By Natalia Mehlman Petrzela By Natalia Mehlman Petrzela June 28 at 6:00 AM

It was thefat joke heard round the world. Pope Francis, speaking with Donald and Melania Trump during their recent visit, asked the first lady whether shed been feeding her husband potica, a rich Slovenian dessert.

His Holiness wasnt the only one eyeballing the presidents diet. Recently, the public learned that the White House kitchen staff knows to deliver their boss extra Thousand Island dressing and a double serving of ice cream while his guests get vinaigrette and a single scoop of vanilla, triggering sniggers about presidential gluttony.

And since Trump so shamelessly slings stingingly personal insults tied to fitness and body type from Miss Piggy to fat pig to Little Marco why resist the urge to poke his proverbial soft underbelly?

We should resist, because Trumps attitudes toward healthy eating and exercise arent a joke they have serious consequences for the nations health. First, they mark a dramatic pivot from his presidential predecessors on both sides of the aisle. Previous presidents saw projecting a personal embrace of healthy living as politically attractive, while Trump perceives just the opposite.

And second, in a nation already defined by highly unequal access to healthy food and exercise, Trumps own inclinations threaten to make wellness an even lower public and private priority. Today, if your work schedule, child care and next meal are unpredictable, wellness is at best aspirational and at worst a cruel reminder of yet another dividing line between haves and have-nots. Trumps attitudes and actions will only exacerbate this inequality even as they thrill his fans.

American presidents have celebrated wellness as a personal and political virtue for so long it verges on clich. Teddy Roosevelt famously advocated an outdoorsy strenuous life, which showcased his own swagger and resonated in a moment when urbanization and the expansion of white-collar work provoked anxiety that white men were becoming sedentary sissies.

Sixty years later, President-elect John F. Kennedy decried in Sports Illustrated that affluence had created a physically and morally Soft American unfit for Cold War citizenship. This essay painted JFK as a champion of vigor (even as he privately suffered from serious ailments) and boosted support for federally funded physical education and recreation programs.

Democrats Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were often photographed jogging, while a 1983 Parade spread featured Republican Ronald Reagan exercising on Nautilus machines and chopping wood. Fellow Republican George W. Bush installed a treadmill on Air Force One, required staffers to exerciseand told Runners World in 2002 that at long last, statistic after statistic is beginning to sink into the consciousness of the American people that exercise is one of the keys to a healthy lifestyle.

President Trump, however, missed that memo. The presidents conspicuous contempt for self-care unlike Obamas occasional furtive cigarette benefits him politically in part because it taps into the anti-Obama hatred that propelled him to power. The Obamas took the presidential embrace of healthy living as a vehicle to improve society and self to new levels.

Mens Health dubbed Obama the fittest president ever and stealth video of his workout in a Warsaw hotel gym went viral. If Michelle Obama first drew notice for her sculpted biceps, her legacy became Lets Move and lunchroom reform. So powerful is this association that a Tennessee school cafeteria worker recently told me that a Trump supporter crowed that serving her child chocolate milk and tater tots at school was a personal F-U to Michelle Obama.

Here are three ways President-elect Donald Trump could undo former first lady Michelle Obama's healthy food and exercise efforts. (Gillian Brockell,Daron Taylor,Caitlin Dewey/The Washington Post)

Not only does Trump benefit from being the anti-Obama, but he also gives voice to a sense among his supporters that healthy eating and exercise have become increasingly elitist. Back in 2007, Obama caught blowback at an Iowa campaign stop for making casual reference to buying arugula at Whole Foods. Soon after, white working class reality TV star Mama June proudly told In Touch that despite her wealth, she served her family sketti enriched spaghetti doused in butter and ketchup rather than snobbishly preparing quinoa.

Trumps self-fashioning as champion of the common man capitalizes on the contemporary association between wellness and unsavory cosmopolitan pretension. Yet his love of rich foods and leisure paradoxically trades on century-old tropes that also cast him as a kind of Everymans Billionaire. Until about 1920, the wealthy conspicuously consumed caloric foods and avoided exertion because few felt they could afford to do so.

Dominant scientific theory at the time argued that humans were born with a finite energy supply and that the better classes should conserve theirs for loftier ends than physical labor. When industrialization and the white-collar sector made food abundant and sedentary work more accessible however, resisting these temptations through diet and exercise became a display of upper-class restraint as it remains today.

Trump, whose appeal to many stems from nostalgia, conjures an outdated but aspirational ideal of what wealth might feel, or taste, like. Its why dropping $36 on an haute burger just after overwhelmingly capturing the working class white vote didnt tarnish Trumps legitimacy. Its why the cheap version of rich marketed in every truffle-oil-soaked steak slung at his eponymous Grille still sells. Same goes for his peculiar but precedented explanation that he prefers relaxing at his various luxury properties to exercise that would deplete his non-rechargeable battery. In the throwback image of American abundance that Trump hawks, his supporters envision themselves as deserving fat cats consuming cake rather than kale.

And yet. While expending energy on exercise and dietary restraint may be undesirable for Trumps everyman, its a requirement for the women in his orbit. Of the little we know about Melania Trump, her penchant for Pilates is widely reported and a former roommate remembered her consuming only vegetables and diligently wearing ankle weights around the house. First daughter Ivanka Trumps diet and exercise routines have long been the stuff of lifestyle pubs, and she recently craved a sweat badly enough to cause controversy by enrolling at a D.C. studio under an alias.

In 1996, Trump himself set up a media scrum in a gym to film a tearful Alicia Machado exercising after she gained what he determined was an unacceptable amount of weight for Miss Universe. A viral meme in the wake of the January Womens March announced, In one day, Trump got more fat women out walking than Michelle Obama did in 8 years.

Clearly, Trumps world is a sexist one in which wellness is a womens issue. Weight control is appropriately top priority for the half of the population whose worth corresponds to their waistlines.

Unlike exercise and diet, sports especially football have long earned the approval of conservatives, including Trump, for building masculinity and competitiveness. The presidents apparently contradictory celebration of sport and scorn for healthy living actually corresponds to a longstanding cultural divide between the two. In the 1950s and 60s, straight American males were assumed to be so uninterested in diet and exercise that womens magazines counseled wives to trim the fat from their husbands roasts out of eyesight in order to safeguard the health of their hearts and egos.

By 1979, historian Christopher Lasch bemoaned the degradation of sport due to the new sports for the noncompetitive taking place in gyms and studios, which promoted bland amateurism in the name of inclusiveness and health promotion. (Some might consider this a forerunner to conservative complaints about participation trophies.) Thus, in the Trump playbook, sports are commendable for building manly character, while expanding opportunities to exercise and eat mindfully for health or beauty is feminine and inferior.

Making America Great Again will affect our collective wellbeing in subtle ways beyond the AHCA, cuts to Planned Parenthood and the deregulation of school nutrition that Trump embraces. Contemporary wellness culture is flawed, but has dramatically improved Americans lives and saved taxpayers millions. Diverse policies and programs ranging from Title IX, to yoga for the incarcerated, to corporate wellness initiatives, to body-positive activism have helped make the connection between healthy living and human flourishing widely accepted. Trump threatens to destroy those gains.

We owe our president the privacy to eat and exercise as he wishes, free from the fat-shaming cruelty for which his critics rightly fault him. But when he brandishes his unhealthy lifestyle to romanticize an era in which junk science upheld twisted ideas about gender, class and health, we owe it to each other to resist the deepening wellness divide, body, heart and mind.

See more here:
Why Donald Trump's diet is bad for America's health - Washington Post

By Michael W. Fox By Michael W. Fox June 27

Dear Dr. Fox:

I have a 13-year-old female Chorkiepoo (a Chihuahua-Yorkie-poodle mix). She is spayed and has a heart murmur. She takes furosemide, theophylline and enalapril daily. She mostly eats baked chicken thighs, and sometimes canned Purina Beyond dog food.

My dog likes to eat dirt. I have to be careful with commercial potting soil, because she will eat that, too. I asked the veterinary technician if she had ever heard of this, but she hadnt and had no idea why my dog would do this. I heard that people with a condition called pica eat things such as laundry starch because of a vitamin deficiency.

Any ideas as to what causes this? Is there anything I should do about it?

P.R., Ste. Genevieve, Mo.

DF: I am surprised that the vet tech with whom you spoke seemed clueless about this common condition in animals dogs in particular.

Geophagia (eating dirt) is a normal behavior. Animals, including humans, will develop this form of pica when they are anemic or have a digestive problem or other internal issue that might be relieved by consuming dirt. Some animals will carefully select the kind of dirt, possibly to get an infusion of soil bacteria that can help with digestion, or of various minerals that might correct a deficiency or imbalance.

I doubt your dog is being properly nourished, so I would give her digestive enzymes, which a teaspoon of shredded unsweetened pineapple in her food would provide. Also, try a couple of good-quality probiotic capsules; a tablespoon of live, plain organic yogurt or kefir; and a crushed pediatric multivitamin and multimineral tablet. I would also urge you put your dog on my home-prepared diet, as posted on my website, drfoxvet.net, reducing the grain amount by 50 percent.

Most important with the kind of dog you have is good dental care. Chronic oral disease can lead to a variety of health complications if its not addressed.

Dear Dr. Fox:

I have visited your website, and with your academic background, you are surely qualified to speak about environmental and conservation issues. But is this right for your Animal Doctor column, which I thought was an advice column for pet owners?

R.E., Silver Spring

DF: From my perspective, how we treat the natural environment ultimately affects the health and well-being of companion animals, as well as our species.

Considering environmental issues and conservation of healthy ecosystems and their restoration and protection long ignored by organized medicine are now essential aspects of the One Health movement, which is now being embraced by health professionals and long advocated by the veterinary profession.

Dear Dr. Fox:

Three years ago, I adopted Sadie from an animal rescue organization. They told me she had just turned 1, but based on her weight gain, I would guess she was closer to 6 months when I adopted her.

She weighs about 30 pounds now. I specifically looked for a smaller dog because my previous dog weighed almost 60 pounds, and I couldnt lift him in his last days with me.

I found out after I agreed to adopt her in early October that Sadie had spent the summer at a no-kill shelter. After I brought her home, she was shy and afraid of most things in the first few days.

As soon as she realized she was staying with me forever, Sadie found her voice. Now she barks whenever my neighbors dogs are outside. More troubling is her behavior when she gets outside and her doggy pals or my neighbor are outside, too. Sadie gets in a zone and runs circles around my yard. She has worn out a path along about 20 feet of the fence line, another 10 feet along my bromeliad patch, and about 10 feet in front of my carambola tree.

When I try to call her to stop running, she ignores me and continues to run. I tried to prevent her from this obsessive behavior by putting down lava rocks and some pavers along the fence, but she continues to run in circles.

I think she gets enough exercise. We walk every morning for about 1.5 miles, and I play ball with her at least once a day. How can I break her of this obsessive habit of running in circles?

J.S., Lake Worth, Fla.

DF: This kind of obsessive-compulsive behavior can result from a dog being confined and frustrated or anxious for an extended period. It has elements of an addictive behavior, because running produces feel-good neurochemicals such as brain cannabinoids.

What your dog may want and enjoy is some regular, daily off-leash playtime in a safe area with other dogs. Check for doggy play groups in your area or ask about a friendly neighbors dog coming over.

Possible pharmacological treatment with fluoexetine might help, or you can try St. Johns wort, which a veterinarian familiar with psychoactive herbs might prefer to prescribe. A calming herbal supplement called @Ease elevates brain serotonin and is available from petzlife.com.

Keep me posted on your dogs progress.

Dear Dr. Fox:

I have just returned from the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in the southwest corner of Uganda, where many of the worlds remaining mountain gorillas live.

Having heard that germs can jump from humans to gorillas, often with devastating consequences, our small group all brought surgical masks to wear not because we didnt think the guides would supply masks, but more for our personal hygiene, in case theirs were being reused.

We were surprised to find that not only were we the only people in the group wearing masks, but the guides, guards and other tourists had no idea of the risk. We were allowed to get within touching distance of the animals.

Have I been misinformed? Is there no threat from germs to these incredible creatures?

F.C., Golden Valley, Minn.

DF: I greatly appreciate your vigilance and sensibilities. This is a problem wherever tourists come into close contact with wildlife that could be infected by potentially lethal strains of illness influenza virus, in particular be they the penguins of Antarctica or the gorillas of East Africa.

The genetic relatedness of mountain gorillas and humans has led to concerns about interspecies transmission of infectious agents. Human-to-gorilla transmission may explain human metapneumovirus in two wild mountain gorillas that died during a respiratory disease outbreak in Rwanda in 2009. Surveillance is needed to ensure survival of these critically endangered animals, of whom fewer than 900 exist in the wild.

It is enlightened self-interest for the tourism industry to wake up to this serious issue and take immediate steps to provide footwear coverings, face masks and gloves for their wildlife-visiting clients. Local guides may think that the gorillas and other wildlife are not at risk because they often enter and raid villages for food, and make indirect contact with indigenous peoples hunting and tending their livestock in their dwindling habitats. All such tourism companies should dedicate a significant percentage of their profits to conservation and support of organizations such as Conservation Through Public Health, founded by veterinarian Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka (ctph.org) and gorillaconservationcoffee.org. All who are concerned with gorilla protection and conservation can donate to them with the endorsed assurance of the International Primate Protection League.

An essential aspect of wildlife conservation is to limit contact between wild species and people, indigenous and tourist, and domestic animals dogs, cats, livestock and poultry to prevent the transmission of a number of communicable diseases.

The ultimate protection of gorillas and other endangered species and their habitats calls for a united environmental nations armed paramilitary police force to prevent poaching and all forms of human encroachment, coupled with more effective family planning, since our species has become an infestation on planet Earth. (See Population Connection, popconnect.org, for information.)

Michael W. Fox, author of a newsletter and books on animal care, welfare and rights, is a veterinarian with doctoral degrees in medicine and animal behavior. Send letters to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, Mo. 64106.

2017 United Feature Syndicate

Read more from the original source:
Dirt-eating often indicates a diet deficiency - Washington Post

If you're diabetic, controlling your disease through a combination of diet and exercise is of the utmost importance.

Jeremy Baker, KENS 6:33 PM. CDT June 28, 2017

Selection of food that is good for the heart (Photo: a_namenko)

If you're diabetic, controlling your disease through a combination of diet and exercise is of the utmost importance.

Keeping your blood sugar within healthy levels is imperative to keeping you healthy and having a long life.

"Diet definitely does help control blood sugars, because what we eat, depending on what they are, what elements it has, affects your sugars," Jonathan Diaz, a registered dietician and patient health educator with University Health System said.

Diaz says everyone needs fiber in their diet, but for diabetics, he says it has to be the right kind.

"Good examples of fiber...whole wheat bread is the common one. You also have beans, lentils. For the fruit category, it's going to be your pears and apples." Diaz said.

Diaz recommends eight to ten grams of fiber per meal, the equivalent of two fist-sized pears.

"A pear has five. That's not including your vegetables."

What food should be avoided? Processed foods. Especially fast food. "They tend to put a lot of fat, salt, sugar, because that is what brings people back," Diaz said.

Another no-no are sodas.

Diaz said, "For people with diabetes diet soda is a baby step from regular soda, because diet does not affect sugars at all. There's nothing in there, but the goal is eventually to get to water."

The reason diet soda is bad is because it's very acidic. It has nothing to do with sugar.

"Your body doesn't like it so to make your body neutral again it's going to withdraw calcium from your bones, so it puts people at risk for osteoporosis," Diaz said.

Lastly, Diaz told us that diabetics must avoid alcohol.

"The liver prioritizes to get rid of toxins, so it sees alcohol and the liver stops making sugar, so a person with diabetes is at risk of having low blood sugar with alcohol," Diaz added.

It's a delicate balance that those with diabetes or those at risk need to take very seriously.

For more men's health information call 210-358-3045. You can also find the rest of our Real Men Wear Gowns stories, just go to wearthegown.com.

2017 KENS-TV

Read the rest here:
Real Men Wear Gowns: Managing diabetes through diet - KENS 5 TV

As more and more individuals in developed countries grapple with being overweight or obese, new so-called miracle diets pop up almost daily. Clearly, consumers have begun to examine what makes our waistlines shrink or expand, but have we taken pause to consider how specific foods play into our feelings? Most people who finally lose the weight remark how much better they feel and how much more energy they have. However, our physical appearance is only the tip of the psychological iceberg; science shows that what we eat and how we feel are connected far beyond our size.

Interestingly, our food preferences seem to be dictated from a young age, based initially in biological needs. Most newborns show a preference for sweet tastes, versus sour or bitter tastes, as measured by facial expressions. This is actually the result of a biological adaptationin which sweetness indicates the presence of valuable calories, whereas bitterness or sourness may signal the presence of toxins. So while we may not always be able to resist a sweet tooth, and while we may be able to ignore the physical effects of poor nutrition for decades, like cancer or heart disease, knowing how what we eat affects how we feel gives us more immediate agency over what goes into our bodies.

Research shows that lower intakes of nutrient-dense foods and higher intakes of unhealthy foods are each independently associated with smaller left hippocampal volume (near the center of the brain), which appears to be related to the development of major depression. In other words, feeling better emotionally isnt just about cutting out certain foods; its equally about adding in more of the good.

There is strong evidence that a healthy diet can improve mental health issues, including anxiety and depression. In another study, Increased fruit and vegetable consumption was predictive of increased happiness, life satisfaction and well-being. The study showed that, after increasing intake of fruits (two servings a day) and vegetables (five servings a day) within 24 months, participants exhibited psychological gains equivalent to moving from unemployment to employment. If youve ever experienced the transition from jobless to happily employed, you know the difference in happiness, security and general peace of mind that comes with that transition is night and day.

So before resorting to prescription pills for mood disorders, reducing sources of dietary inflammation might be worth trying. Many would be surprised to learn that evidence shows that same inflammation plays a role in psychiatric disorders, including bipolar disorder, mania, schizophrenia, autism and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Those seeking to reduce sources of dietary inflammation would be advised to reduce or eliminate personal food allergies (more on this below), intake of refined sugar, artificial sweeteners and additives (like dyes), processed carbohydrates, trans fats (like hydrogenated oils, which have been chemically altered to extend shelf life; enough said), excess sodium, alcohol (a known depressant) and caffeine. While that list may seem daunting initially, spending a few seconds reading nutrition labels may, in fact, give you hours of feeling better emotionally and mentally.

As far as adding in healthy options to the diet, its interesting to note that our mood is also negatively impacted when it is missing key vitamins and antioxidants. Bipolar depression, for example, is characterized by lowered antioxidant defenses, including: lower levels of zinc, coenzyme Q10, vitamin E and glutathione [an antioxidant]. Other nutritional deficiencies common amongst those battling mood disorders often include omega-3 fatty acids, folate, vitamin D, vitamin B, magnesium, iron, amino acids, iodine and selenium.

While the list of possible deficiencies can seem overwhelming, advances in science have made tailored deficiency testing much more accessible. By simply doing a blood or hair sample test, for example, you can determine what your body needs more of. The answers are often surprising but can help you pinpoint which supplements could boost your body to start feeling better, emotionally and mentally. Both skin prick tests and blood tests are not 100 percent effective, as far as determining personal food intolerances or allergies. As such, if you do want to take the time to establish what your personal trigger foods may be, doing an elimination diet, under the guidance of a doctor, can help pinpoint trouble foods.

The vicious cycle of eating too much of the wrong things, then feeling guilty, then binging to remove the guilt is all too familiar to many Westerners. We may gravitate toward comfort foods because of their short-term production of dopamine within the brain (hello, cookies!), but considering the long-term energy benefits derived from healthier options may help us make better choices. Swapping out your snacks for more mood-friendly options, paired with regular exercise, may be just what you need to get out of that unexplained funk. So heres to your health, as well as your happiness!

Chelsea Vincent has been teaching fitness for almost ten years. Prior to teaching, she had 15 years of formal dance training. Chelsea has a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and is a certified power yoga instructor, spinning instructor, barre instructor and weightlifting Instructor, as well as an ACE-certified personal trainer and wellness specialist.

Follow this link:
Changing Your Diet Can Have the Same Emotional Impact as Getting a New Job - Observer

Garlic is heavily associated with Italian food, grows all over the world and has a very strong and distinct smell. It makes things taste amazing, while making your breath afterward questionable at best. Cest la vie, that is what breath mints are for.

Garlic is a plant in the onion family. It grows in bulb form and then the bulbs can be separated into cloves. Cloves can be chopped, minced, or crushed to be used in your recipes. Garlic is fantastic, but today I want to tell you about the garlic scape. The scape is the flowering tendril that grows out of the ground above the bulb and these are also completely edible. Theyre green, slim and very pretty because they bend and loop sort of like a pigs tail. Theyre a more delicate garlic flavor than the bulb, without the hot bite. Even with all of these attributes, theyre not well-known, so you can buy some, add them to your pasta dish and astound your friends with your worldliness.

Other than adding depth and delicious taste to your pizza, garlic is also something you should seek out for health purposes. People have actually been using garlic for its health benefits for millennia. Garlic is so good for you that some people now take it in supplement form. Im a firm believer that if you can get the same benefits from adding something tasty to your diet, then that is the way to go, and garlic is pretty darn tasty. Anyway, you can acquire the same benefits from both the bulb and the scape part of the plant. Garlic is low in calories while also being highly nutritious. It contains manganese, vitamin B6, vitamin C, selenium and fiber, as well as decent amounts of iron, potassium, copper and calcium. Many benefits are also derived from the chemical compound called allicin, which is an antioxidant, antibacterial and antiviral. There have been many studies linking garlic and allicin to the reduction of high blood pressure, the lowering of bad cholesterol, support of the immune system and increased bone strength.

So if youve been won over and want to try and add more garlicky goodness to your diet, try the following recipe, adapted from Healthy Gourmet. Impress your friends, improve your health and keep the Altoids handy.

Summer e-scape skinny dip

Ingredients:

3 cups green peas, fresh or thawed

1 tbsp. yellow mustard

2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 cup garlic scapes, chopped

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/2 cup water

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a food processor. Process until smooth. Serve with fresh veggies.

Makes three cups.

Miranda Beverly-Gill is the front-end manager and marketing coordinator at Maple City Market in downtown Goshen.

Go here to see the original:
Add more garlicky goodness to your diet - Greensburg Daily News