Transcript Eating Right: Healing Ourselves and the Environment

Taking the lead:
Diet and leadership
Leadership for Adventure Education
Robert Swoap, Ph.D.
Professor & Chair of Psychology
Clinical and Health Psychologist
Taking the lead: Personal choices
and leadership
Personal
choices (e.g., recycling, driving less)
Dietary choices -- impact on health: for you (the
leader) and for your group members
Dietary choices -- impact on environment
Implications for leaders
Food and Wellness
(Psychological and Physical)
“What to eat” (M. Nestle)
 “What to eat in the zone” (B. Sears)
 “In defense of food” (M. Pollan)
 USDA’s MY Pyramid vs. Healthy
Eating Pyramid (Harvard)
 MY Plate
 Slow food, fast food, no food, ???

WHAT’S A PERSON TO DO??!!!
Healthy eating: A biopsychosocial
and perspective
Nutrition
and Wellness
Eating to feel well (as opposed to simply getting
calories) -- mens sana in corpore sano
Color!
Balance
Amount
Real
food
The Components of a Healthy Diet:
Overview

Macronutrients
 Carbohydrates
 Fats
 Proteins
Fats (lipids)

Densest sources of food energy (1 gram =
9 calories compared to 1 gram = 4
calories for carbohydrates and proteins)
 Saturated
 Monounsaturated
 Polyunsaturated
 EFAs
The Components of a Healthy Diet:
Overview


Macronutrients
 Carbohydrates
 Fats
 Proteins
Micronutrients
 Vitamins
 Minerals
 Phytochemicals
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)
Phytochemicals

Bioactive chemicals found in plants (e.g., sterols,
flavonoids, beta-carotene) with potential healthpromoting qualities (e.g., anti-oxidant activity)
So… What to Eat?? (Michael Pollan)
 Eat
food
 Not too much
 Mostly plants
Food Diaries – Questions?
 Impact of diet on mood/behavior?
For you? For group members?
 Your
Diet and Health
Impact of diet on:
Heart Disease
Cancer
Other Conditions
“[People] dig their graves with their own teeth and die
more by those fatal instruments than the weapons of
their enemies.”
-- Thomas Moffett, 1600
Relationship between diet and
heart disease



risk for heart disease is linked to diets
high in saturated fats, found mostly in
animal and processed foods
dietary cholesterol is found only in
animal foods
plant foods contain antioxidants –
these protect against atherosclerosis
Relationship between diet and
cancer


The American Cancer Society Dietary Guidelines: Limit
consumption of meats and shift the balance toward a more
plant-based diet
Protective factors in a plant-based diet
 Choose a colorful, varied diet
 Get the nutrients from food (rather than supplements)
 Visit the Linus Pauling Instit. for more on impact of diet
on health: http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/
Relationship between diet and
other conditions

Diets high in saturated fat & low
in fiber are associated with:
 Hypertension
 Diabetes
 Obesity
Do I have to be a vegetarian?



Bottom line: Eat lower on the food chain for better
physical health. And eat colorfully.
For my health, should I be vegetarian? Not
necessarily, but…
Vegetarian diets are associated with a reduced risk
for obesity, coronary artery disease, hypertension,
diabetes mellitus, certain types of cancer, and
kidney disease -- (American Dietetic
Association: Position on vegetarian diets)
Growing problem with kids and
adults: The obesity “crisis”
 U.S.
is heaviest country in
the world -- 66% of
population is overweight
or obese
(obesity trends slides -- CDC)
Relationship between diet and
obesity
Main problem is deceptively
simple: too many calories
consumed and too few burned
off through exercise
 Food-toxic environment

As a role model / leader -- If you were doing one
thing that was contributing to:
•Poorer personal health
•Spread of disease
•Deforestation & Erosion
Would you
change that
one thing?
•Fresh water scarcity
•Air and water pollution
•Climate change
•Biodiversity loss
•Maltreatment of animals/humans
•Social injustice
•Destabilization of communities
That one thing is
consuming
products that
come from
factory farms.
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
Personal choices, global effects
Supply and demand
 Society’s demand for inexpensive,
readily available meat; cheap sugar
drinks; etc.
 Animal agribusiness and Concentrated
Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)

CAFOs
Chickens raised for meat are crowded by the thousands in
"grower houses" where each is given approximately half a
square foot of space. (Even worse for layer hens.) How
do these birds establish a “pecking order?”
CAFOs
Confined in crates just two foot wide, veal calves don't
have space to walk or stretch their limbs.
CAFOs
Factory farm pigs are typically raised in small pens with
slatted or concrete floors and metal bars. Breeding sows
are treated like “piglet-making machines.”
Personal choices, global effects
Question: How does our choice to eat shrimp
relate to the health of bird populations?
Or vice-versa, How does our choice to eat
birds (i.e., chickens) relate to the health of
fish and shrimp populations?
Diet and the environment
Impact of diet on:
Water
Land
Air
Animals
Relationship between diet and
water quality

The Problems
 Manure
 Fertilizer and other chemicals
used in animal production
(e.g., antibiotics)
Relationship between diet and
water quality: Effects of manure
“Livestock excrement is the single biggest cause of declining
fish populations in 60,000 miles of polluted waterways.”
-- joint declaration by the Environmental Protection
Agency and U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Hog farms: A case study in N.C.
factory farming
Although pigs have been an historical part of the
state's agriculture, it is in recent years that the
sector has experienced exponential growth.
Within a decade, the hog population jumped,
from around 2.6 million in 1988 to over 8 million
in 1997.
The increase in the total population of hogs was
accompanied by a concomitant decline in the
total number of hog farms. In 1986, there were
15,000 farms with at least one head of hogs in
the state. By the year 2006, there were only
2,300 such farms remaining.
Hog farms: Manure’s effects on
waterways




9,500,000 wet tons of hog manure in North Carolina
annually
Too much to simply put on the land as fertilizer
Waste held in storage lagoons and discharged as “treated”
wastewater into rivers
Problem: waste lagoons often built in ecologically sensitive
areas (e.g., marshes, floodplains). Lagoons not always
constructed well.
Pig Waste Lagoon -- Spills
25.8 million
gallons of
concentrated hog
waste spilled into
the New River
polluting the river
and killing
thousands of fish.
Dietary choices affect the land:
The case of cattle ranching





The destruction of riparian areas
Erosion
Species loss and wildlife
extermination
Over-use of water
Deforestation
Dietary choices and the air



Deforestation
Global warming
Air quality
Trends and Outlook



In the U.S., we eat 58 million cattle, 103 million
hogs, 300 million turkeys, and 9 billion chickens
per year.
The meat industry is aggressively pursuing an
increase in worldwide production of meat and milk
in the 21st century.
Throughout the world, there is a trend toward
eating higher on the food chain, placing more
demand on meat production. Impact on health??
Summary
 Be
aware of the impact of your
personal dietary choices (and your
choices for outdoor education
participants)
 Educate others by example through
compassionate leadership and
activism
Organizations to learn more…