Fat Shaming

I focus on three things in my workshops: exercise, diet and play.  When I talk about the 'diet' piece I almost always have shown a series of slides from the CDC on the obesity crisis.  I'm always try to make the point that, in this Western world so full of sugar and food additives, some people just have extreme difficulty keeping their weight where they want it.  I've met lots of people who are working hard at exercise (some of them very hard) and are careful with what they eat (some of them very careful), and they still are classified as obese.

This article tackles the issue of 'fat shaming' - that, sad to say, even shows up in our Presidential politics.  It starts early, it affects women more than men, and people who are obese even 'fat shame' themselves. Hopefully the church community is a place to find forgiveness, and friendship and support.

How Children Learn Best.

In my workshops I talk about three critical things: exercise, diet and play.  I often mention Playworks.org in conjunction with the 'play' piece and want to share a recent article by Jill Vialet, Playworks CEO and founder.  Jill shares some research happening in Denmark on developing a 'pedagogy of play'. Certainly of interest to Early Childhood folks but I hope also to the rest of us, including those who work with adults.

Brain Breaks

For classroom, worship spaces, meeting rooms, "Dilbert' cubicles and more. One of the simplest and yet most under-used techniques for staying focused at school or work or in meetings is "Brain Breaks".

The concept goes back to Brain Gym, and probably further back then that.  If you google 'brain gym' you'll find supporters and detractors; detractors say the research doesn't support the claims, the supporters say their experience tells them it works. The current research on exercise and movement seems to support the claim that 'brain breaks' make a difference.

Places like Naperville Central High School use it consistently in almost all their classes.  I use it in all the places I have control over, when any length of sitting is involved.  The concept is two fold as I have come to understand it: 1) stand up to get the blood moving about every 20 minutes (certainly good for the brain when you've seen scans of what the brain looks like after just 20 minutes of sitting - it is a physical organ in need of nutrition); and 2) do some form of cross-lateral to stimulate the brain hemispheres' communication (think "Pat-your-head-and-rub-you-stomach"; a motor cortex located on each separate side of the brain controls movement on the other half of the body, so the cross-lateral activity forces the corpus callosum to fire between the hemispheres).

Most folks dabble with it and it always feels awkward. No one gets used to doing it and it always seems like an interruption.  The places that are successful with it have just made it part of the norm: this is what we do here. (some explanation early on helps, especially for older children and adults, but the leaders have to decide to keep using it as a matter of course.)

If you are going to use brain breaks regularly, you need a good supply of options.  It doesn't work well to repeat the same tired two or three options over and over again. Part of the genius of why it works is when the brain has to develop new paths for a new cross-lateral it has not done before.  There are good places to go for resources:

1. Dr David Katz has a free downloadable pdf for elementary age students.
2. He also has a version for adults. (and on vimeo)
3. GoNoodle has some great online resources.
4. Action Based Learning and Jean Blaydes Madigan are a good resource.
5. David Sladkey, a math teacher at Naperville Central High School, put together a book called Energizing Brain Breaks and it is available on Amazon (the used ones are expensive!) or Corwin Publishing (I think it is worth $20).

Here are my suggestions for using them:

1. Set a timer - I teach the concept and still blow past 20 minutes unless I remind myself. We don't feel the brain downturn after 20 minutes, but brain scans show us it is there. A good range is 20-30 minutes and gives some leeway on class/meeting/work flow.
2. Hydrate the brain often - that means WATER and not flavored and/or sweetened drinks.
3. Always at least stand in place. Encourage some simple large muscle movement (swinging the arms) to stimulate blood flow throughout the body.
4. Always do some kind of cross-lateral. Change them up with regularity to keep them fresh.
5. Never more than 2 minutes long. These are NOT 'bathroom breaks'!
6. When possible you can have the movement 'match' the lesson in some way but that is not necessary. Teachers/leaders often worry that these breaks "every 20 minutes" is going to interrupt some 'flow' they have in their classroom or lecture or meeting.  The truth is that attention span is measured in SECONDS these days.  Over the course of 20 minutes you've lost and (hopefully) regained their attention multiple times.  Re-energizing the brain every 20-30 minutes is to your advantage in helping them stay focused and alert.
7. Have fun with it.  Research indicates that little breaks like this (and even longer ones - we can talk about 'rest' and 'play' and 'sleep' in another blog post) help the brain get creative in solving problems.

I'd love to hear about your experience with "brain breaks" in the real world setting you are in.

Primary Food.

This post comes from a blog I watch regularly on my Twitter feed: Integrated Nutrition. The blog post is about "Primary Food".  It is a helpful look at keeping a whole person view of health.  As the post says, you can be eating all healthy foods and still not feel truly healthy if other key areas are out of whack.  Their key point is here (they are pretty weak on the source of Spiritual power but we know where that comes from):

The bottom line is: when you are nourished and happy in the ways that truly matter, food becomes secondary. 

Here are some of the things we consider to be Primary Foods:

• Regular physical movement
• Meaningful positive relationships
• Fulfilling work
• Some form of spiritual connection (whatever that means for you)
• Following your personal passions
• Non-dietary forms of self-care
• Playfulness, creativity, and fun

Some simple things to work on. May be good to start where you have strengths and are doing well and affirm your positives and then build off the strengths into the areas that are weaker.

Slow Down...

Check out the most recent (August 26/2016) TED Radio Hour podcast (a synthesis of some of the topics from a variety of TED Talks from around the world) about slowing down.  It talks about the boost to creativity that happens when we slow down. And also looks into the brain of extreme procrastinators to see what we can learn. And what about the gain from writing letters by hand?

Also - "Slow TV"  - how about watching the video from the front and sides of a four hour train ride; millions of Norwegians (and many others) are doing just that.

Bottom line is the gain we can experience in slowing down. We are designed to need rest, and when the brain gets good breaks, distractions and diversions our productivity and creativity go significantly up.

Prevention vs Treatment

I'll post a fair bit of information from this guy - Dr David Katz.  He is a medical professional focused on prevention. He is behind the NuVal food scoring system, the True Health Initiative which lifts up six simple core principles of healthy living, and Lifestyle Medicine which acknowledges the power of healthy living over disease.

He even has resources to get kids and even adults moving for better health and brain function.

Food Choices When Shopping.

So many choices - so many of them unhealthy.  The playing field is not quite fair: the small number of companies (five or six) responsible for all the processed food in our grocery stores (many thousands of different individual labels) are making lots of money and we have to remember that is their bottom line - profit. Nothing wrong with profit. We just have to remember that our health is not their main goal - despite what the advertisements say!

So how do you choose when you are in the store? Here are some tips:

1. Michael Pollan has some specific 'rules' you can follow and they are reduced to three main ones: Eat food (the less processed the better; look for the least number of ingredients, and terms you can understand and know what they are), not too much (portions are out of whack in restaurants - and perhaps you your plates at home) and mostly plants (he is not against meat but fruits and vegetables are the healthier choice overall).

2. Stay on the outside edge of the grocery store. That is where you can find the healthier options for the most part.

3. Use something like NuVal as a neutral help for which item (among the 20 feet of bread in the bread aisle for example) is healthier. (Neutral is important: These guys are unattached from the food industry so they can give ratings based on science and not on who pays them the most.) I'm a bit frustrated at the expense ($20 per month) but that is the challenge. The Big Food companies are spending plenty to get us to eat the unhealthy stuff; we'll have to pay something to get the best info on what are the healthiest options.

4. Use resources like Cancer Fighting Kitchen - when you eat healthy for cancer you are eating healthy for life. Rebecca Katz has books and workshops and more.

Understanding Habits...

Charles Duhigg has written a very helpful book called The Power of Habit. It looks at how habits are formed and how to change them.

Some key things to remember: He describes the 'habit loop': Cue, Routine, Reward.  The 'Cue' might be something like the stress of a difficult meeting; the 'Routine' we end up repeating might be eating comfort foods and the 'Reward' is that we feel some relief.  If that pattern has been used for a long time it will be difficult to change, but not impossible.

Duhigg suggests keeping the 'Cue' and the 'Reward' and inserting a new routine - in the example above, a routine that is healthier for the long haul, so you substitute exercise for food.  He is careful to say that the old routine will still be there and, in the transition phase, it will be easy to slip back into the old routine. 

Another key learning is what he calls 'Belief' and 'Community'. If we believe that the new routine will actually work (perhaps you've learned that research has shown exercise to be a great stress reducer). Keeping with the new routine will be easier if you actually have tested and found it to be true yourself. And finding others who share the belief, or the need to change a similar routine adds dramatically to the chance of success.

He also wrote about some very interesting research that shows willpower to be something like a muscle - the more you use it the stronger it gets.  And focusing on one area of your life - exercising for stress reduction for example - can help in other areas as well.  Spending time thinking about how to be successful in that area and setting yourself up for success dramatically increases the chances of improving in other areas of life you'd like to work on.

Play - the evidence piles up.

The evidence for the importance of 'play' continues to mount.  Here is an article on the importance of play - free play, outside - for young children.

For so many reasons, play is critical for children. I'll share strong evidence for the importance of play for adults as well.

Diet Overview

One of the big three for what I'll blog about and present in my workshops: exercise, diet and play.  By "diet" I mean what we eat - not going on something short term to fix what's wrong with what we eat.

Like exercise, the impact of diet on academics and behavior is way more than we'd guess. If you saw the movie "Super Size Me" you may have caught a reference to a school in Appleton. Apple Central Alternative High School was involved in an experiment. Dramatic change, dramatic results.

Food affects behavior - for better or for worse.  But it also affects how our genes express themselves. And how our body is able to fight off disease and chronic illness. Much more to come.

For a quick look at how we are doing on the food front you can see a series of slides on the obesity rates for different groups from the CDC.