Healthy Baby G
Recently I volunteered for the Childhood Obesity Conference (COBA) sponsored by Slow Food San Francisco. This post is a summary of my key-takeaways and application to worksite wellness.
Special note
My deepest appreciation to Slow Food SF for all the great work they do in efforts to promote sustainable, fair and ethical food. Kudos! May we please have more Slow Food Movements across the country!
4 Key takeaways
- Eat real food
- Cook real meals
- Eat significantly less sugar, little to none even better!
- Actions speak louder than data
The challenge to change dogma
In a nutshell, all the information, data and studies the world can possess will not eliminate our obesity crisis. How we move, excite and create environments that support efforts to purchase, cook and eat real food are “the work.”
One major obstacle from my perspective is that little to no agreement can be found on what truly constitutes a “healthy” diet. For instance at the conference it seemed that several speakers still referred to the calorie in, calorie out model. If you have read my posts before on food you know I don’t.
I subscribe to the thinking below:
“For decades we have been taught that fat is bad for us, and that the key to a healthy weight is eating less and exercising more. Yet with more and more people acting on this advice, we have seen unprecedented epidemics of obesity and diabetes. Taubes argues persuasively that the problem lies in refined carbohydrates (white flour, sugar, easily digested starches) –via their dramatic effect on insulin, the hormone that regulates fat accumulation-and the key to good health is the kind of calories we take in, not the number. There are good calories and bad ones.“
Gary Taubes, author and excerpt from Good Calories Bad Calories
I take the time to mention this because I believe our old dogma of “calories in calories out” is not beneficial to solving our obesity crisis. From my perspective we have been doing this for multiple decades and it is not working.
I would love to see a bigger focus on eating real food and cooking meals all across the board. I feel by refocusing efforts on teaching individuals to shop, cook and eat real food, like Slow Food promotes, will go a long way towards promoting healthy children. I also applaud efforts such as the Edible Schoolyard Project here in Berkeley.
Keynote moments of clarity
1. Talk about metabolic syndrome not obesity
This year’s event keynote speaker was Dr. Robert Lustig someone who I greatly admire for his contributions to our knowledge on the negative effects of sugar and consequences to health. If you have not read his book, “Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease” or seen the video “Sugar the Bitter Truth” you need to!
Dr. Lustig brought to the forefront several items that are relevant to personal health as well as to the field of worksite wellness. One suggestion he made was “stop talking about obesity and start talking about metabolic syndrome.”
“You don’t die of obesity: you die of the diseases that “travel” with it. It’s these metabolic decompensations that make obesity the scourge that it is. Diabetes, hypertension, heart diseases, cancer, and dementia-the things that kill you are collectively packaged under the concept of “metabolic syndrome.”
Dr. Robert Lustig, author and excerpt from Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease
Lustig mentioned that talking about obesity alone is a losing battle to be won by the food and beverage industry. This is readily seen in Coca Cola’s latest anti-obesity campaign where they put the onus back on the individual to move more and promote low calorie drinks; meanwhile the average American consumes 150 pounds of sugar annually.
“So professional. So brilliant. So smart. And so deceitful. Seven percent of our calories come from soda — it’s the biggest single source in our diet. And the most harmful. It’s good that Coke recognizes that and is beginning to apologize. But all calories are not the same — those from soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages are actually worse than others. So it’s up to us to remember that Coke makes its money selling sugar-sweetened beverages, and even when they’re apologizing for that, as they appear to be doing here — they’re still selling them.”
Mark Bittman author and food writer for the New York Times
2. It’s not a disease but an environmental exposure
Being overweight and obese is not in my opinion a disease. I completely agree with Dr. Robert Lustig in that it is an “environmental exposure.” I’m very aware there is recent discussion both pro and con as to the labeling of obesity as a disease. This is something I would have appreciated debated at the conference. Next year maybe?
I feel if we put all our efforts together to change the environment maybe we can turn the tide on the crisis. Plain and simple if sugar is there, people will eat or drink it! Provide non-sugary options, like water for instance and the situation is different.
How does this relate to worksite wellness?
Any or all of my points in this post easily pertain to a worksite wellness program. For example, many current wellness programs continues to “prod and poke” (as Al Lewis and Vik Khanna state). Meaning an abundance of tests, medical screenings, HRA’s and all things healthcare related with little attention to the environment.
While we encourage employees to see their doctor we still have donuts in the break room, vending machines chalk full of sugary items, soda machines and medical professionals around to check our cholesterol. In my opinion that’s like creating a problem then trying to fix it.
Let’s turn that situation around. It is not a question of big bucks and top chefs, but employers could purchase sacks of nuts instead of donuts. Bring fresh fruit into the office now and then, organize a vegetable potluck luncheon and encourage all forms of real food shopping and cooking.
In a nutshell my wish list for schools and worksites
- Exercise is not a weight loss winner, stop promoting it as such
- Promote movement of any kind as energy & brain enhancing
- Eliminate all vending machines & junk food in schools & worksites
- Support programs like the Edible Schoolyard across the country
- Bring back home economics into the school system
- Encourage broader thinking on diet (read all calories are not created equal)
- Whatever way, shape or form ditch sugary options for adults & kids
Final word
Just like Healthy Baby G in the picture above, all kids need a fighting chance when it comes to access to real food. While we may not agree on the “perfect” diet we do know the consumption of sugar is not helping children develop healthy bodies. Get involved with your school’s food program, join a committee in your local neighborhood, stop serving sweets at events and please ditch the soda, sports drinks and fruit juices!
