another case for exercise...

Just in case you needed one more.

Today in class we learned about something called Metabolic Stress.  When your body goes through a severe trauma (such as a major burn, wound, gunshot wound, SURGERY (mom, are you reading?), or any other major injury) your body, in a sense, goes into shock.

Many times this involves one of your primary lines of immune defense (your skin) to be compromised.  Your body knows it MUST compensate for this.  So what does it do?

It steals from you.  Your body steals from itself to make sure it can heal the new priority.  And your muscles are the number one place it gets this from.  Your body starts to break down your muscles--and on occasion your ORGANS--in order to provide enough protein and Amino Acids to rebuild different proteins to fix the areas that are damaged.

Does this make sense?  Your body re-prioritizes.  And your muscles are not a priority when you have just had surgery or been in a major car accident.

So what does this mean?  If you are lacking in muscle mass, you are going to be that much more affected by trauma.  BUT, if you can take care of yourself, and lift weights or participate in weight-bearing exercise, your body will be much more able to compensate for a surgery or trauma you weren't anticipating.  It means a much faster recuperation time for you, which is ALWAYS good.

social-determinants

Sorry for another theoretical post, but I just finished writing a 5-page paper for ethics, and had something on my mind.

Daniels, one of the authors we have read from, submits the idea that health is more determined by social factors than by health care or even access to health care.  Life is so multifaceted!  Why would our health be any different?  Our health is determined by our lifestyles and culture and cultural foods and coping mechanisms and beliefs and the list goes on and on and on.

In this regard, chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes could ACTUALLY be viewed as communicable diseases!  While you can't catch them from direct contact, they are actually behaviors that are learned from life.  If you spend enough time and enough contact hours around certain environments, you are very likely to "catch" them.


When we view these chronic diseases as communicable, it changes our approach to curing them.  Obviously, this starts with a good dose of prevention.  Housing situations, work environments, eating habits, shopping and cooking knowledge, drug use, activity level, and education all contribute to the environment that these diseases could be transmitted.


I actually don't know how to solve this.  The problem is HUGE and complicated and infused with the complexities and fallen-ness of humanity.  But people are worth it.  If we can put huge medical efforts into traditional communicable diseases, then maybe we should start working on the more subtle ones person by person.  Because people are worth it.

the Hamwi equation

So, a big part of nutrition is body weight.  How much should I eat to loose or gain weight?

One easy (and VERY generalized) way of determing your ideal weight is to use this simple formula:


for women:
Start with 100 pounds for the first 5 feet in height, then add 5 pounds per inch.  (So a woman who is 5'6'' should weigh close to 130 pounds; (100 + (6 x 5)).)  OBVIOUSLY this doesn't take into account body composition.  Are you very athletic?  What is your build?  So to account for this, add and subtract 10% to this giving you a range of 117-143.  AGAIN! This is NOT exact! A much better measure would be total body fat composition.

for men:
Start with 106 pounds for the first 5 feet, then add 6 pounds per inch.  So a man who is 5'11'' should weigh close to 172.  The 10% range should be 154.8-189.2.

This is a general tool dietitians use to determine ranges in weight.  We'll address what to eat to maintain, gain, or loose weight later on!

Teresa of Avila

This morning during my devotion, I read an inspiring excerpt by Teresa of Avila.


She said to imagine you see a man sitting on the ground.  He is tied up... hands cuffed behind his back.  Unable to get up.  He is starving to death, even though he has food just inches from him.  He can't get to it no matter how hard he has tried... and by this point, he is too exhausted to try at all.

So she then poses the question: Which is the more compassionate thing to do?  To take the food next to him and to feed him?  Or to free his hands and feet so he can feed himself?

I know this is an idea that seems very obvious (although she may have been far ahead of her time...) but that is why education is so important.  Without the tools to take something into your own hands and struggle with it and deal with it... and ultimately apply it, we are left in the same defenseless situations.

This applies to nutrition! This applies to education! And finances! And relationships! and even spiritual matters. 

It was a good reminder to me this morning that gave me focus for the day.

to egg? or not to egg?

I know this is the age-old nutrition question that probably rivals the greater question of "who came first? The chicken or the egg?" 

I am honestly not into the "meat" of my classes yet.  I've just started Medical Nutrition Therapy, and I know I will learn a TON of applicable things in there.  Unfortunately, I haven't picked up too many tips, yet.

However, yesterday as I worked through a lesson for my ethics class on... you guessed it: Ethics in Public Health, something struck me.  It's the idea that understanding about nutrition and diet change as the knowledge about nutrition and diet changes.  (Obviously there are things driven by money and agenda... but I like to believe that most practitioners honestly want the best health and wellness for their patients.)  But as new studies are conducted and analyzed, the guidelines change.

This may seem like a frustrating problem to not ever be sure if you are or aren't supposed to be eating something... but it's a good thing.  Ethically, you want to know that you are advised to use the best known practice to date.

So, I guess I can't answer this question for you, yet... (although I am a BIG egg person... in my opinion, a boiled egg is a perfect snack... low in calories... and high in a protein very similar to ours... which means it's absorbed well...) (And I also know that eating cholesterol has (as far as research goes) very little effect on OUR cholesterol levels... saturated fat does.)

But this blog, as the field of nutrition, will be a work in progress.  I will work hard to make sure I present what is proven to be most effective.

What is the Strangest Food You've Ever Eaten?

This was the introduction question to my Public Health Nutrition Leadership course this past Wednesday. What is your answer? What is the strangest food you've ever eaten?

Our class had a wide range of answers.
Head cheese.
Alligator.
Sea-Cucumber.
Bat.
Wolf.
Sparrow on a Stick.
I threw in that Charlie and I are 99% positive he ate the Queen's Rat (read: Nutria... or a very large Swamp rat if you aren't sure what that is) on our honeymoon in Belize which was disguised on the menu as "pork." (It wasn't pork.)

To end off our introductions our professor introduced the idea that food is incredibly cultural. When she has students in the class from Africa, they often reply "Oatmeal" because it is animal food to them. Why would people eat animal food? Along the same line, I have heard my dad mention that his father would not allow them to eat corn in the house because it was "Pig's food"... and why would civilized people eat pig's food? We wouldn't eat dog food, would we?

I want to start this blog as a way of documenting the important things I learn about nutrition along the way. Fortunately, I believe the program I am in is going to help me view food as both a scientific phenomenon as well as a cultural and social one. I will strive to translate some of the more interesting things I learn into application for you! My dear, healthy, foodie readers!