Thursday, November 17, 2011

Obesity in Scott County, Virginia: Don't Be A DOLT

(The "Don't Be A DOLT" series originally appeared on Associated Content. Reposting them here has allowed me to make a few further improvements.)

In a study of health problems in Virginia, when our 132 counties were listed in order of healthiness, Scott County was down in position number 83. This is partly because more of us are over age 70 and fewer of us are between 20 and 50 than in some other parts of Virginia, but obesity is one problem that affects all generation groups.


Fighting obesity--successfully or otherwise--is a major North American industry. There are shelves of books in the library, thousands of pages on the Internet, and if you're willing to read the fad diets that appear in magazines and newspapers, you'll soon collect a stack a yard high. Some legitimate web pages that do give overviews and reflect other approaches to weight control are linked to this article, but because there is so much material about obesity out there, this article will not try to give an overview of the field but will focus on what's kept this writer in the same dress size for thirty years.

Here's my take on those two little words so many of us are so tired of hearing: DIET and EXERCISE. We all need to discipline ourselves to stick to a sensible diet and exercise plan, but what works for one person won't work for all people. Because my combination of Irish, other Western European, and Native American genes is the majority ethnic type in Scott County, what works for me may work for more of us...and what works for me is keeping the focus on exercise.

I have not maintained the same weight all my life, and since age eleven I've not looked like any of those gender-confused waifs Madison Avenue loves to dress. When I start feeling fat-for-me and those old favorite jeans confirm that I'm approaching "just plain heavy" rather than "top-heavy," I know it's time to stop thinking about food, stay out of the kitchen as much as possible, and start walking more.

If you're among the residents of Scott County who make excuses for gaining weight like "Skinny doesn't look good to me," think about the money you could save by wearing the same clothes until they wear out, and also by avoiding all those medications and home medical aids people need when they let obesity develop into cardiovascular disease and/or diabetes. No, that's not part of the normal aging process. It's normal for 80-year-olds to be the same size they were at 25, or even a bit thinner. The active and healthy ones usually are.

It's almost literally possible for some people to gain weight just by thinking about food...well, the process is actually more complex than that. When we think about food, our bodies release more insulin to help us digest food. We may consciously feel hungry, or may actually feel satisfied by what Katie Letcher Lyle called "emperor food" (as in "The Emperor's New Clothes"). In any case, this insulin can build up and create problems. Chronically elevated levels of insulin can produce insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes. Although I've never (yet) had symptoms of diabetes or insulin resistance, this is the condition that's associated with my medical/genetic profile, so the "yo-yo dieting" thing is definitely not for me.

People who have some degree of insulin resistance often find themselves craving food, especially carbohydrates, and snacking continually. "Grazing" doesn't work well for people who have the genetic potential for insulin resistance; snacks tend to turn into meals, and add up to daily calorie intakes in excess of what the body needs. We have to eat just two or three meals a day. Even just one meal works better for us than anything like "grazing."

It may be helpful to rule certain foods off the list of what we eat, if these are foods we don't tolerate well or are sources of empty carbs or calories. It may be helpful to choose a sensible long-term eating plan, such as the Sinatra Program (Lower Your Blood Pressure in Eight Weeks), and stick to it. Some doctors are even recommending a "boring foods" program of eating the same thing at one of two, or two of three, meals a day.

The best cure for the munchies is exercising. The simplest and most effective form of exercise is brisk walking. Walking on a trail or treadmill, or exercising on one of those home exercise devices, or going to a gym, can be deadly boring. If so, then it's time to overcome our elitist bigotry and start walking.

The peer pressure applied to people who incorporate exercise into their lives by walking wherever they go can be intense in Scott County. Some say it's worse for women. I'm not sure. Regular readers may remember that I spent a good part of the year 2010 sitting with an eighty-something friend who'd had a stroke. By the time she'd recovered enough use of her legs not to need a "sitter," I was definitely fat-for-me, so I started walking around town more. Several "concerned" people called the police to report my alleged distress (some of them mentioned that they'd seen a broken-down car ten miles up the road and wondered if I'd been in it). That's the way peer pressure works for women.

In November 2010 a Duffield woman who was "concerned" and brave enough to share the family car with a middle-aged teacher-type told me that Gate City police had picked up a Duffield man who was walking in Gate City and charged him with vagrancy "because he wasn't carrying enough money." She didn't know how much money was "enough." I called the police headquarters to ask them about this. They said they had never heard of such a thing, but apparently this Duffield man was told that he had to have a certain amount of money in his pocket to "prove" that his intentions in walking across my town were legitimate. That sounds bizarre to me. I have to wonder what he'd been doing as he walked, or what he said to the "concerned" officer...but no matter what he was doing or saying, it still sounds bizarre.

I started walking more often...even and especially when I didn't have one dollar in my pocket. Nobody in Gate City could mistake me for a vagrant. My family have been here ever since one of my ancestors surveyed what has since become the town of Gate City and chose the ideal home site on the hill above it. If anybody in Duffield would like to walk around Gate City, as I have so often walked around Duffield without being harassed in any way, I'll be delighted to walk with them too.

People who know me personally have expressed some confusion about whether I could ever use a lift, or am walking for exercise. The answer is that by the time I get from my home to a paved road, I have already obtained the benefits of some aerobic exercise. If you are driving in the same direction, go ahead and offer me a lift, especially if the weather has obviously turned wetter, hotter, or colder than I expected it to be. I can find other uses for the time that will be saved, some of which will also offer the benefits of exercise. Walking along a paved road, breathing motor vehicle exhaust fumes, is the part of my workout I could most easily do without. However, unless the weather has changed suddenly and drastically, you don't need to go out of your way to offer me a lift. Sharing your car is a friendly, neighborly thing to do if you are going that way anyhow.

The best thing downtown merchants can do for their business is to have more people walking around the shopping district. When people who are not familiar with a store or shopping district see lots of people walking on the street, they think, "This store or stores must be popular for a reason." When they see empty sidewalks, even if they see cars parked in front of the sidewalks, they think, "This store or stores must be unpopular."

Motor vehicles kill and cripple more people than guns do. Motor vehicles enable crime; pedestrians look like potential witnesses and deter crime. Motor vehicles pollute the environment. Probably most residents of Scott County have heard some part of the five-hour lecture my father could give on this subject. I don't want to be judgmental about people who have genuine disabilities, but there are literally dozens of reasons why those of us who are able to walk need to be walking more and driving less.

I propose that, in view of the multitude of benefits walking can offer everyone in our community, our city and county officials start making positive efforts to encourage walking...from organizing more parades and street concerts, to declaring "car-free days," to presenting citizenship awards to people who walk across town regularly. The highest-value awards really ought to go to those of our grandparents who hoped to outlive the whole motor vehicle fad, but we all have to begin where we are.

The easiest way to begin an exercise program is to motivate yourself to walk by finding a more exciting use for the money you've been burning up in the gas tank. Work out how much it costs to drive to a certain place and what else you could do with that amount of money. Most of us may not need to go completely car-free, but when not transporting small children or people with disabilities we can leave the car at home. When walking across town feels comfortable to you, you're probably in good enough shape to undertake some trendier exercise program without embarrassment or discouragement.

Do you need to eliminate certain foods from your diet? If you have inherited a food intolerance or formed a food allergy, you do. If not, my experience has been that it's best not to label foods "good" or "bad."

Soda pop does not cause obesity. Chocolate does not cause obesity. Potato chips do not cause obesity. I'm the proof--when I'm seen eating or drinking anything, it's most likely to be "road food" from a convenience store, usually soda pop, chocolate, chips or maybe nuts. Obviously, these are not the base of my diet at home; you can tell because I'm still alive. Soda pop, chocolate, and potato chips have a high ratio of calories to nutrients and are not the mainstays of a healthy diet, but for long-term obesity prevention, I find it more helpful not to devote much mental energy to counting calories, weighing portions, weighing myself--that whole dead-end "dieting" routine.

If most of us form the habit of eating mostly vegetables, whole grains, fruits, nuts, fish, and lean meat (in approximately that order) and exercising regularly, an occasional high-calorie snack won't become a problem. Occasional is a keyword. I grew up around a person who wanted to believe that the right diet choices would cure anything, and was constantly talking--one might even say nagging--about what everyone ate, and was conspicuously not fit or healthy. That's been my lifelong example of what not to do. I save the arguments about which party or restaurant foods I have to avoid for the ones that would definitely make me sick. Most of the time, I eat plant-based foods with no added fat or sugar at home, and don't worry about the party treats.

If you don't enjoy eating just a tomato or a peach or a bowl of beans, you're probably thinking of inferior-quality supermarket food, and the solution to your diet and exercise problem is likely to be gardening...but that would be another article.

SOME SOURCES

Mayo Clinic web page: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/obesity/DS00314/DSECTION=lifestyle-and-home-remedies

Centers for Disease Control web page: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/defining.html

National Institute of Health web page specifically for weight control in relation to insulin resistance, with height/weight ratio chart: http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/insulinresistance/

Katie Letcher Lyle's novels and essays weren't about weight control, but "emperor food" appeared in an early, obscure novel called Fair Day and Another Step Begun.

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