Maybe the time is right to talk about the "eat healthy exercise more directive. We see that it’s not working.
Where do we begin? How about the Fifties when almost no one was fat. When all Americans were very active and ate nutritious meals prepared with love by our dear Moms.
Sorry, but that idealized view doesn’t jive with the facts. No, we weren’t feeding on lean meats, fresh vegetables, or fruits. Believe me, fast foods arrived before the Beatles. White Castle served us greasy burgers and fries and soda. Industrial strength soda; there weren’t any diet versions. Same story with milk or beer. It was full calories ahead.
Juices? Unless your mother was a Super Mom who squeezed oranges, you drank frozen concentrate diluted with tap water or canned tomato juice. And what about those perfect fresh vegetables? Maybe in summer, but the rest of the time we ate canned or frozen peas, carrots, string beans, broccoli. All we knew from lettuce was iceberg.
And, of course, we cooked with Crisco or homemade lard — every home had a tub of it. That’s why the fried chicken, French fries, grits, pie crusts, and cakes tasted so good.
OK, we’ve put the lie to the idea that the trimmer bodies of the 1950’s were due to more wholesome meals. Let’s take on the myth that we were exercising.
Today, we all spend hours at our computers. Sure, sitting doesn’t do much for the shape of your butt, but what’s the difference what you sit in front of? Is a typewriter better??
You’ve seen fat construction workers and thin manicurists, right? Work that requires heavy manual labor doesn’t guarantee a svelte bod, nor does work that keeps you seated equal added pounds.
Did we burn more calories watching network TV than we do now watching cable? TV programming was limited then, so we also sat and played cards and board games. Or, sat and read a book. We weren’t jogging or going to the gym. Health clubs didn’t start until the 1970's and even then most women didn’t sign on because, believe it or not, sweating was unfeminine. So how come when 50's moms delivered four kids, they still managed to get back into pre-baby wardrobes?
Bottom line, we sat every chance we got, just like today -- because that is what human bottoms like to do.
Then why are we fatter than our parents and grandparents? The simple, unvarnished, scientifically researched answer from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is that we just plain eat more. The CDC reports that women today eat 22 percent more than women did in 1971. Go back to 1958 when daily adult caloric consumption was 1900 and we’re up to 30% more! And we’re not talking apples to apples unless we are actually eating apples. Because we can’t compare thousands of calorie-free beverages and reduced-fat foods to the limited, full strength selections back then.
If over-consumption got us into this mess, why didn’t we all just eat less? I’ll tell you why. Because in the 1980s, legions of fitness gurus and diet experts—some of them physicians-- became media savvy and perfected their messages. They convinced us that we needed the magical trifecta: eat only foods that are healthy ( eliminating fats then carbs); exercise( beat up your body and “burn” calories) and drink at least eight glasses of water a day.
So, first eager Americans embraced the “go for the burn/no pain no gain” body-damaging exercise to get rid of the extra calories; sort of our 20th Century version of the Roman vomitoriums.
Bad choice: the Pennington Biomedical Research Center recently determined after a six-month study that dieting alone reduces weight just as well as dieting and exercising. People who cut calories 25 % by only dieting and those who cut calories 12.5% through diet and 12.5% with exercise lost the same amount of weight. Worse both groups experienced the same decrease in muscle mass and basal metabolism! So exercise is not a weight loss solution; but it sure helps your heart, muscles and immune system.
Second, the diet industry convinced us that grazing, formerly known as snacking, was healthier than eating regular meals. This meant that consuming food anywhere at any time wasn’t just acceptable, it was downright medicinal. As for quantity, we so want to believe that if it’s “good” food, you can’t eat enough. Except that reason tells us that the more often your stomach is stretched, the more you must shovel in to feel sated.
The third development -- the glorification of water -- led us to believe that we could drink away our hunger or even “wash” away those calories. In 1976, each of us annually drank only a gallon and a half of bottled water. Today we each drink 28 gallons. Now we know there has been some climate change—obviously made worse by the need to dispose of billions of plastic water bottles-- but we don’t live in deserts today and we weren’t dying of thirst 30 years ago.
What’s the current word from the experts who gave us all this flawed advice? Well, you better believe they’re distancing themselves from their past weight loss theories. Now, they really know what the problem is and how to fix it. And, make us feel better about ourselves at the same time. If you’re over weight, it’s not your fault. Genetics, set points and stress hormones are to blame.
They don’t exactly say we have mutated in just 50 years, but the implication is that we have no longer have control over our bodies because after decades of gaining and losing and then regaining they aren’t cooperating.
It’s a complicated situation and we’re burnt out from all the talk and failed solutions. And what can we do now? Seven out of ten of us are fat; obese people outweigh the merely overweight; and we’re even adding to global warming! (the more you weigh, the more fuel it takes to get you where you’re going).
No quick fixes here, just some food for thought. Stop forcing yourself to guzzle water and exercise more. Quit beating yourself up for not eating healthy (it’s ungrammatical). Instead, cook food you love an d enjoy it. Just less of it.
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