Transcript Eating Right: Healing Ourselves and the Environment

Diet, nutrition, and health:
Issues in 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 impact on health (for you, the leader, and
for your group members)
Dietary impact on environment
Implications for leaders
Setting the stage: Who are you
leading?
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.
Healthy eating: A biopsychosocial
perspective
Nutrition
and Wellness
Eating to feel well (as opposed to simply getting
calories) -- mens sana in corpore sano
(Psych-Bio / Mind-body)
Sociocultural factors
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
into a child’s tummy no matter what -- even if it means you
hide it behind loads of salt, fat and sugar?

Chef Boyardee Jumbo Spaghetti & Meatballs
Serving Size 1 cup (255g) Servings Per Container about 2
Amount Per Serving 280 kcal
Calories from Fat 120: Total Fat 13g Saturated Fat 5g
Sodium 730mg Sugars 7g
How do kids learn their eating patterns?
Sociocultural & familial influences
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
Social/Cultural
factors in eating behavior

Our food environment (cheap, hi-cal, lo-quality food
available)
 Absence of supermarkets in lo-income
neighborhoods (Food deserts)
 Way too many of our calories are coming from
junk food (Sugar: 172 lbs/pp per year)
 Governmental subsidies
 We are simply eating more (next slides)!
What has changed?
then
now
then
now
1980
2008
Children w/ obesity (ages 6-11)
6.5%
19.6%
Overweight adolescents (ages 12-19)
5.0%
18.1%
then
now
then
now
MOVIE POPCORN
20 Years Ago
270 calories
5 cups
Today
1700 calories
21 cups buttered
Social/Cultural Factors in eating behavior:
Too much confusing and conflicting information


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Paleolithic diet
vs. Atkins vs.
Zone
“In defense of
food” (M. Pollan)
USDA’s MY
Pyramid vs.
Healthy Eating
Pyramid
(Harvard)
My Plate
Slow food, fast
food, no food,
???
What is the
impact on the
average
person?
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)
Diet and Disease
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
Example: 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
Example: The obesity “crisis”
 U.S.
is heaviest country in
the world -- 68% of
population is overweight
or obese
(obesity trends slides -- CDC)
Quick review of nutrition

Macronutrients
 (1) Carbohydrates
Macronutrients

Macronutrients
 (2) Fats
Fats (cont.)

Fats (Fatty Acids)
(SFAs) – limit these
 Monounsaturated (MUFAs) –
better choice
 Polyunsaturated – (PUFAs) –
consider the Omega-3 /
Omega-6 balance
 Trans-fat (avoid) –
(hydrogenated)
 Saturated
Macronutrients

(3) Proteins
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)
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!
 Good resource
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/
So then… What to Eat?? (considering
impact of yourself, and upon those you lead)
 Eat
food
 Not too much
 Mostly plants
over Food Diaries – Questions?
 Impact of diet on mood/behavior?
For you? For group members – e.g.,
OBH participants?
 Go
Do I have to be a vegetarian?

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)

The American Cancer Society Dietary Guidelines: Limit consumption
of meats and shift the balance toward a more plant-based diet
The American Heart Association is also supportive of a vegetarian
diet for heart disease, explaining that vegetarians have a lower risk of
coronary heart disease, heart attacks and high blood pressure.

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Bottom line: Eat lower on the food chain for better physical
health. And eat colorfully.
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
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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
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The destruction of riparian areas
Erosion
Species loss and wildlife
extermination
Over-use of water
Deforestation
Dietary choices and the air
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Deforestation
Global warming
Air quality
Trends and Outlook
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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…