On a Heavier Note

joy...A dozen years ago, I did my fair share when a soda company approached a group of athletic students' parents in our school district and offered $50k worth of athletic equipment to the district in exchange for pouring rights.  I stood my ground and convinced the district to ignore the request.

All of it is so true, and it is certainly good to be very skeptical about food and exercise claims.  I listen to NPR in the car and there was a guy named Michel Moss talking on this very subject.  He was really interesting, he wrote a book called "Salt, Sugar,at:  how the food Giants Hooked Us. A really interesting read about the subject.  He talks about if the say "low fat" it is full of sugar or salt.  If they say low sugar.......full of fat or salt.  About the $$$$$ spent researching what they call the "bliss point" where a food is so addictive that people cannot stop eating it.  uGGGG.   bUT VERY ENLIGHTENING.

great thread, joy, will read the links next week.  tonight was the landlord's 50th aniversary of wedding party.  I ate a piece of the chocolate cake.  slept, woke in very bad pain.  arm pain breast pain, fungus all over it.  gonna use a artemesia dressing though I was planning not to, then walk through the forest so as not to have a meet with the gallery owner at the bottom of the road.  I am very afraid of romantic love & I suspect the artemesia could change feelings about others.

Voracious, well done! It is completely disgusting the way Coca Cola, Pizza Hut etc insinuate themselves into schools.

Thee young people today will be the first generation to have the average life span age drop.....too much sitting around, and too much eating junky 'fake' foods. It is very sad, and people with all sorts of health conditions would rather 'take a pill' than change their lifestyles. Several of DHs very heavy, very sedentary siblings have type II diabetes. We were just at a family reunion & one brother was complaining that he will never be able to retire due to how much his medication costs each month. You should have seen the icy daggers thrown when DH suggested that he get a gym membership, work out, lose the weight; get the diabetes under control so that he'd have both the money and the health to enjoy retirement.

Not long ago I read a great book Sitting Kills, Moving Heals by Joan Vernikos, PhD, who is the former Director of NASA's Life Science Division. She makes the scientific case as to why our sedentary modern life style is basically leading to many diseases and death. I am not going to go into the research & all that. But she says, that along with what we consider to be 'exercise', everyone needs to put more MOVEMENT into their everyday life. An interesting point she made was that the key to independence in old age was being able to stand up and sit down without help! So stand up often throughout your work day. She advises to keep your phone someplace where you have to GET UP to answer it, drink lots of water so you have to GET UP to go to the bathroom (even during the night, because it isn't good to lie still that long.....which makes me feel a lot better about my getting up 3 times a night to go!). Stretch often during the day, use the stairs, stand up tall, use a manual can opener, eat foods that require using a knife & fork, sweep, shop in stores instead of on the Internet, dance, learn a language, do the crossword puzzle......

So, on her 'Fitness Pyramid', the base has the daily habits such as those above plus yoga & tai chi. The next level of the pyramid includes walking, hiking, biking, resistance exercises & pilates, the third level is equipment-facilitated & floor exercise, and at the top is athletic training. But she makes the point that the base (adding movement to you daily life) is the foundation you build the rest on.

I watched the first of the 3 series on how we became fat. Very compelling and interesting. Thanks for posting. I'll watch the other two of the Fat series as well.  This sure makes you want to  think about what we're putting in our mouths each day.

Just finished reading another great food history book.  VR doesn't enjoy reading recipe books. Nor does VR enjoy cooking! Tends to read food history books.  This week's indulgence was Candy: A Century of Panic and Pleasure. The author does a great job of explains how candy made it into our diet.  Learned about the meaning of the line "While sugar plums danced in their heads," in the famous poem, Twas the night before Christmas.  What's interesting about the book is the leap that occurred when candy was thought to be healthy to being a decadent no-no.

I've always been a middle of the road type of person when it came to nutrition and my family.  What I learned a dozen years BEFORE a dozen years ago before my school board and athletic students' parents is that SUBTLE OUTSIDE FORCES can undermine the most healthy intentions.  Early on, I was disappointed at the unhealthy snacks offered on the school's lunch menu.  Did they have to have ice cream on the menus everyday?  Why not just offer fresh fruit 2 of the 5 days?  Because the money the cafeteria earns selling junk food subsizes the cafeteria's expenses. So what did VR have to do?  Besides telling the school district, "You folks are IDIOTS," she would only give her kids snack money two days a week!  What an AWFUL mom VR is!

On a much larger note, I have tremendous interest in studying nutrition and genetics because the DH has an extremely rare genetic METABOLIC disorder and severe heart disease.  The DR is in the care of world class physicians and dieticians.  As a breast cancer survivor and one who has always encouraged a healthy diet and lifestyle, it is very frustrating to VR, the DH and our team to be dealing with all of these life threatening issues.  Despite being 6'2" and 185 lbs, if one looked at the DH, they would think he was healthy.  He exercises 7 days a week to protect and build muscles, eats a very strictly monitored healthy diet, has low cholesterol and still required cardiac bypass surgery and more stents than anyone could imagine.  Furthermore, he takes supplements because he is missing an enzyme that helps metabolize fat to create energy.

I wish that the answer to society's health crisis epidemic was as simple as creating a healthy diet and exercise environment.  Unfortunately, I believe we need to look beyond the last century for an answer.  Having read about the Paleo diet, VR is intrigued. VR has given a lot of thought to whether or not society's historic move to becoming farmers and creating a sedentary culture created this cascade of events. Hmmmmm....

I tried once.  had an e indian bf at cal.  he played.  I could hit the ball but hit it waaaaay across the street & he had to chase it.  we never tried again

Caryn...amen!  It only took two decades for school districts to wise up!  Now...it will probably take generations to reduce the harm that individual parents do!

Our school lunches have actually become pretty healthy. Everyday there is a great salad bar with locally grown vegetables (when in season) and all low fat dressing, several fruit choices (with everyone required to take 2 servings from the fruit & veggie choices). I actually have a more healthy lunch when I eat at school than when I am at home (because they have a bigger variety to choose from). Also no pop in the student vending machines; water & juices, and no candy; nuts, fruit snacks, cheese sticks etc. also all whole wheat bread for the sandwiches etc. so things have improved on that front. What I wish is that instead of cutting back on recesses at the elementary and lowering the physical education requirements at the high school level, that more time for being active would be added to the schedule!

We are on the same (apparently old fashioned but IMO correct) page, Caryn!

ruth...the Industrial Revolution is just a continuation of a sedentary lifestyle that began with farming.  BTW...if you read The Wisdom of Psychopaths, Kevin Dutton, Ph.D. makes the claim that  psychopathy dates back to Hunters and Gathers.  We needed, he claims, fearless individuals to go away from the pack and hunt.  That gene, despite no longer needing heroics, is still in our wiring.  

What I find amusing about our fixation with healthy living is that it is merely part of a continuum that began a very, very long time ago. I think once man settled down and no longer had to hunt, life was never the same!  Man was made to move!  

Voracious, interesting thoughts. My dh is from a famous Greek clan of mercenaries. That was the family business for centuries. Now they are all respectable, middle class citizens, and although I would not call them psychos (OK, maybe MIL) they do have certain reflexes that are quite survival/l'attaque, toujours l'attaque.

I completely agree that man was made to move.