by Joan Kent | Nov 17, 2014 | Health and Wellness, Instructor Training, Master Instructor Blog
John rode the #1 NYC subway train last week and it doesn't look like this today 🙂
Giving nutrition talks in many locations lets me meet interesting people. After a recent presentation, a man came up afterward to tell me about his doctoral research.
Dull, you think? Hardly. The man is working on a program for juvenile offenders that teaches them about good nutrition. His premise is that getting them to make good decisions about food helps them make better choices in life.
How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
I was instantly reminded of Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point. Gladwell describes the turnaround of the high crime rate in New York.
In the mid-1980s, violent crime in NYC was at a peak. Two criminologists, Wilson & Keller, theorized that crime is the inevitable result of disorder, and seemingly small displays of disorder invite serious crime by signaling neglect.
The NY Transit Authority hired Keller as a consultant. He convinced the key players to start the crime cleanup by cleaning graffiti from the subway trains. Some thought it was a foolish start because violence on the subway trains was so high.
But the repainting of trains was relentless. Even partially graffiti’d subway cars were taken out of service until they’d been cleaned. The message that someone was watching was clear, and it worked.
The theory was then applied to other small crimes, such as fare-skipping and minor property damage. By 1990, violent crime in NYC had dropped considerably.
So What Does This Have To Do With Sugar?
What if, instead of avoiding just the big stuff — like dessert — and letting little “tastes” slide by, you convinced your participants to start by eliminating the little tastes? Refusing that piece of a broken cookie, those two tiny M&Ms, that agave on their oatmeal? Small tastes that seem trivial, calorie-wise.
What good would that do? Well, sugar does affect brain chemistry and hormones, so small amounts can increase appetite and change food preferences — and not in a good way. A little can bring on cravings for sugar later that day or the next.
But What About Juvenile Offenders, Gladwell, and The Subway Trains?
I’m also suggesting that strictly refusing small bits of sugar could help your participants develop a different mindset: “That’s not food.”
What I know from decades of counseling dieting clients is they tend to think All-Or-Nothing. (“I ate cookies earlier, so I blew it. I’ll have this chocolate cake tonight and start my “diet” tomorrow.”)
What if — this season — they get out in front of it?
If they relentlessly reject small samplings of sugar throughout the day (and the week), it could be easier to turn down dessert.
Yes, because of the brain chem thing. But also this: Why undo all that careful, healthy picky-ness by blowing it on a bowl of Rocky Road?
Dare To Start Small
We know holiday sugar will be around in both large and small portions.
Why not shun the tiny tastes of sugar that will be everywhere? See if that doesn’t inspire better food choices throughout the day — and throughout the season. See if it doesn’t re-frame sugar as the junk it is, rather than as food.
If this deceptively silly idea keeps your students from overdoing it on pumpkin pie, chocolate truffles, fudge, cheesecake, and everything else that will be temptingly available as the holidays go on, it could even be seen as their practice.
Imagine the inner glow of having a no-sugar practice.
Besides, if you convince your participants to try this, you will definitely be a Hero, like my friend who’s working with juvenile offenders. What he’s doing is brilliant. You could be, too.
I’d love to hear how this Tipping Point approach works for your classes!
by Joan Kent | Nov 10, 2014 | Health and Wellness, Master Instructor Blog
Recently, someone with a self-proclaimed Sweet Tooth asked me the difference between that and sugar addiction. The question brought out the geek in me, so I decided to share the information with you.
Why We Like Sweet
We’re hardwired to like sweet. In fact, a fetus will increase its swallowing of amniotic fluid if the fluid is artificially sweetened.
One author attributed our liking for sweet tastes to evolution. Many plants that seem edible contain substances that can poison and even kill us quickly. Because that didn’t happen with sweet foods, they became “safe.”
Brain chemicals have a lot to do with liking sweet. Endorphins (beta-endorphin), dopamine and serotonin are natural feel-goods that make us enjoy and want the sugary foods that trigger them.
So we like sweet stuff. But some people — and I’ve shared before that I was definitely one of them — go beyond liking sweet foods into a compulsion to eat them.
Sugar Addiction Defined
Addiction criteria apply very well to sugar addiction. Let’s look at the section on Substance Abuse Disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5).
DSM-5 criteria for addiction are clustered in 4 groups, but are essentially the same as DSM-IV criteria. I’ve simply listed the criteria below. The examples given are just a few of many.
Some criteria may seem to apply only to illegal drugs, such as spending a great deal of time obtaining them. Sugar is available virtually everywhere, in unlimited quantities, and inexpensively, but stay with me on this.
Criteria for Substance Abuse Disorder
1. Taking more of the substance or for longer than intended
Lack of control over what or how much one is eating characterizes binge-eating disorder. Chocoholics describe an inability to resist, moderate, or stop eating chocolate. Clients keep eating cake, one slice after another, despite planning to stop after one piece.
2. Unsuccessful efforts to stop or limit use
Dieting and weight cycling are found in binge eating and other eating disorders. Secret-eater chocoholics try unsuccessfully to reduce intake of chocolate, then relapse and overeat it.
3. A great deal of time spent obtaining, using, or recovering from use
80% of chocoholics state that chocolate interferes with their lives in some way. Purging behaviors might take increasing time. Excessive exercise, one example, could interfere with important activities or occur despite injury.
4. Craving the substance
Craving, an intense desire for a substance, is a common response to withdrawal or abstinence. Cravings are stronger after high levels of intake but can occur in other conditions. Cravings identify the substance that will relieve them — what you crave will take away the craving. (That’s a poor way to deal with cravings, and I’ve covered the topic in previous posts.)
5. Failure to fulfill major obligations due to use
6. Continued used despite social problems caused or exacerbated by use
7. Giving up or reducing important activities because of substance use
These issues could show up as self-isolation; eating alone due to embarrassment over the eating; refusing to wear bright colors, form-fitting outfits or swimsuits; refusing to attend social events, eat in public, be nude in front of others, make love with lights on, look in the mirror, go to a gym with mirrors, or even go to a gym.
8. Recurrent use in hazardous situations
A client almost had a car accident because she ran into a store to buy candy and “couldn’t get the chocolate into (her) mouth fast enough.” Hypoglycemia can cause hazards.
9. Continued use despite physical or psychological problems that are caused or exacerbated by substance use
Problems may include obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and other illnesses. Chocoholics eat chocolate despite migraines or feeling sick.
10. Tolerance to effects of the substance (needing more to get the same effect)
11. Withdrawal symptoms when not using or when using less
These last two criteria are quite complex and merit their own article. The DSM-IV and other research say both may be linked with addiction, but addiction can occur without them. So let’s leave it here for now.
To that guy who loves to tell me that drug info doesn’t apply to food: Sugar isn’t food; it’s a drug.
Several journal articles, often by the same small group of researchers, “prove” sugar does nothing bad. In most cases, the sugar industry paid for the research. Don’t get me started.
