Food

On the shift from child to parent, tread lightly

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In our home, the stairs to the second floor rise on one wall of my son's bedroom, and the hall to my bedroom follows another. So especially when he's near the beginning or end of his slumber, I try to walk lightly.

When I was young (though much older than he is now), I had a different reason to step quietly on stairs at night: Typically, I was en route to or from an illicit trip to the kitchen, seeking to eat in secret what I knew I'd be faulted for if my parents knew.


Food addiction shows up on "Dr. Oz"

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On the "Dr. Oz" episode on food addiction that ran this week, the news for my peeps and I was good, generally. More than three times as many respondents to an online poll said they think they might be addicted to food than those who said they don’t think they are. And by a ratio of more than 3-1, respondents consider food addiction as serious as addictions to drugs and alcohol.


Nancy Huehnergarth: "It’s not sustainable until it’s put into law."

Welcome to another edition of 10 Words or Less, in which I ask brief questions and request brief answers from interesting people. Today’s participant is cofounder and executive director of NYSHEPA, which “advocates for policies and practices that improve the nutritional and physical activity environment in New York State.” Please, no counting! “10 words” is a goal, not a rule, and besides, let’s see you do it.

Nancy Huehnergarth, executive director, NYSHEPAName Nancy Huehnergarth
Born when, where "Baltimore, when the Beatles were #1 on the charts."
Resides: Chappaqua, NY
Your family circumstance "Married, with two teenage daughters."
A transformative event in your youth “Someone from my class drowned on Senior Cut Day.”
How did that affect you? “This was someone who was a bit disenfranchised, low income, and it made me realize that all people need to be treated with respect and that their lives should be cherished.”
Outside your family, someone’s example you follow “The person who inspired me to get involved in food reform: Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest."
Your greatest hope about the 2012 Food Bill “We stop subsidizing crops like corn and soy, and begin to subsidize produce.”
Your greatest fear about the 2012 Food Bill “The Big Food and Big Ag lobbying whirlwind will convince legislators to create a bill that benefits only Big Food and Big Ag.”


No such thing as a "good reason" to act out

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A friend and fellow food addict called the other day to lament his latest lost eating battle and I asked him to tell me what had happened. But when he started by telling me how he’d been feeling that morning, I interrupted.

I didn’t want to know about his feelings, or the argument he’d had with his wife, or about the crack in the sidewalk he’d stepped on. I just wanted to know, specifically, what he’d eaten that was causing his agita.


No Farm Bill this year?

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US Rep. Jim McGovern, a member of the House Agriculture Committee who represents Central Mass., isn’t enthusiastic about the prospects for a Farm Bill, which is ordinarily debated and passed in five-year increments and is due for action this year.

But that’s good news, he told partisans gathered over lunch Saturday during the winter meeting of the state chapter of Northeast Organic Farming Association.


Another front in the food addiction fight

Via my friend Jill Escher, I read this piece by David Bender on cravingsugar.net and wanted to pass it along. Though our backgrounds are fairly dissimilar, we’re brothers from his very first sentence, in which he says, “my goal is to raise awareness of food addiction.”


Go big

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This squib from the Physician's Briefing website reflects some broad truths, considering it results from a survey of peoiple at risk for diabetes in Finland: Excerpts:

"Only 36 percent of at-risk men and 52 percent of at-risk women perceived the need for lifestyle counseling. ... Of those individuals who perceived the need for counseling, 35 percent refused to participate." About a third of the people who agreed to participate never showed up even once.


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