January Health Resolutions: Part II My firm belief is that we would all be healthier and more fit if we took a greater interest in the food we put into our bodies to nourish our minds and other organs. Fitness begins with the brain, and I don’t mean just a moderately slim physique. We seem to have worked ourselves into a position where any mention of losing weight or “working on our self-image” is tantamount to heresy and should not be broached in public. How did we reach this point in history? Countries in Africa are overflowing with children with Kwashiorkor, or severe malnutrition, which is easy to spot with the distended bellies of developing nation children. One would think that these people are eating too much but the opposite is true, their muscles are so weak that they can’t keep the internal organs in place and they have such a fragile skeleton that it’s even more noticeable. After a survey of agencies working in Congo it was found that close to half of all the children there are suffering from malnutrition, and in a northern province 21% of all people are seriously malnourished. Over 2,000,000 children have died already since the last war started. Why then, do we worry about our weight? Why do we weigh too much in the first place? A recent article caught my eye. The headline stated that a majority of five year-olds are concerned with their weight. Why would any 5 year-old even THINK about weight in the first place? This study was done by Pennsylvania State University. The threat by mothers about eating the last crumb on the plate has come back to haunt them (about the starving children in Africa.) This admonition may have backfired all over the western world. In the 50s and 60s when I was growing up we ate our basic food at three healthy meals a day and thought no more about food than we did about being able to get to sleep at night. Food was there to nourish the body, not to gratify desires, reward good behavior or just fill empty time in front of the TV. Anyway, I digress. How do we become slimmer and healthier? That’s what we all want. Dr. Atkins says that we should eat mostly protein…the energy booster. The Montignac Diet (Eat Yourself Slim by Michel Montignac) purports to be the healthiest for it’s large carbohydrate component. Then there’s the Cookie Diet, the MP3 Diet of Worms and the Elvis Diet, Bso Sexy Diet Magic, The Waterfall Diet, the Low Purine Diet, EZ Diet Metabolife, The Radiant Diet and even the Bible cure for Weight Loss and Muscle Gain. And athe list goes one and one. I typed in diet and the search engine gave me 1350 websites. On another quick browse around the internet I found that there’s practically no network, portal, or large site that is not recommending some type of weight loss plan right now. Maybe I should have waited till July to talk about this subject. Some of these programs many not even be diet plans (I know one I found was the Japanese Government which I knew was called the Diet) as I didn’t have time to check them all out to see what they promised to do. Back to the article about five-year olds being concerned with their weight…Of even greater importance was the statement that preteen who watched TV a lot were less healthy and more likely to be overweight than those who had other activities…most certainly because of access to snacks and junk food. The complete study is published in the January issue of Pediatrics. It was found that children whose mothers restricted certain foods were more likely to have obese teens than those who were more relaxed about food issues. Nowadays, teasing (peer pressure) is verboten because of self image problems. Take care of the self image…and the fitness will follow? Yes? Group activities in anything creative (art classes, Boys and Girls Clubs, school sports, individual sports like skiing or rollerblading?) Strangely, or not so strangely, the high-cal food restriction seems to have had the opposite effect, and trying to get children to eat healthy foods seems to cause serious aversion to them. What’s a parent to do? This becomes very complicated. Is reverse psychology really the answer? I’m one of the restricting parent culprits, and the push- the-broccoli-and-carrots-under-the-nose parents, and I must admit that things seemed to backfire for a while when they (a boy and a girl) seemed to crave the very sweets I’d kept away from them during their early childhood. Once they had access to money and all the vile things out in the marketplace, away from the parental evil eye, I know they o.d.’d on bad stuff. Thank heavens they both had the healthy grounding and eventually veered back to nutritious, healthy living! When I read statistics showing that Canadian child obesity has doubled and tripled for girls and boys respectively between 81 and 86 (just the years my two were between 10 and 17)(Canadian Medical Association Journal) I realize there's a very real problem out there. The sad fact remains that obese children become overweight adults which translates into serious medical problems in middle age. Don’t let anyone tell you that 20 or 30 lbs over an average statistic (within reason) is actually o.k. When the body has to carry around even 20 extra pounds of excess weight, the internal organs and skeletal frame are compromised over time. So, what is the solution to these down-to-earth conundrums? How do we stop eating things that are constantly put within our line of vision? There’s one very simple diet that I follow every day of my life…The Eat Less Diet! After recently reading a book about Congo and the sorry state of human existence there, it was not difficult to come to the conclusion that we can all stand to eat a little less, allowing for a little more for the “starving children of Africa.” Actually, my local faith community (my church) has adopted a boarding school in Gambia where the school and food needs are taken care of by donations sent every six months. There are thousands of such programs around the western world so it’s not difficult to find a worthy cause. At New Year’s we donated money (Christmas money in lieu of gifts this year) to an inner city community that caters to homeless and the very poor, as every large city has. Even if you just eat a little less, and exercise a little more, there will be more food to spread around and reduce the burden on the land in the long run. Eat less has been my motto for many years and I think I’ll stick with that for some years to come. And the beauty of it is that it’s fairly easy to follow! Back to the Writing Index