Romancing the Diet

Quitting smoking was not easy, but in retrospect, it was far easier than losing a measly 15 pounds and keeping it off. To stop smoking (seven years ago), I had to change my thinking and my desires.

It turns out, though, that I had help I wasn't aware of. And I now believe that made all the difference, a difference that doesn't exist for the process of weight loss.

From two different perspectives, the article "Beating Obesity" by Marc Ambinder in the May 2010 issue of The Atlantic, and the book Savor, by Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr. Lillian Leung discuss the issue. Both discuss the interconnectedness of everything. Because of this interconnectedness, we are fat. Only together with everything, can we become healthy and less fat.

First, the bad news -  according to Ambinder, the forces of society, technology, industry, government policy, culture, genes, and demographics work in concert to make and keep us fat.

Technology changes work, changes behaviour, changes patterns and amount of movement; Industry constructs food - food molecules actually - that some suspect create virtual "neurochemical addiction...change our brain chemistry in ways that make us overeat;" non-food industries expose us to chemicals that correlate with obesity.

Society's demands create stress which leads to obesity; society's expectations affect sleep patterns which can help make us fat; society's planning and design of towns and cities affect our level of exercise; business production and distribution models make fast food not only the most calorically dense, but the cheapest and most widely available.

"Agricultural production and subsidies"  - corn fed beef, high fructose corn syrup, for example - increase our waistlines. Advertising with its images of food and the normalization of food as entertainment and acceptance help make us fat. Cultural norms regarding portion sizes have increased dramatically.

It's a wonder that anyone can lose weight and keep it off with all of this, and more, ranged against the individual. According to Ambinder, "America has erected two lines of defense: name-calling, and hectoring about diet and exercise."

Both of these defenses put the entire responsibility for health and weight loss on the individual - rather silly when you think about it. Even with Olympic-class will power, the individual fights a losing battle.

This is the point at which the Thich Nhat Hanh/Leung book Savor enters the picture. Drawing on Buddhist practices of mindfulness and meditation, the authors stress how we are not alone, how weight loss, like anything else, is together with everything. We cannot lose weight in isolation; people have to work together to create an environment that is healthful for all. We have to be mindful of eating - and of living.

That unseen help I had to stop smoking came from society - policy, regulation, advertising, education, technology, culture - many of the things ranged against the individual when it comes to weight loss. Society is against cigarettes in ways that it is not against cheap food, fast food, hypertasty food, large portions of food, junk food, processed food.

Right now we expect each single, tiny will to stand up to the whole of society. Many will say that the game isn't rigged, that each person can make a rational decision about what's beneficial. It doesn't work.

Only collective will power can get this done. And it's so easy to discuss it over a nice bowl of something and a supersized drink!

The Wishfulfilling Quick Bite

We love headlines and sound bites. But I wonder how often, in our feel-good, easy-answer culture, do we actually read or listen further. How often do we really want the whole story?

The butter/magarine war is a good example. Butter has won the most recent battle, with scientists considering it a better choice than margarine. That doesn't mean butter is good for us. It's a saturated fat that is preferable to a trans fat, nothing more. But oh, how we want to believe in that buttery goodness. And that's probably what we get from the "butter is better" clip.

As our collective weight and the incidence of lifestyle diseases rise dramatically, we would do well to check out the whole story. This recent story from the New York Times - "Eating Vegetables Doesn't Stop Cancer" by Tara Parker-Pope, April 8/10 - is a case in point.

The story is about a European study conducted over nearly nine years with approximately 400,000 people - the study appears in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute - to determine whether eating lots (not the scientific label!) of vegetables reduces the occurrence of cancer generally.

From the NYT headline, one could be excused for thinking that vegetables don't help even one little bit to reduce the incidence of cancer.

But wait! What does the article actually say? What does the study actually say?

What the researchers found is that vegetables DO reduce the overall incidence of cancer, but by an amount that is not statistically very significant. The researchers are also careful to point out that specific compounds in certain vegetables DO reduce the incidence of certain types of cancer. They also tell us that for smokers and regular drinkers, there IS a more noticeable effect overall on cancer reduction.

That sounds pretty good to me, even if eating our veggies is not a cancer panacea.

Now the New York Times is not responsible for people's desire to eat fat-laden fast food, high glycemic-index carbs, and servings of anything with catastrophic calorie counts. But I would bet a significant sum of cash that there are folks who will read that headline (or others like it) and think yippee! no more veggies for me - bring on the deep-fried pizza with butter sauce!

We need veggies to live; we need the vitamins in them to prevent deficiency diseases, like scurvy. Vegetables are a great source of carbohydrates (one of the macro-nutrients necessary for life) with a low glycemic index.

With sky-rocketing rates of obesity and lifestyle diseases, we need the benefit of even a little cancer protection, the vitamins to protect against diseases, and many low fat and low sugar choices. We don't need an excuse to give up on vegetables.

And for the record, I  am not a fan of those ads where people spit out their veggies and then run to top up their veggie count with commercial juice preparations - with up to 28grams of sugar per cup. Hello.

So keep reading and keep listening beyond the wishfulfilling headline or soundbite.

And eat your vegetables!


(butter photo credit)
(veggie photo credit)