And a big apology to all of my followers for taking such a long break from putting up posts. I took some time away from writing to reboot but I’m back on board and ready to start up again! A lot has happened during the last few months for me. I returned to Kentucky for the remainder of the fall season, making a short trip to New River Gorge in West Virginia. I had probably the best time of all of my Red River experience during my last month there. While temperatures got frigid and wet bouts were not uncommon, the need to keep warm and motivated had a way of bringing all of the people who were living on the campground together. In the last months there I made some of the best and most meaningful friendships with others who were crazy enough to endure climbing on literally freezing days and (never) sleeping in tents when temperatures dropped to -10 Celsius at nights. The harsh reality of outdoor life in November has done a number on my sense of willpower, perseverance and pure stubbornness to stick it out. I left Kentucky to return to Canada in December to a new born baby niece (who is absolutely adorable!), a spark to train and get stronger and a desire to get my career in nutrition going.
I have been living in Ontario for two months now and I am finally back to the swing of city life. The first few weeks were a serious adjustment period for me. While I found myself getting stressed about public transit, upset about the materialism and sometimes downright unkindness of civilization, and the cost of living in the city, I have to admit… a bed, warm room, walls and bathroom is AMAZING after 7 months of sleeping on the ground in a tent. Long hot showers, a kitchen to cook, a fridge instead of a small cooler, kettles, stoves, blenders… I could go on and on… I had no idea how much I missed them until I came home. I remember thinking, while I was in Kentucky, that I couldn’t remember the last time I was actually indoors. I look back on that fondly and hope to have the opportunity to get back outside and desperately miss all of the friends that felt like family during my stay down south.
Training over the last few months indoors has done wonders on my climbing. I saw serious improvements in all aspects of my climbing performance within just a week of training. I also was lucky enough to find myself practicing yoga every day at an amazing studio right downtown and found myself loving yoga almost as much as rock climbing! It has done a lot for not only my climbing, but in keeping my shoulders and rotator cuffs healthy. I have been volunteering my piano skills at a nursing home and am now trying to get going with doing professional gigs again now that I’m back in the city (hopefully I’ll have a web page with music samples up in the next short while). I’ve also found myself spending large amounts of time at a cute little vegetarian café, Café Pyrus, which I highly recommend to anyone visiting Kitchener, Ontario. Lastly, I finally managed to get a job that will hopefully be a great starting point for me in the field of nutrition.
With all of that said, I have some sad news for both my climbing and yoga front. Last week I took a nasty fall, landing between two mats in the climbing gym. While I was apparently lucky to not have broken my neck, I did however break my tibia as well as tear a slew of ligament in my ankle. I was promptly treated in a hospital and had surgery to realign my bone and repair the torn ligaments. I may be a wee bit bitter that I spent so much time climbing full time outdoors injury free to come indoors and find myself with one of my most serious injuries to date. I guess at least it wasn’t my arm, shoulder or back so I still have a chance that I’ll be able to train. Another positive is that I now have quite a bit of time that is now freed up for writing :). I am currently in my first cast of a few, waiting until a follow up appointment next week to check in on my recovery and to switch to a different cast. I have begun doing pull ups again and am very hopeful that I will be able to resume training (arms only) following my appointment. Wish me luck! A big shout out to the Grand River Rocks climbing gym, who’s staff did an outstanding job helping me and getting me to the hospital, as well as my amazing boyfriend, who has been taking care of me since the accident.
Here’s a picture of me doing some cold weather climbing!
My home during my stay down south!
Here’s a picture of a great lookout in the Red
Here’s a shot of my leg before my surgury… I’ll post more pictures of my (hopefully) road to recovery
While American culture puts skinniness, youthfulness and beauty on a pedestal, the nation is the fattest in the world, with about 68% of the population classified as overweight (about a BMI of 25kg/m2). On the flip side to the chronic diseases and obesity that plague richer countries, poorer ones go hungry and are stricken with malnourishment. This century we are faced with, in the first time in human history, an equal number of overweight people as undernourished. When food production is so high that the bulk of what is brought to stores in western countries ends up in the garbage, why are so many of the world’s citizens going hungry, leaving the rich to become obese? Why can’t this food reach poorer countries? As it stands, our current agricultural practises are highly unsustainable and the idea that we need to make more food to feed more mouths would be a solution that would not only be ineffective, but also further destroy the fragile ecosystems that we have left. One of our biggest challenges for this century is to sustainably feed the billions of people on earth while reducing our environmental impact. While there are clearly different problems from developed to undeveloped countries, by defining what those problems are and learning from them I believe that we can pave a path for a healthier and more sustainable future. In this article I will begin to explore problems of developed countries with a focus on obesity. In future articles I will delve more into chronic disease in developed countries, sustainability, the power of compassion and positive psychology and why we are currently unable to feed everyone. Am I missing anything that you think is important? Please share your opinions below!
Obesity, a disease reaching pandemic proportions in western cultures, seems to be one of the primary problems of modern times in developed countries. The notion of willpower being the root of the problem has led to a culture of discrimination against fatness that reinforces the idea that obesity is simply a problem of eating too much and moving too little. These ideas are even common among physicians which may contribute to the fact that less than half of overweight participants in a recent national survey of Canadians had asked their physicians about weight loss. A culture that demeans overweight people, making them feel embarrassed to seek help, is certainly not a solution. Not only are we intensifying the issue of obesity, eating disorders are on the rise for even males nowadays. It’s quickly becoming clearer that obesity is contributed by complex interactions of our environment, neurohormonal system and transgenerational affects that should be considered when making both judgements and addressing an unhealthy weight. Properly addressing obesity would be a good start on the path to a healthier and more sustainable future.
Environmental influences are vast and far between. These influences include our consumer driven culture that uses commercialism and materialism, ideas at the forefront of our society, to target the most receptive populations (children are currently the hot target for big companies). Commercialism is so entrenched in the shaping of developed countries that, without it, we would have quite the hard time. American success has largely depended on convincing American citizens to buy. There’s always something new and trendy, including food, to advertise to the public that their happiness depends on its purchase. They also include the easy accessibility of highly palatable (more palatable through higher calorie, sugar, salt and fat contents), bringing rise to our westernized diets (High in unhealthy fats, sugar and calories and low in fruits and vegetables). Unlike earlier times, we are now also more stationary and find ourselves spending most our time sitting (in cars transporting ourselves, at work in a desk and at home in front of the TV). Our societal advances (e.g. agricultural, industrial, commercial and technologic) are making it harder and harder for us to be healthy and active individuals. The rise in lights (from light bulbs to digital screens) is another factor for obesity. For, example, the disruption of circadian (daily) rhythm genes (regulated by light) in our brains (hypothalamus) has been demonstrated to increase risks for obesity and chronic diseases as well as reduce our ability to feel satisfied after a meal and maintain blood sugar. For example, mice with mutations in these circadian rhythm genes became obese compared to the wild-type control mice, a speed which was intensified while eating high-fat diets similar to our western diet. Mice housed in 20h light-dark cycles (10:10) had significant weight gain, metabolic dysfunction (e.g. leptin and insulin levels) and a worsened blood sugar towards diabetes.
Like our environmental influences, neurohormonal and transgenerational influences are complex and variable. Neurohormonal systems in animals are important to regulate food intake and calorie expenditure. They include sugar and insulin (which rises in proportion to sugar to lower blood glucose, a molecule that’s concentrations must be tightly regulated in order to maintain physiologic functions) receptors, ghrelin (“the hunger hormone” that will increase both body fat and food intake) and leptin (“the satiety hormone” that increases in proportion with body fat and food intake). Leptin and insulin allows lean individuals to maintain their weight by resisting highly palatable foods after they have eaten sufficient amounts. While leptin and insulin levels are typically higher in obese individuals, leptin and insulin resistance is common via chronically elevated body fat and unhealthy fat and sugar intake, making their actions less effective. Here is an example of the devastating effects of our westernized diet. Examples of transgenerational effects can be demonstrated in a number of animal studies. In rodents, males with prenatal dietary restrictions (fewer calories consumed by the mother) reproduce offspring with lower birth weights and sugar tolerance and increased risks of developing obesity and chronic disease. Similar results can be seen with a mother who consumes a high fat diet (from preconception to weaning) on both her child and grandchild. Aside from these biochemical changes during reproduction, individuals who have been raised in an unhealthy household, without proper access to fruits and vegetables, without family support to exercise and without nutritional and health related education, are more likely to develop obesity.
Obesity and chronic diseases are intensified by the current cost of living. About half of Canadians say that they do not eat fresh and healthy foods because they’re too expensive. On average, healthier diets are approximately $1.50/day more expensive then unhealthy, westernized diets. Costs for a full household are simply devastating for the majority of Americans in today’s struggling economy (an issue amplified in America by the high cost of medical interventions). There are also startling variation for the cost and availability of basic healthy food from not just state (or province) to state but also city to city. In Kitchener, Ontario for example, the town that I am currently residing, peanut butter can be found for $4. Just down the road in St. Catharines you’ll find that same products price to be much steeper, at $7, almost double the price. 6 apples in Edmonton can be purchased for approximately $1.71 and in Calgary for $5.02. Brown rice was $2.19 in Toronto, $7.76 in Winnipeg and $11.99 in Rankin Inlet. These price variations have contributed to the resulting half of Canadian adults and about 70% of children who don’t consume minimum daily fruit and vegetable recommendations (even higher in remote communities such as our First Nation and Inuit people). When faced with the choice of buying a lot of something cheap but unhealthy that can fill your stomach, or buying less of a healthier option that is more expensive, won’t last as long and won’t have the same caloric value, many of us would opt for the first option. In Ontario, 92% of the average single person’s income goes to rent, leaving only 8% to cover food and other expenses. Unfortunately, the cost of eating a diet set out by the Canadian Food Guide would use about 32% of the average Canadian’s income. A price reduction should be an important goal of health and policy efforts since the consequence of not properly addressing this problem is overall higher health-care costs and low-income individuals who are sicker and less able to be productive in our society.
As it stands, it’s clear that obesity is a problem that is not fair to be addressed with the discrimination and blame obese individuals commonly are faced with. It is a complex issue that is not a simple matter of eating too much and exercising too little. For me the first steps for a brighter future include compassion, understanding and an end to the victim blaming that is common in our culture. We need to figure out sustainable ways to make healthy foods more accessible to everyone and we need to provide enough education and outreach so that people are able to make informed decisions about the foods that they eat. Properly addressing obesity can not only lead to a healthier population, but also one that has a more ecologically-friendly lifestyle. By reducing the purchase, waste and production of certain foods, maybe we could not only reduce the carbon footprint of feeding the developed world, but also spread our wealth to poorer countries. Thus concludes my thoughts on our obesity pandemic, now it’s your turn. Share your opinions below!
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