The Deal about Nutrition & the Health Devotional

I bet most of you (ok, maybe just some of you) are wondering, "Hey, Shirin's been having this Health Devotional & Workout Group thing for over 4 months now and hasn't really talked much about nutrition - what's up with that?" So, to answer that question I thought I'd write a little on the blog about why I've tended to focus more on exercise and fitness than on nutrition. Here are some of the reasons:

1. Lack of Consensus in Scientific Research on Nutrition 

Sadly the scientific community has yet to reach a consensus on the finer points of nutrition. Of course, they are making strides on this topic every day, as is evidenced by our newfound appreciation of antioxidants, Omega-3 fatty acids, and lean protein but where we still fall short are the areas where the details come in. It seems that just when you thought you had mastered the most healthful diet there is, another book is published that says that you've been doing it all wrong. This can be very frustrating, especially when the scientific community can't produce a diet book of their own and have the FDA and USDA place a stamp of approval on it. This leaves the regular citizen with a lot of questions like, "Are all carbs bad? Is organic really better for you? Should I be buying gluten-free? Should I buy free range or antibiotic-free dairy and meat or go vegan completely? What are GMO's?" These are questions which the scientific community has yet to reach a consensus and help guide the population in their food choices. While there may be some scientific evidence to back up the organic movement, there isn't enough to establish their claims fully. The same can be said for vegetarianism, veganism, and many other trends and movements. Believe me, I sincerely wish there were more studies to answer these questions. However, there is a lot of science to debunk many trends and fad diets and I will do my best to provide that information to you as you try to navigate the bookstore and the supermarket aisles in search for healthy choices.

And even though the scientific community is coming out with more and more studies that isolate certain food groups as beneficial to health, and implicate others as bad for your health, you'll still find doctors and scientists arguing over what to do with this information and how much it factors into treatment of diseases, for instance. Even your family doctor can't be called an expert on nutrition, unfortunately. This they mostly leave to the registered dietitians and nutritionists. A pediatric oncologist that I work with rolled his eyes at me when I asked about turmeric - a spice that has been scientifically shown to have anti-tumor properties and is used in some clinical trials (http://www.cancer.org/Treatment/TreatmentsandSideEffects/ComplementaryandAlternativeMedicine/HerbsVitaminsandMinerals/turmeric) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17959521?print=true). I was talking about something that had been proven to be effective in curing some people's cancer but since there isn't a consensus about it, you'll find many scientists and cancer doctors balking at it. Instead the doctor told me that he just recommends that his patients eat a "healthy" diet. I asked him how many of his patients actually knew what a healthy diet was. He gave me a blank look. That made me wonder about how most people make nutritional choices, which leads me to my next reason:

2. Culture, Tradition, and Habit

 

In reading this blog posting you've probably felt a bit fired up in either passionate agreement or disagreement by some of the things that I've written. This is totally normal because nutrition, unlike most other elements of our daily life, is extremely intimate. Before you were even aware of the world around you, you were absorbing nutrients that your mother was taking in. You didn't even have a choice about this. Once you were born, her decision as to whether or not to breastfeed you directly affected your health today. This fact has finally been agreed on by the scientific community. But there was a time when it wasn't and my mother was called many unpleasant things by an army nurse in the late 70s who mocked her for choosing to breastfeed her newborn child. Now we know the importance of breastfeeding and are now supporting mothers who choose to do so. But what happens when the baby needs to be weaned? Walk down the baby isle in any supermarket and that question becomes a really overwhelming one. That goes for buying and preparing food for any member of your family now. And when humans are challenged to make such personal decisions they tend to go back to the familiar - the food that they were raised on, good or bad. It doesn't seem to matter whether or not your mom prepared the healthiest meal from scratch or whether your overtired mom took you to an all-you-can-eat buffet and let you eat as much pizza and cake as you wanted. You still associate that food with comfort and familiarity and will be hard pressed to part with it. One study done on rats and published in the British Journal of Nutrition showed that pregnant rats that were fed a junk food diet gave birth to pups that had a significantly higher preference for sugary, fatty foods than their control counterparts (http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=6&fid=1343308&jid=BJN&volumeId=98&issueId=04&aid=1343304&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession=&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S0007114507812037). So even what we eat during pregnancy may influence what our children have a taste for.

So that's family food culture and tradition, what about food culture in our larger society? That's a bigger issue. How many social functions have you gone to lately that didn't have any food? Were there drinks such as soda, diet soda, fruit juice, alcohol, water, or coffee or tea? Was the food kosher, halal, gluten free, processed, fresh, organic, local, homemade, store-bought? What about your religious functions? At some churches, constituents are given wine and a wafer-like cracker as a symbol of confirmation of their faith. At the Baha'i nineteen day Feast, at least bread and water must be served by the host during the social portion as an exercise of the virtue of hospitality. Almost every major world religion has either explicit dietary restriction, or traditional dietary habits, e.g. prohibition of alcoholic drinks in Islam and the Bahai Faith, kosher restrictions in Judaism, halal guidelines in Islam, the predominance of vegetarianism in Hindu communities. I found it to be highly amusing and socially telling when I went to an office party and the Orthodox Jewish intern could only drink his own kosher beer because he couldn't consume any of the non-kosher food and I, being a Baha'i, could eat and drink anything that didn't have alcohol in it. We both enjoyed the fact that we were adhering to our seemingly opposed dietary restrictions but both of us run the risk that anyone faces when they are a guest in someone else's home: offending the host by refusing the offered food. This is especially important when visiting other countries and experiencing cultures other than our own. Here we see themes of hospitality, religious adherence to laws, following religious and cultural traditions. Within the context of these profound themes food and drink no longer become nutrition choices alone. They become part of the deep human fabric that ties each one of us together and exhibits who we are, where we come from, what we believe, and how we feel about each other. These are not issues that people take lightly, nor should they. With the wonderful diversity of food cultures and traditions that we have in the world, it would be naive to assume that people will gladly change overnight even if presented with scientific evidence that tells them to do so. This is an area that we all need to tread lightly. To challenge the nutritional choices that individuals make is to challenge their expression of individuality. Even if you don't agree with someone's choices, it is not your place to lecture anyone. Here's what Baha'u'llah, the Founder of the Baha'i Faith says about how to offer advice to someone: 

"If ye be aware of a certain truth, if ye possess a jewel, of which others are deprived, share it with them in a language of utmost kindliness and good-will. If it be accepted, if it fulfil its purpose, your object is attained. If any one should refuse it, leave him unto himself, and beseech God to guide him. Beware lest ye deal unkindly with him." 

- Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1983), CXXXII, pp. 287-289

3. Exercise

Unlike nutrition, the scientific community is in complete agreement about the absolute necessity of exercise in order to maintain health and stave off a barrage of diseases and ailments. New studies are coming out every day about the health benefits of even the most modest increase in physical activity on a regular basis. Making sure that you get a brisk 30 minute walk once a day will improve your sleep, digestion, your mood, lower stress and lower your chances of getting heart disease. No matter how your day went, you will no doubt feel a sense of accomplishment about making time to exercise - at least I know I do. We also know that if you exercise at a moderate to high level for over 20 minutes your body releases endorphins, those feel-good hormones, that make you feel happy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorphin) so your body actually rewards you for working out. When you hear your friends say that they are "addicted" to working out, that is the rush that they're chasing (http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/05/07/151936266/wired-to-run-runners-high-may-have-been-evolutionary-advantage). 

There is a secret about working out that you find hard to believe until you experience it yourself: exercise is empowering. When you overcome that inertia, put on your gear start, you've already climbed a virtual mountain. If you do that on a regular basis, you start to see and feel the positive effects of that exercise. Sooner or later you realize that this is your own accomplishment; no one else did it for you. This realization increases your confidence and you start to see horizons open up. Your body starts to feel better and over time it just naturally looks better, too. When you strengthen your shoulders, back, and core muscles you find yourself standing with better posture. Aches and pains that used to bother you have disappeared and you have more energy throughout the day. The next thing you want to do is share that feeling with others, which leads me to the main reason that I've been focusing on exercise and letting nutrition trail behind in my Health Devotional and Workout Group: exercising together builds bonds of friendship!!

While all cultures have eating as a social activity down pat, they don't have anything in place for exercising together. This is because this generation is the first in the history of mankind that we have mechanized every single bit of activity out of our lives. Up until the 1990's you had to walk at least a little bit during the course of your day. Now, in the age of the internet, you can work from home, buy everything that you need online and drive anywhere that you need to go. Virtually every place you go will have chairs, elevators, escalators, automatic doors and some even have motorized chairs if you need them. This is the only time in history that you don't have to move at all unless you want to. This is why we can't rely on tradition, culture, and history to fill in the gaps. Unfortunately, we also live in a time where the average American has a job that requires him or her to sit for hours in front of a computer screen. This presents the greatest cultural challenge to our health as a nation.

My friend who works in IT just last week asked his supervisor if he could get a standing desk and was told that the chances were slim and only if he had an outstanding medical condition that required him to have a standing desk. So even with the scientific evidence showing without a doubt that a sedentary lifestyle is deadly, businesses are ignoring this and are directly putting the health of their employees at risk. (http://www.aicr.org/learn-more-about-cancer/make-time-break-time.html). In order to build a culture of exercise we have to start incorporating exercising into our social activities. We need to talk about exercise together, support and encourage each other, share stories, share your concerns, ask each other questions, and help each other find the answers. We can no longer see exercise as something that only athletes do if they want to be olympic medalists or professionals. We need to see exercise as something as normal as eating and sleeping, and just as necessary. Our parents didn't use to have to do this because they had to walk, stand, pick things up, carry things, and I promise you that their generation didn't have as much access to high calorie food as we do. High calorie foods were treats back then, and the serving sizes of all food was about a third what they are now.

We can help each other by building this new culture and by supporting our friends and relatives in their efforts to incorporate exercise into their daily habits. By supporting them, you're showing how much you love and cherish them. You're support says to them, "I love you, I'm proud of you, I want you around for many years to come and I wish for you the same happiness and energy that I've experienced". In times when food was scarce, offering more food was a way to show that you cherished someone. Now we can offer to help each other in their path to fitness. Listen to your friends and family and hear what they have to say about their personal challenges to incorporate exercise. If they don't have time, offer to help them in their daily chores or offer to work out with them. If a friend needs a babysitter in order to get 30 minutes to work out a day, help them find a regular sitter. The first thing that we all can do for each other is to be understanding about how incredibly difficult it is to accomplish even a little bit of time to work out regularly. Be caring and patient with each other and tell each other that together we can make it easier to get healthier. Don't worry if you're starting from a completely sedentary lifestyle. Don't worry if you're many pounds overweight. That just means that it will be that much more rewarding when you see how far you've come. When you're starting from zero, any improvement is just that: IMPROVEMENT. It might even be harder for athletes who get older and start having to deal with limitations being put on their bodies. Comparing yourself to the awesome, fit you that you used to be is just as counterproductive as comparing yourself to others. If you never had any glory days and you're only starting an exercise regimen now, I have good news for you: it will be very easy to get into the best shape of your entire life if you just keep going! :)

This brings me to the other reason that I've decided to focus first on fitness: the virtues that you are exercising when you are focusing on fitness are practically unlimited. You have to learn perseverance, patience, humility, detachment, strength, individual investigation of truth, prudence, moderation, overcoming and accepting pain, courage, fortitude, a positive attitude, honesty, purity, nobility, trust, hope, joyfulness, and even love. When we exercise together we even build unity, friendship, and show love, tolerance, patience, understanding, compassion, humility, sincerity, and trustworthiness to each other. Even if you're starting to exercise simply for aesthetic reasons, you'll soon find out that if you focus more on reaching health and strength-related goals you will achieve so much more than a good-looking outer image, you will learn to accept yourself as a strong individual that overcomes difficulties and achieves great things. Looking good is just the cherry on top. You'll learn to listen to your body and give it what it needs, which leads me to where food and nutrition fits beautifully into this schema.
 
Not only does exercising for less than an hour at a time actually suppress appetite, but you'll start to look at food as fuel, not as entertainment, an emotional crutch, or the enemy. That is what food is, primarily: fuel. If you find that you're eating just to entertain yourself, eating to satisfy an emotional hunger rather than a physical hunger, or eating to sabotage your own success, then discussing these things with a therapist or with groups like Food Addicts Anonymous (http://www.foodaddicts.org/) or Overeaters Anonymous (http://www.oa.org/) would probably be extremely helpful. This is more common that one would think. More and more people are turning to food to comfort themselves and fill the emotional holes and a sense of lack of purpose that burden so many people today. Here again is where we can show our love, understanding, compassion, and support. These are real issues and to disregard these and judge our fellow human beings for having unhealthy habits is to disregard the fact that all of us have unhealthy habits that we need to change. Just because someone is skinny doesn't necessarily mean that they are healthy and just because someone is overweight doesn't mean that they don't have anything to teach you about overcoming adversity.


4. Take it Day by Day

For those of you who are still asking questions like, "Should I go vegan? Is it really better to eat organic? Will I lose weight by juicing only? Should I buy local?" don't worry. I've been doing a lot of research into these questions and will be covering these topics periodically. As a general guideline though, I would not change your diet too drastically all at once. Start by adding more fresh greens into your diet and substituting processed foods with more whole foods. Try to eat more whole, fresh fruit rather than fruit juice bought from the store and try to drink water instead of soda. If you have to get fast food, try to buy the healthier options and if you're getting coffee, get skim milk and add your own sugar rather then getting a frappuccino with whipped cream. Becoming healthier is a process and it takes time. Changing one or two small things will be easier to sustain than changing a lot all at once.