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Eating Well: How to Lead Yourself and Others to Healthier Eating

Americans are failing to meet basic goals for healthier eating, with only a small percentage consuming enough fruits and vegetables. This article explores the factors that influence our eating behavior and preferences, including biological, psychological, and social-cultural influences. It also discusses the impact of our food environment and conflicting information on our eating habits. Additionally, the article provides a quick review of nutrition, including macronutrients and their importance in maintaining a healthy diet.

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Eating Well: How to Lead Yourself and Others to Healthier Eating

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  1. Hunger, Eating and Nutrition Or, how to lead yourself and others to a path of healthier eating…

  2. Eating well?? • Americans Are Flunking Easy Goals For Healthier Eating The public health plan hatched a decade ago was to get three-quarters of Americans to eat at least two servings of fruit a day and half of Americans to eat three or more servings of vegetables. The results for 2009 show that only 32.5 percent of adults are hitting the mark for fruit and barely more than a quarter — 26.3 percent — are getting the job done on vegetables.

  3. Eating behavior / preferences • Write down: • your favorite food(s) • a food that is supposedly healthy, but that you don’t like (or don’t think you would like)

  4. Eating behavior / preferences • Where do we get these preferences and habits? What influences our eating behavior? (next slide)

  5. Biological Influences: • mid-hypothalamic centers in the brain monitoring appetite • Appetite hormones • Stomach pangs • Set point weight • Universal attraction to sweet and fat • Adaptive wariness toward novel foods • Psychological Influences: • Sight and smell of food • Variety of foods available • Memory of time elapsed since last meal (and clocks) • Mood (e.g., bored, depressed, stressed) • Golden Arches (and other cues) Eating Behavior • Social-cultural influences: • Culturally learned taste preferences and beliefs • Food-toxic environment • Status (e.g., meat = successful) • Schools

  6. Basic physiological cues • Body needs energy = sends orexigenic signal (tells brain to switch hunger on) • Ghrelin (hormone) • Body has sufficient energy = sends anorexigenic signal (tells brain to switch hunger off) • Leptin (hormone)

  7. Smell Only sense directly connected to forebrain Olfactory receptor neurons (350 ORNs) Strong cue for eating, emotion, and memory 7

  8. Taste Taste buds (5 different types) Salt, sour, bitter, sweet, umami (savory) each contains several types of taste receptors (microvilli) that react with tastant molecules in food 8

  9. But taste is determined by so much more… Cultural influences: Types of food that are “OK” to eat… Effects of Fast Food Branding on Young Children'sTaste PreferencesArchives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine 2007; Pre-school children preferred the taste of foods and drinks in McDonald's packaging to the same foods and drinks in unbranded packaging. Starting Good Food Habits in Kids from the Womb, Oct. 06, 2009 Time Magazine Lighting Influences the Taste of Wine, New Study Shows 9

  10. Social/Cultural factors in eating behavior • Advertising / Expectations of what we “like” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeDjuKYzX8w&feature=player_embedded#! • Is it smart to get a full serving of veggies, or whole grain pasta in a child’s tummy no matter what -- even if it means you hide it behind loads of salt, fat and sugar?

  11. Stealth Health: Nudging Kids Toward A Better Diet(Oct 25, 2010, NPR) • http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130732347 Should we address it directly and positively when children are young? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdltYiFouVo (Luis and Elmo) And/or should we use fear tactics? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F4t8zL6F0c (Man drinking fat)

  12. Social/Cultural factors in eating behavior • Our food environment (cheap, hi-cal, lo-quality food available) • Absence of supermarkets in lo-income neighborhoods • Way too many of our calories are coming from junk food (Sugar: 172 lbs/pp per year) • Governmental subsidies (e.g., Zea Mays -- a giant tropical grass) • We are simply eating more (next slides)!

  13. MOVIE POPCORN 20 Years Ago Today 270 calories 5 cups 1700 calories21 cups buttered

  14. Americans love their burgers… • The "Monster Thickburger" — two 1/3-pound slabs of Angus beef, four strips of bacon, three slices of cheese and mayonnaise on a buttered sesame seed bun -- 1420 calories!

  15. Social/Cultural Factors in eating behavior: Too much confusing and conflicting information • Paleolithic diet vs. Atkins vs. Zone • “In defense of food” (M. Pollan) • USDA’s MY Pyramid vs. Healthy Eating Pyramid (Harvard) • Slow food, fast food, no food, ??? • Etc… • What is the impact on the average person?

  16. Social/Cultural Factors in eating behavior “We live in a toxic environment. It’s like trying to treat an alcoholic in a town where there’s a bar every ten feet. Bad food is cheap, heavily promoted, and engineered to taste good. Healthy food is hard to get, not promoted, and expensive. If you came down from Mars and saw all this, what else would you predict except an obesity epidemic?” -- Dr. Kelly Brownell, Yale, (Nat’l Geo. Article: The heavy cost of fat, 2004) (Obesity Trends, CDC slides)

  17. Quick review of nutrition • Macronutrients • (1) Carbohydrates

  18. Macronutrients • Macronutrients • (2) Fats

  19. Fats (cont.) • Fats (Fatty Acids) • Saturated (SFAs) – limit these • Monounsaturated (MUFAs) – better choice • Polyunsaturated – (PUFAs) – consider the Omega-3 / Omega-6 balance • Trans-fat (avoid) – (hydrogenated)

  20. What we eat • Macronutrients • (3) Proteins

  21. Micronutrients • Vitamins • 13 known vitamins, classified as either fat-soluble (A, D, E, K) or water-soluble (B and C) • C & E are antioxidants • Minerals • Inorganic elements (e.g., calcium -- for muscle contractions, nerve transmission)

  22. Micronutrients • Phytochemicals • Bioactive chemicals found in plants with potential health-promoting qualities (e.g., anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant) • Flavonoids -- compounds found in fruits, vegetables, and certain beverages that (e.g., Queretin, a potent antioxidant -- free radical scavenging activity) • Eat these in their natural forms!

  23. We can make fundamental changes! Mens sana in corpore sano • Eat for psychological and physiological wellness • e.g., Consider the impact of diet on mood/behavior (for you and for those for whom you are a leader) • Early exposure to a variety of foods (lots of colors in the diet) • School-lunch programs, Community gardens • Keep it simple! (e.g., Pollan’s advice: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants)

  24. If you were doing one thing that was contributing to: • Poorer personal health • Spread of disease • Deforestation & erosion • Fresh water scarcity • Air and water pollution • Climate change • Biodiversity loss • Maltreatment of animals/humans • Social injustice • Destabilization of communities Finally… Would you change that one thing? That one thing is consuming products that come from factory farms.

  25. Diet and the environment: CAFOs

  26. Holistic health: Diet and the environment • Good News!! Eating a diet that is healthy for me and for my group is better for the health of the planet • Be aware of the impact of your personal dietary choices • (on yourself and on your students). • Educate others by example through compassionate leadership and activism • Keep it simple: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants

  27. Organizations to learn more…

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