I admit it – I watch Law & Order. Actually, what I watch is the last half-hour when, like clockwork, it transitions from the street to the courtroom. I love rightous Jack – he reminds me of the passionate do-gooders from my public health days. And I do love knowing that no matter what, by the top of the hour, they’ll have a verdict and a moral. BUM-BUM.
I recently joined a writing bank called suite 101, and came across this article written by one of the other writers on the site. Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen writes about psychology and health, and her report on a recent study suggesting that watching television shows that show or discuss murder make us dwell somewhere in our psyche on our own demise. That makes us nervous and that makes us eat.
I can’t say that how it happens in my own life, but take a read of her interesting piece here.
I think a lot about change and how to flow with it. From my own tendencies to nest and check out, to coaching people to change their diet or cope with the economics of escalating food prices, there can be so much discomfort in changing. At times it seems impossible.
That’s why I like this NYT article on some of the research around change. The author suggests that there are different intensities of change, and if we stretch with small improvements fairly consistently, we tend to be more resilient and more successful. That feels true to me, though having the energy to continue to stretch can be challenging – I think our human nature is more equipped to do big rapid changes, then backslide, then change again. In interviewing some of the MDs with big diet books, they tend to be into the big rapid change, and say that if people see the difference they’ll be motivate to sustain. The little change strategy is perhaps a good yogic daily approach, with an occasional transformation to inspire. Happy reading, and happy Mother’s Day.
Here is the article:Â NYT Change Article
Every Bite Is Divine has been selected as a finalist for the Ben Franklin Award in the category of health & wellness. That’s the third time it’s been short-listed for a national book award, the others being:
2007 Nautilus Awards – honoring books on conscious living and positive social change.
2007 Best Books Awards – in the health and diet category.
The winners of the Ben Franklin will be announced in late May. We’ll keep you posted.
Get ready for lots of new signage in your local grocery store – as reported in a NYTimes Article earlier this week, there are at least three rating systems under development to help consumers sift the wheat from the chaff as far as healthy choices go. The problem being that from what I can see, they only include packaged food. So, the healthiest foods in the grocery store – fresh fruits and vegetables – won’t be included. Why can I see how these undertakings will add to the confusion, while the smarties leading these efforts don’t?
Only when the healthiest foods -fruits and vegetables – are included, and the rating systems truly take into account all the aspects of what makes a food healthy – nutrient density, fiber, and freedom from chemical additives – only then will your best supermarket choices be obvious from a rating system. Until then, weighing brands of processed food will only add to the confusion and foster more unhealthy choices.
And until the day that your produce section is filled with gold stars, regardless of what these rating systems say, eating as many fresh unprocessed colorful fruits and vegetables as you possibly can is a great start. It’s as simple as that.
Warm Regards,
Annie
PS – I just heard from Dr. Katz that the system he’s working on, the Overall Nutrition Quality Index WILL include fresh fruits and veggies. All right!
Last month’s journal of the ADA (American Dietetic Association) had an interesting meta-analysis of weight-loss interventions. A meta-analysis pulls together a large number of studies that investigate the same thing, and try to pull stronger conclusions from them. This sort of study can be great to get an overall status of the literature on the primary outcomes of particular topic, but the strengths, weaknesses and bias and secondary outcomes of particular studies get washed out.
Get a better look at this chart & others in the pdf of the article, below.
The meta-analysis looked at outcomes from weight-loss clinical trials with a minimum of one-year follow-up. Eighty studies were included, representing eight interventions – diet alone, diet and exercise, exercise alone, meal replacement, very-low-energy diets, weight-loss medications (orlistat and sibutramine) and advice alone. A mean weight loss of 5 to 8.5 kg (that’s 11 to 18.7 lbs) was noted during the first 6 months from intervention involving a reduced-energy diet and/or weight-loss medications with weight plateaus at approximately 6 months. In studies extending to 48 months, a means 3 to 6 kg (6.6-13.2) of weight loss was maintained with every approach with the exception of advice-only and exercise-only, and none of the groups experiencing weight regain to baseline. In contrast, advice-only and exercise-alone groups experienced minimal weight loss. Very low calorie diets resulted in rapid loss and regain, with a gaining trend at the time when follow-up ended.
Annie’s thoughts: The biggest take-home message is that again we see that combining a weight-conscious diet with physical activity is the way to go if you are interested in long-term weight management. While the losses presented may not look to be much for the effort, keep in mind that for those who are overweight or obese, even moderate weight loss can result in significant reductions in chronic disease. Meal replacements and very low calorie diets seem to be short-term solutions. As far as the weight-loss drug outcomes, orlistat (a drug that blocks the absorption of fat), and sibutamine (an appetite suppressant) both have pretty significant and unpleasant side effects. I want to take a closer look at the diet drug studies to see who sponsored those particular studies, what side effects were tolerated for the extra pound or two of loss and what happened over the longer term.
Here’s a copy of the article:
Article – Comparison of Interventions
All the best –
Annie BK
Another sticker on the book! USA Book News has announced their results from thousands of new books, and Every Bite Is Divine was a finalist in the diet & health category. This is our second award: we were also a finalist for the 2007 Nautilus Awards, honoring books on conscious living and positive social change.
