Fat Chance

Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to attend a Childhood Obesity Conference in San Francisco. The conference was held on the campus of UCSF and put on by a group called Slow Food. I"m quite passionate about fighting the obesity epidemic in our nation especially among children and was thrilled at the opportunity to attend. My mom even met me there and we had a blast spending a day among the world of the Bay Area hippies and granolas. Overall, I was pleased with the content of the conference though I felt like they put a HUGE emphasis on food and spent hardly anytime talking about the important of physical activity.

Because of the event sponsors, we also got to try some cool organic, locally grown and produced food.

The first speaker was Dr. Robert Lustig of UCSF and author of Fat Chance. He was one of two keynote speakers and did a splendid job of mixing science with fun in his presentation. These are the highlights of his talk:

• Today we are consuming about 1000 times the amount of sugar than 200 years ago
• The foods that cause weight gain are respectively:
• potato chips
• french fries
• sugar
• As I shared this with Matt, he said "Man, I'm hungry now." Sheesh!!!
• When reading nutrition articles or results from studies, first read the funding source (most are funded from the food industry and are biased)
• Sugar causes weight gain - it does not necessarily cause obesity
• People don't die of obesity - they die of diabetes and metabolic syndrome. We need to stop blaming obese people for healthcare costs. Data shows this is incorrect anyway:
• Not all obese people are sick. There are a good amount of non-sick obese people.
• Obese, sick people in our nation are about 57 million people (that's 80% of obese people which make up 30% of the healthcare costs). Normal weight people with metabolic dysfunction in our nation total about 67 million people (40% of normal weigh people which makes up 70% of the healthcare costs.
• Moral of this story = stop blaming overweight people for all of our problems
• Teens consuming sugar-sweetened beverages are four times at risk for heart attacks
• 13 percent of kids have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
• liver fat is the bad guy compared to belly fat (but all we hear about is how bad belly fat it)
• He showed a photo of a teen's liver damaged by sugar and a liver damaged by alcohol. They looked identical. 
• Basically sugar is the alcohol of the child!
• He showed different maps of US showing a human correlation between the most obese states, laziest states, unhappy states, states with most diabetes, heart disease and soda per capita.
• The AHA recommendation for sugar consumption per day is 150 calories or 9 tsps of sugar a day.
• Most kids consume this at breakfast with a bowl of Fruit Loops and a glass of orange juice
• We  currently consume triple the amount of sugar daily
• We will need a global policy to change sugar consumption

• He showed that eating an extra 150 calories per day increased diabetes prevalence by .1% but if those 150 calories were a can of soda, diabetes prevalence increases 11 fold!
• The curse of processed food is as follows:
• Not enough:
• fiber
• omega 3
• micronutrients
• Too much:
• transfat
• omega 6 fatty acids
• alcohol
• sugar
• The solution to every one of these curses above is REAL FOOD

Amazingly simple stuff people! Eat real food. Stop drinking soda and other unnatural sugar-sweetened juices. 

The next speaker, Karen Brown, author of "Rethinking School Lunch", showed a wonderful example of how the Oakland Unified School District overhauled their school lunch program and built a district farm and relationships with local farmers where they grow the food for the school lunches. Amazing example of a community coming together to build a healthier environment for children. 

She mentioned that California farmers produce about half of the fruit for the country. In their Oakland schools, they have "California Thursdays" where they eat only food made in CA.

The next session was about involving youth in the decision making process for building healthier communities at every step. One thing I don't think we do enough at work. But youth know youth. They have been at the forefront of change in this country. And youth also motivate youth.

After an amazing farm-fresh lunch, we heard from a psychologist who talked about the importance of staying emotionally tuned to children. 

• She said parents should do checkins with each child ten times a day. 
• Our brains needs love and non-judgement
• Every thought, emotion and behavior we have is a wire. And wires can be changed.
• Kids need to know their brain state.
1. Brain state 1 = Joy (no need for outside rewards - like sugar or food)
2.  
3.  
4.  
5. Need outside awards to feel better
• Train kids and parents to process their emotions effectively.
• Deep hurts and trauma can cause obesity especially in kids

The last speaker was the second keynote speaker and by far the most controversial. Todd Putnam - VP of Marketing for Bolthouse Farms (largest growers of baby carrots in the US). But he was the former VP of Marketing for Coca-Cola so a couple of the hippies had a heyday with him.

Here were his highlights:

• The healthy food companies are losing the war for attention spans especially at grocery stores.
• Nationally, fruit and vegetable consumption is down 7%.
• Cake consumption is up 21%
• Candy up 15%
• Cookies 11%
• Chips 11%
• The healthy food companies need to use more money, more innovation, more creativity in their marketing to increase consumer demand. 
• We need to motivate with the heart like the junk food industry guys do. Their commercials are irrational and tied to puppies, babies, sex, etc...
• But marketing works if it's really great.
• Kids see 5,500 junk food TV ads per years but only 100 healthy food TV ad per year.
• The change that you make to a kids diet now will make monumental changes in the future.
• In most grocery stores, you can buy fresh dog food but you can't buy fresh baby food (at least not to scale)
• Compared to other generations, millenials are making more health conscious changes. 

72% of food hashtags on social media are for unhealthy foods

 

He then talked about something Bolthouse Farms are doing to make baby carrots more exciting for kids.  See examples of their marketing below. They have pilot programs around the nation with things like baby carrot vending machines, changing the packaging to look like candy bars and chip bags. He also handed out sample of a new product called "Shakedowns" they are testing in Texas only with baby carrots and a little packet of seasonings that covers the baby carrots when you open the package. I tried "Chili-Lime" flavor but he said they are also trying Ranch flavor and S'mores. The calories content of the whole package is only 25 calories but they were delicious! 

After they opened up for Q&A, then he got the aggressive hippies attacking him for working for Coca-Cola and asking him if his products for non-GMO. And then about random things like the technology his farmers were using. Ummm... he's in marketing. I thought he handled their tyrades with finesse and honesty. 

Overall I left the conference with a renewed sense of understanding of the impact of excess sugar in our diets. And the need for us to all to ask more questions about the foods we are eating. Not that we need to feel guilty about eating a cookie but just the importance of natural foods making up a majority of our meals. 

Take that as you will. I just want to share my knowledge to those who may have an interest.

Keri

Working as a family to live a heart-healthy life

I came upon a couple great articles recently that I wanted to share.

The first is Exercising as a Family to Reduce Heart Disease Risks which suggests three things parents should do to help instill healthy habits in their children:

1. Lead by example. Children will eventually emulate their parent’s behavior.
2. Don’t associate exercise with weight issues. Don’t even discuss exercise with your children. Instead, find out what activities they like to do and sign them up.
3. Get everyone involved. Come up with family activities that require physical activity.

To read the full article go here: http://www.mamiverse.com/exercise-family-heart-disease-prevention-56631/

Another article I liked was called The 20 Best Snacks for Kids which includes:

1. Cheese - low-fat
2. Peanut Butter
3. Healthier baked goods - with fruits and vegetables cooked into them
4. Whole grain cereal
5. Quesadillas
6. Yogurt
7. Eggs
8. Sweet Potatoes
9. Hummus
10. Noodles - preferably fiber-rich
11. Pears
12. Smoothies
13. Snack mix - low sugar
14. Low-fat ham
15. Raisins
16. Apples
17. Whole-grain waffles
18. Strawberries
19. Oatmeal
20. Tomatoes

http://www.parents.com/toddlers-preschoolers/feeding/healthy-eating/the-20-best-snacks-for-kids/#page=10

Small steps to be healthy

Working for the AHA, I get the opportunity to attend presentations from amazing doctors, scientists and researchers. Most recently, I helped put together a "Lunch & Learn" for the employees of one of our Heart Walk sponsors. We had one of our volunteer docs, a cardiologist, come and speak to the group about small things they should do to be healthy. I found his presentation to be extremely knowledgeable, practical and funny.

Here are the main action items I took from his presentation that we should each be doing:

• Eat 6-8 dark chocolate covered nuts each day (antioxidants) 
• He called these our natural pills
• Eat 6-8 regular nuts each day
• Consume 2 tablespoons of olive oil per day
• Eat 2 fistfuls of vegetables a day
• Eat 1 fistful of fruit per day
• Eat an oily fish once a week
• Allow yourself no more than 180 minutes sitting down at one time - Get up and walk! Exercise boosts your health exponentially but sitting for longer than 180 minutes at a time, cuts the benefits of your exercise in half)
• Get 7 hours of sleep (Less than 6 hours of sleep and more than 9 hours increases risk of diabetes and cancer)
• The fitter you get (at any age), the younger you get biologically
• Meditate twice a day for 20 minutes each
• The best meds you'll ever get:
• 
• Meditation
• Exercise
• Diet
• Sleep

If you can't do all of the things right now, he suggested that you choose one or two to work on.

I found these steps to be simple, manageable and he had the scientific research to back each up.

Changing the view of our world... and Sea World

The joy of having Netflix is that now Matt and I can watch documentaries we never would have before. We learn about anything from juicing and the food industry, to hard hitting things like national debt and bullying, or silly things like man hair, living from craigslist or what true happiness looks like around the world. One of our favorites are watching features on nature and the animal kingdom.

Lately, Matt has been watching documentaries on killer whales. I only caught about 15 minutes of the first one called "Blackfish", but it was disturbing enough that I've had nightmares since. It talked about life for the killer whales in captivity and the things that Sea World (and other whale keepers) don't say. The poor living conditions of the whales - the whales being kept in small, dark cages when not performing, the horrible life of a male killer whale in captivity being "raked" by the female whales in a matriarchal society and only being rewarded when they do what the trainer wants.

I, unfortunately, saw footage of a trainer being "played with" by one whale at Sea World - a whale who has a history of aggression and "incidents". This man nearly escaped death and the whole sight was horrifying!

Now I've heard of this situation once before, but not as often as the documentary showed. And not all killer whales do this. The worst part is that this whale - who has a history of aggression and killing trainers -  is being bred by Sea World. Actually this one whale's sperm has been used for 50 percent of the whales in the Sea World system! Really?! Who thought that was a good idea?!

Both documentaries we watched mentioned that there is no history of any killer whale in the wild ever hurting - much less killing - a human. Shouldn't this be proof enough that killer whales don't belong in captivity?!

This show shared a story about an animal park in Spain that Sea World sent four whales over to. The park was not ready when the whales came, but the greedy owners didn't want to lose any money so they opened the park anyway. The whales got sick from eating - yes eating - the pool and at least one trainer was attacked and killed by one of the whales. They showed footage of a Sea World executive being interviewed saying they had never heard of this theme park - even though their whales and trainers were sent over and were there at the time when this young trainer was attacked.

Even if half of what we saw was not completely accurate, I still have no desire to ever go to Sea World again. Just horrible!

The second documentary was much less scary but disturbing in another way. This one was called "The Whale" and was about a baby killer whale named "Luna" in Vancouver, Canada, who was separated from his family. Whales are very social creatures and little Luna was lonely. So he started interacting with the people of the Nootka Sound and became somewhat of a local pet. The townspeople loved him and Luna had a new family - until the local department of fisheries got involved and made a mess. They worried that human interaction with Luna would endanger him, and they fined people $100,000 who talked, petted or even looked at Luna. So Luna spent several lonely years trying anything and everything to get people to play with him. Seriously it's the saddest story ever. One scientist offered to lead Luna down to his family but the officials wouldn't allow it.

After several years, the officials decided they were tired of fighting with the locals. They decided to capture him and fly him - not let him swim - down to his family. Again, why do people think they can make a decision for this poor animal. Makes me so angry!

When people started looking into the officials plan, they realized that a decision was made to sell Luna to a theme park if his family didn't accept him. Angry! 

The local people now fought even harder to try to protect their little friend and keep him out of captivity. 

As the officials built the pen to capture Luna, a local Native American tribe got in a canoe and drove around singing to distract Luna and keep him out of the pen. It was the cutest thing ever because Luna was so happy playing with them. The efforts of this tribe paid off because eventually the officials gave up trying to capture Luna. But then they want back to fining people who interacted with him. Why they never called up the fisherman who volunteered to lead Luna down to his family or just left him alone to play with the townspeople is beyond me?!

Lonely Luna went around getting into trouble with no one to play with - not understanding why he was being ignored. And at the age of 6, he was killed by playing too close to a tugboat.

The whole story is the saddest thing ever and makes us both angry at people who make poor and selfish decisions for animals. Never again Sea World... never again. 

As a result, I told Matt I'm not watching any more killer whale documentaries - it's too hard for me not to get upset and want to go punch someone in the face. Matt, of course, already has a third one queued up. Silly man :)