1. Mother or father are overweight
2. Mother was overweight before she became pregnant
3. Parents who smoke or being exposed to others who smoke
4. Mother smoked during pregnancy
5. The child was overweight before age 3

Obesity is a family disease.  Genetic factors as well as early childhood factors make it more or less likely that a child will become overweight or obese.

As always, the focus should be on the family.  What can your family do to improve your child’s chances of being a healthy weight?  Always practice what you preach.

• Eating more fruits and vegetables.
• Avoid processed food.
• Cook together as a family.
• Provide your children with a wide variety of food options
• Use sweets as infrequent treats, substitute other sweet foods, like fruits for daily rewards
• Educate yourself and your children about healthy eating

So our kids are becoming obese at younger ages.  Therefore, they will have a lifetime of struggling with their weight.

What can parents do?

1. MODEL healthy eating.  You can’t tell your children what to eat if you continue to eat poorly.
2. Exercise together as a family even if its just going for daily walks or bike rides.
3. Don’t focus on a child’s appearance, rather find ways to compliment their other good deeds: are they a good student, a kind person, good at music or other talents?
4. Eat at least one meal a day with your children.
5. Don’t tease them about their weight.

If you’re interested in changing your lifestyle and eating behaviors, call about FREE lectures on weight management being offered monthly in Metro Denver – 303-993-5468.

“We found that increasing physical activity including brisk walking was protective against stroke, especially ischemic stroke, in middle-aged and older women,” Dr. Hu said, “and in our study, the predominant form of physical activity was walking as well.”

There was also a “dose-dependent” response between the amount of time spent walking and decrease in stroke risk in the Nurses’ Health Study, and walking pace “was independently associated with a lower stroke risk as well, meaning that women who walked faster had an even lower risk of developing stroke than others,” he said.

“The bottom line is that physical activity, including moderate physical activity, is beneficial for the prevention of stroke, but we don’t have sufficient data to say that it is more beneficial for one type of stroke than for any other type of stroke,” Dr. Hu concluded.

The study was done at the University of Melbourne in Australia and found that women on the whole food diet were 30% less likely to have major depression, dysthymia and anxiety disorders compared to those on the Western diet which was associated with a 50% increase in risk for depression.

Prevention is always the best medicine!

What is high blood pressure?  A blood pressure reading of greater than 140/90 is considered abnormal although even lower levels (130-139/85-89)can be associated with higher risk for cardiovascular disease.  Hypertension (high blood pressure) affects one in four Americans and is called the “silent killer,” because you can have an high blood pressure without having any symptoms.

What causes high blood pressure (HBP)?

• stress
• risk is higher in African Americans
• blood pressure naturally increases as we age which puts the elderly at higher risk of HBP
• being overweight or obese can increase blood pressure
• dietary deficiencies of calcium, magnesium and potassium are associated with HBP
• there are some medications that can cause HBP including steroids, birth control pills, and over the country diet pills with stimulants (guarana, caffeine, cola nut, yerba mate) can increase BP
• high sodium diets
• drinking alcohol

What are some integrative therapies you should consider?

1. Get enough calcium in your diet with low fat dairy products
2. Increase intake of fruits and vegetables
3. Limit sodium by decreasing intake of processed and convenience foods as well as fast foods as they are high in salt.
4. LImit intake of alcohol
5. Lose weight if you are overweight
6. Exercise is effective at lowering blood pressure even if you don’t lose weight
7. Consider the amino acid – L-arginine which when taken orally helps to dilate blood vessels and lower blood pressure
8. Eat according to the anti-inflammatory diet pyramid.  See http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/PAG00361/anti-inflammatory-food-pyramid.html
9. If you don’t get enough calcium, magnesium and potassium in your diet, take supplements.

There’s nothing wrong with this!  What is problematic is when we don’t recognize that the food we “love” is about a memory.  So we convince ourselves that we just love mac and cheese and therefore have to over eat it.  When in fact, what we may be hungry for is not mac and cheese but that feeling of being loved.

So how do you deal with the feelings that are associated with food?

Try using your coping strategies you already have, applying them to your eating.

If you have been successful in any area of

your life, you can apply the same strategies you’ve used in that area to dealing with your weight.

Perhaps you have been very successful in your job, or you have overcome obstacles in your life.

You may have survived tough times in your marriage or had to help your aging parents. Maybe

you are highly analytical or a good problem solver. Even if you haven’t applied those skills to

your weight problem, you may find them useful. If you have overcome an obstacle in one area of

your life, you can use those skills in other areas. Use the exercise below to identify your strengths.

Exercise

Make a list of strengths you have or strategies you have used to overcome obstacles in your life:

_______________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

Now that you’ve identified your strengths and coping skills, imagine how these could be useful

to you in achieving a healthy weight. (Example: I could use my analytical skills to track my food

intake on an Excel spreadsheet, which would be more interesting than writing it out by hand.

(Example: I’m very competitive, so my friend and I are going to engage in friendly competition to motivate

us to exercise.)

_______________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________

you are using food as a metaphor. A metaphor describes one thing as if it were something else.

Saying that “food is love” is an example of how we use food as a metaphor. You may think that

you love food when in fact food is actually filling an unmet need in your life – now or in the past -

for love, safety, joy or other basic needs.

Food can also evoke pleasant memories of a time when your family came

together, or a special occasion with a loved one. If you lead a very disciplined, driven life, you

may find yourself turning to food as a way to “let go” of the heavy responsibilities. Food serves as

comfort, safety, solace and so much more than simply a way to nourish our bodies. Recognizing

how food fills your unmet needs will allow you to unravel the meaning of food in your life. Once

this is done, you may choose to have your needs met in other ways besides food.

Exercise

List below the ways in which food meets your needs:

1. Food is a comfort.

2. Food is love.

3. Food keeps me company when I’m lonely.

4. The more I eat, the less I feel.

5. Food is my stabilizer. I don’t feel so out of control.

6. When I’m able to skip meals, I feel strong. Giving in to hunger makes me feel weak.

7. Food brings me joy.

8. __________________________________________________

9. __________________________________________________

10._________________________________________________

Larry Dossey, MD

The quote above was written by Dr. Dossey who is a pioneer in alternative medicine.  When it comes to eating disorders, it has long been my belief, which I wrote about in “Healing Body, Mind and Spirit” that eating disorders and addictions are about spiritual pain.  When a person with an eating disorder goes through treatment, the deepest level of recovery is found on the spiritual level.  It doesn’t have to be with religion or even spirituality.  It’s about that sense of sacredness.  Food and eating become sacred.  The body is no long the enemy; a new reverence is developed towards the inner workings of the body.  Relationships as well can become sacred.

Once behaviors are no longer the focus and you become more aware of your emotions and how to manage them, then the real work takes place.  The first step of that deeper work is reconnecting mind and body and learning to nurture and appreciate all the body does for us on a moment by moment basis – digesting whatever we put into it; sending nutrients in our cells to all parts of the body; continuing to breathe.

Becoming more connected with the body is the beginning of becoming more connected with nature, people in our lives and the environment we live in.

Spirituality has many different meanings.  A sense of awe is to be cultivated as part of recovery as is a sense of the sacred.  They provide the anchor for sacredness in your recovery.

Most of us don’t think of our bodies as our home but in fact they are.  We get one body at birth. We live in that body-home until we die.  The food we eat, whether or not we are active, how we nourish our bodies in general will have consequences.  If we smoke, we damage our hearts and lungs.  When we eat foods that are highly processed, we send out inflammatory cells to all parts of the body which over time cause wear and tear on the body organs.

As we look at the disaster being played out on our TVs in the news, I wonder what headline news it would take to get all of us to take our body health as seriously.  While the media is churning out more and more studies about how “bad” obesity is, we forget that scare tactics never work.  We must all refocus what has been called the war on obesity into a partnership to put health first, then weight. If we saw ourselves in the same light that we see the poor creatures of the sea; if our hearts would open to our own need for caring, then perhaps changing how we treat ourselves, our bodies would make sense. Because, to me, it doesn’t make the most sense that we try to get everyone to “just be thin.”  There are many thin people who are unhealthy.  So thin is definitely NOT the answer.

But anyone who takes care of themselves, who views their bodies as their friend, not adversary, who is a good steward of this home will be as healthy as humanly possible.  Perhaps BP’s oil spill and the crisis in the gulf can serve as a wake up call for us all to take care of all the homes under our guardianship – from our bodies to the earth itself.

Many of the chronic diseases that plague us are now being associated with underlying inflammation in the body.  What is inflammation caused by?  The typical Western diet which is high in processed foods, fat and sugar.

The message is:  Change your diet, change your mood.

Focus on eating more fruits and vegetables, less animal protein and more vegetarian protein (beans, lentils, soy), more fish and you can count on feeling happier!!

For more information on the anti-inflammatory diet – check out the anti-inflammatory diet pyramid at www.drweil.com