Category: Health and Fitness

Source http://www.sonima.com/food/harmful-relationship-with-food/

Research indicates over 50% of Americans—of all ages, genders, cultures, and socioeconomic brackets—struggle with disordered eating. Health coach Anna Matriotti considers this an epidemic: “There is so much anxiety in our culture around food. We live in an environment that’s really challenging.” As a result, we’ve become disconnected from our intuitive sense of what our bodies need and want.

Over 30 million Americans meet the criteria for clinically diagnosable eating disorders. But those who do not are still at psychological, physical, and emotional risk. It is common—and dangerous—to minimize the consequences of obsessive calorie counting, rigid or excessive exercise routines, anxieties about certain foods and eating, restriction, binging, purging, inflexibility around eating, and distorted body image—all of which constitute disordered eating.

While cultural pressures to achieve an ideal body are rampant, most people struggling with eating are not, at their core, driven by dissatisfaction with their appearance. Saturated with the stressors of modern life, we crave comfort and control. We seek resolution through food—the most primal source of comfort—and our bodies—the most accessible and consistent thing in our daily lives that we can attempt to control.

Unmet …

Source http://www.niashanks.com/new-years-resolution-failure-tips/

Eight percent. Only eight percent of people successfully achieve their New Year’s resolution. So, that’s depressing.

You have a greater chance of dying from cardiovascular disease than achieving your resolution; a whopping 33 percent for women and 25 for men. Ninety percent of women have one or more risk factors for developing heart disease.

Heck, let’s keep going and see what else is more likely to happen than you achieving your resolution.

You have a one in seven chance of getting arthritis (that sucks). One in five Americans will get skin cancer (those odds suck worse). If you got your driver’s license at 16 you’re likely to experience your first crash at 34. (Ha! That wasn’t my case: I was in a T-bone collision when I was 13; I was extracted from the mangled metal with the jaws of life and was left with a broken nose and ankle, bloody urine, and lots of stitches. In my early 20s a guy ran a red light and smashed into my car sending us spinning into oncoming traffic before crashing over a curb.)

But back to the resolution success rate of an abysmal eight percent. As you saw, you’re more likely to experience some rather unsavory events and diagnoses than achieving your goal. To ma…

Source http://www.foodpolitics.com/2016/12/weekend-reading-larry-cohens-prevention-diaries/

Larry Cohen.  Prevention Diaries: The Practice and Pursuit of Health for All.  Oxford, 2016.

Larry Cohen is an old friend and I was happy to be asked to do a blurb for his terrific book:

Prevention Diaries is Larry Cohen’s intensely personal and introspective account of why stopping health problems before they start makes sense for individuals and for societies—and is possible.  His stories of how advocates have successfully intervened to prevent problems caused by unhealthy eating, cigarettes, automobiles, guns, violence, and system inequalities should inspire everyone interested in public health to get involved in prevention programs that will make a real difference in people’s lives.

Here’s a brief excerpt from his “food for thought” chapter:

The realities of our food system can feel overwhelming—too large and too entrenched to change all at once.  But, as with so many big problems, communities and businesses are taking valuable steps to create the system we want and need.  Indeed, it feels like the United States is at the beginning of a sea-change in its pproach to food—with a swell of inte…

Source http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/12/26/506609884/after-8-decades-and-countless-pastrami-sandwiches-new-yorks-carnegie-deli-folds?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=thesalt

The iconic deli in midtown Manhattan is closing its doors after nearly 80 years in business. Its oversized sandwiches defined a certain kind of New York restaurant.

(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

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Source http://clubindustry.com/news/five-most-popular-non-news-fitness-industry-stories-2016

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