The Elephant in the room

[Trek420]

I'm just going to stumble in here and ask "who's they"? Parents? Teachers? Both? The entire village that it takes?

We ask a lot of our teachers: teach the kid to read who's been babysat by the TV and not read to, teach morals, values, calculus, French literature ..... I've been stumbling in the real world for decades, tons of schooling, raised in the wild by a pack of teachers and I've found I have lots to learn still.

So I'll just ask this question for the group: In a society/culture that does not reward or teach a healthy lifestyle or healthier choices how did you learn? Was it in the home, in the kitchen? Classes? Community? A little of both?

[DarcyInOregon]

I'm just going to stumble in here and ask "who's they"? Parents? Teachers? Both? The entire village that it takes?

So I'll just ask this question for the group: In a society/culture that does not reward or teach a healthy lifestyle or healthier choices how did you learn? Was it in the home, in the kitchen? Classes? Community? A little of both?

I took a nutrition course as a science requirement in college, and that helped me a lot to understand about how the body needs nutrients, how nutritional deficiencies are the cause of many disease, and how nutrition interacts with exercising the body. Then in the 1990s, the community hospitals really got proactive with putting together classes to educate patients and the community at large with respect to cardio health, preventing diabetes, minimizing arthritis, maximizing the fitness level, nutrition for weight loss without dieting, and so on, classes in just about every hospital in North America, either free or low cost. Like other people in this thread have said, it is about education, but you have to seek out the knowledge for yourself, learn what is fact and dismiss the inaccurate fad diet type of books. Mostly though, the person has to come to a realization that their health has to be balanced with the other top priorities in their life and to make time to gain the knowledge, to make the dietary changes, and to embrace exercise as being critically important. Taking classes at the local hospital can be the first step in the right direction.

Ignorance of nutrition and fitness isn't just in the poor neighborhoods. I am appalled at the number of people I encounter who have hypertension, yet know nothing about the Dash Diet, the diet that the USDA Food Pyramid is based on, and thus know nothing about eating the low-fat low-sodium low-sugar fresh portions from each food group every day for maximum health that is proven effective at normalizing the blood pressure without medications, along with daily cardio exercise. I know of people who are educated professionals, who take double or triple medications for blood pressure, and their blood pressure is still high, like 170/100, and they won't give up the high-sodium fast food meals or the highly processed packaged grocery store meals. They rarely eat fresh fruits and vegetables or whole grains, and they don't exercise at all, not even an evening walk around their neighborhood. Meanwhile they are getting hardening of the arteries, kidney damage and the other ailments that high blood pressure brings about, and our health care costs go up as a nation.

With respect to obesity, what is most important is to get rid of the fat that you can't see, that is inside the body cavity, squeezing itself between the organs, invading the liver and heart, pushing up the lungs so that a person can't even take a full breath. The rule is that the waist needs to be 50% or less than your height in inches, and if the waist is over 50%, then the person is at high risk for internal fat that will lead to diabetes, coronary disease, liver disease, kidney disese, and so on. However the rule is not always applicable because a person of normal weight who never exercises can have this internal fat that brings on all of these medical conditions, as cardio exercise is what burns the inside fat.

Just one final thought, and that is a growing number of nutritionists and people in the medical community believe that the gaining of excess body fat is actually brought about by continually eating food that has no nutritional value. The body becomes nutritionally deficient, becomes hungry, and so the person eats more, but more of the same fast food non-nutritional garbage. The hunger really isn't about emotional problems, or being scarred in childhood, or eating to fill a void, but the hunger is caused because there are nutritional deficiencies in the body. The insides of the intestines, where the food is absorbed, might be thickly coated with sludge due to a lack of soluble fiber in the diet and so the person can't absorb the nutrients, or the person is just eating garbage day-after-day, and their diet is devoid of entire food groups that contain essential nutrients to maintain health. When the person cleans up their digestive system and makes it healthy, focuses on eating their portions from each food group every single day, and exercises, the hunger dissipates and the strange cravings disappear entirely. Thus, over time the person will lose body fat without engaging in unhealthy fat diets.

[Jolt]

Thanks, Roadie Gal, for the article. Too bad they had to stop the study because of recruitment problems, hopefully somebody else can do something similar and have better luck. This has a lot of potential in terms of improving outcomes and reducing costs, if the exercise program is confirmed to have equal or better results than angioplasty for stable angina.

As for "how I learned", that's kind of hard to answer. I was always an active kid (often too much so!), so I think that part came pretty naturally. I enjoyed riding my bike (including on a paper route at one point) and rollerblading as well as other outside activities. My sisters and I were on swim teams for a number of years, which is what really got me into the habit of working out on a daily basis; the running was something I took up in college and found I liked once I learned to pace myself and started to develop endurance. After college, I decided to buy a used bike to ride on errands etc. to save on gas and incorporate some of my exercise into trips I would have to do anyway; besides, being stuck in the car drives me nuts! As far as the healthy eating, I didn't really learn that at home--we did have our share of junk food growing up although my mom did and does cook from scratch the majority of the time and she taught me to know my way around the kitchen. I think that came more from having always had an interest in health, deciding to go into health care, and realizing that it is much better to prevent illness when possible rather than waiting to treat it after it happens. Being out on my own and doing my own grocery shopping helped too, and then I moved into my current apartment (in a three-decker) where there are pear trees and a vegetable garden in the yard that I got involved in helping with.

[Crankin]

I learned most of my cooking skills from my mom, who only cooked from scratch. We did eat things that would be considered unhealthy, but hey, everyone else ate raspberry danish and frosted flakes for breakfast in the 50's and 60's! I was an active kid, always outdoors and spent a considerable time on my bike. That ended when we moved to Florida, I got my license, and never walked anywhere. After college I gained a lot of weight. The sedentary life style caught up with me, along with my love of food. I studied a lot on my own, became a vegetarian, and started exercising (walking, aerobics). Although I started eating meat again after a year or so, I lost the weight and have never gained it back.
The ignorance of people about health and fitness amazes me. I have a very good friend who has been overweight for years. She lost 30 pounds by eating grapes and nothing else until dinner time...

[Medianox]

"How I learned..."
I'm not really sure. I'm the only person in my immediate family that has never smoked. Grew up in a household where both parents smoked heavily (mom still does), drank more than casually and potato chips (and junk food in general) were a food group. In my family, no one has ever intentionally been physically active or worked out or exercized for fun, or been involved in a sport beyond being an observer.
In high school, I would get up very early, pack a light breakfast (granola bar and an apple) and hike in the woods/fields near my house until it was time for school, then I walked to the bus stop. I played tennis (not competively) every summer, swam often and rode my bike everywhere.
About nutrition....to my mom, it had to be store-bought or packaged to be any good. I was a throwback *hippie* kind of kid and was always trying to make stuff from scratch, bake my own bread, etc. Now, at age 70 my mom calls me and tells me about the bread she is baking herself so I guess it finally caught on-lol! I'm still trying to get her to quit smoking though.
Then I went to nursing school, and formally learned about nutrition science and realized I was pretty much on the right path all along.
I was living in a small town and literally walked everywhere (a bike would have been a luxury!) and was in great shape...it never occurred to me to get a car....
Anyway, I was always the oddball and I can't say for sure where I learned positive habits-I just gravitated towards them naturally. Not perfect but...better than my family's habits for sure.