of mayonnaise, croissants filled with cheese, ham or both, and large squares of thick Belgian waffles coated with a half an inch of chocolate frosting. But the eaters were thin, not just normal weight.