Eating and Health Made Simple

Sustainable Healthy Living, by Sheila Mullen – April 7, 2012

I love the power of a picture that speaks a thousand words. Doesn't it cause you to stop and ask what does this mean for my health? I debated whether to just post the picture, but two questions kept popping up for me that need to be considered:

• How did we get here?
• What can we do to positively impact our health? 

Both of these questions arose given the challenging terrain we navigate daily between the food we eat and a critically broken healthcare system. Neither industry provides incentives to care about our health. 

How Did We Get Here?

Food Industry

Here are five powerful influences altering the food industry and its impact on our health.

• Women Entering the Workforce: Collectively we now eat outside the home more frequently resulting in larger portions, more calories, and less nutritionally dense food. In addition, high calorie foods are everywhere bookstores, vending machines and buffet style, all you can eat troughs.  Food is always within reach, but nutrition is scarce. 

• Direct Advertizing to Kids. In 1980’s,the FTC Improvements Act passed by Congress made it harder to regulate advertizing to children.  Advertising spending directed at children jumped from $4.2 billion to $40 billion by 2010. 

• Governmental Policies. Changes in farm subsidy policies lowered the prices on unhealthy food. The majority of federal assistance goes to corn, soy and other feed grain. This leads to the overproduction of these crops and the increase usage in processed foods. Less than ten percent of USDA subsidies are spent on growing fruit, vegetables and other grains making farming healthy food less lucrative for farmers. 

• Shareholder Value Movement. Early in 1980’s, Wall Street began pressuring corporations to demonstrate quarterly increases in shareholder value. Companies needed to sell more and demonstrate growth every ninety days. New food products were developed, marketed and sold in rapid succession in order to succeed. The nutritional value of the food became less important than the profits. 

• Nutrition Labeling Act of 1990. The law directed the FDA to set premarket approved standards for health and nutrition claims. Unfortunately, great controversy remains with regard to FDA’s requirements and lack of clear definitions for health claims.  Therefore food companies can follow the law, while designing packaging and use FDA approved health claims without clear definitions of terms like, organic, natural, low fat and healthy. The health claims on packaging is often nothing more than marketing. They are useless, confusing and potentially misleading to consumers.

Healthcare IndustryThere is a whole paradigm about the health care system impeding our health. Today most Americans are accustomed to looking after their health through medication, operations and looking to the doctors for answers. We address our health during a health crisis versus taking a preventative stance. To be truly healthy we must learn how to care for ourselves by making healthy food and lifestyle choices.

What Can I Do?

Very simply:

• Educate yourself
• Read labels; if there are more than 5 ingredients, don’t eat it.
• Vote with your dollars, buy locally raised whole food: fruits, veggies, grass-fed animals
• Eat less
• Move more
• Eat more fruits and vegetables
• Limit junk food
• Cook at home and teach kids to cook
• Plant a garden
• Enjoy your food, taste it, smell it, be thankful for the nutrition it provides you.

A great book suggestion is Michael Pollan’s Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.  I tell my clients if you truly followed these rules you could worry less about your weight and the likelihood of developing a life-threatening or chronic illness.

Be well!

About Sheila Mullen - The founder of Continuous Motion Consulting, Sheila is passionate about engaging friends, family and community in improving their lives and the lives of those around them. Sheila spent more than 20 years in technology sales, marketing and development. She also has a background in organizational development, innovation and executive wellness coaching.