Even though I don’t have time to maintain my blog, I am
reluctant to shut it down. So today I am writing for two reasons. The first is to
remind readers about the danger of eating when you aren’t hungry and the
second is to share a couple of health news sources. These news sources will be
of particular interest to those who have enjoyed my blog topics, and I will
share the links at the end. The sources have free email subscriptions and I
believe they are two of the best (i.e., credible, relevant, current) out there.
As I thought about writing (my posts often percolate in my
head a few days), I remembered that I started my blog as a newsletter back in
2004 (approximately) when I was working at a hospital and taking classes to
earn my Master’s in Public Health. Many readers followed my journey from that
point (i.e., to Florida as a Tobacco Treatment Specialist, to UNCG for more graduate studies in Public Health, to Beasley School of Law to complete a post doc in Public Health Law Research) to now – 13 years later.
Today, I am an Assistant Professor at Temple University in
the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. My teaching responsibilities
include a course about substance use disorders and addiction (that should make
sense if you’ve read the blog over the years) and a course on nutrition as it
relates to the health of populations (i.e., I am still not a registered dietician
and do not give individual diet advice). I teach additional courses and conduct
research/program evaluations, but this blog has foremost been about behaviors
that impact our health and the laws that make those behaviors harder or easier
to accomplish (e.g., that darn national menu labeling law that can’t seem to be
implemented, soda taxes, new food labels).
Dietary intake and health status
(including obesity) has probably been of most interest to my readers, and to
me. So, I want to talk about a specific area of risk regarding dietary
intake. Eating for non-hunger reasons. It is often when we eat for the ‘wrong’
reasons that we gain weight. I think what sets me apart from a lot of people is
that I don’t do that. I primarily eat to fuel my body when I am hungry. Or
better put: I do not eat to socialize. I do not eat because I am bored. I do not
eat because I am sad. I do not eat because I am high (haha, just kidding – bc I don’t
get high). I do not eat just because everybody else is eating or to be polite.
To be clear, I LIKE food, and enjoy meals and snacks and alcoholic beverages,
but I don’t respond to social (including work meetings) or familial pressure to
eat for the sake of fitting in.
Now that I think about it, I did blog about this many years
ago – about how to eat in a social context without gaining weight. I suggested
that when you are going to an event (family traditions included) where it is
expected that you ‘eat to be social,’ or you know your favorite foods will be
available, you plan it so that the food you eat at the event is part of your daily
intake (and if its occasional, maybe it’s a little more than your daily intake).
But eating when you are sad, bored, or unexpectedly confronted with someone’s ‘oh
I had to get these out of my house, please have some’ cookies is a sure path to
over consumption/excess calories. This over consumption is especially likely because the food
associated with those ‘eating but not for hunger’ reasons are usually high in
sugar, saturated fat, salt and calories. So, just think about that – and decide
how you want to handle it.
That’s all I have for you on diet and health today. Most
importantly are the links I promised you at the start of this post. Here they
are:
ConscienHealth
blog (the subscribe option is on
the top right of the page)
