2
What Kind of Food Family Are You?
You Can’t Change Your Genes, But You CAN Change Your Family’s Food-Style
The Williams family (all names have been changed) came to my office with one very unhappy fourteen-year-old, Samantha. Samantha just scowled silently as her parents explained the situation. She was twenty-five to thirty pounds overweight, very pretty, and very embarrassed.
The mom, Anne, who had been a diabetic for ten years, was petite and needed to lose fifteen to twenty pounds to reach an ideal body weight. Mike, her husband, was a singer who wished he could drop about ten pounds. He felt better food choices could help him maintain his vocal clarity and strength. When he was younger, he had been an actor and gymnast, but he had not stayed active.
Anne’s casual attitude made it clear that, although she knew her excess weight was not healthy, she was not scared enough to maintain tight control of her eating or stay on a scheduled exercise program.
She was a working professional and, like her husband, a singer. She ran her household chaotically, shopping whenever she needed to, but without much of a plan. The family rarely ate together. Most of the food was pre-packaged or fast food. Anne constantly harped on Samantha’s weight, and they quarreled over typical teen issues: Samantha’s choice of peer group, curfew, driver’s license test, homework, grades. The parents repeatedly felt compelled to tell me their other daughter, who was two years younger, was “fine,” though the family dynamics and eating habits made it obvious to me that she was not fine from a health perspective. When a family has dysfunctional health habits, usually every family member is affected.
Mike reflected on his own food needs intently, but the desire to lose weight he expressed seemed motivated by his own vanity and was completely disconnected from the needs of his daughter or the rest of his family. Anne wanted to know “what [she] could do for Samantha,” but she didn’t make the connection between her daughter’s health and that of her family as a whole. I could tell that Samantha probably just wanted her parents to stop talking so she could go home and hide under the covers.
Anne and Mike didn’t realize that their daughter wasn’t the problem. Instead, it was the family eating style that Samantha learned as a child that had led to her current weight problem. Anne’s serious disease had not provided sufficient motivation for her to change her habits. Mike was caught up in his own needs. In short, this was a typical family in food crisis.
I began by setting up appointments to meet with Samantha twice a week. When it came to the need to lose weight, Sam was old enough to “get it,” but it had to be something she wanted, not something her parents pushed on her.
Next, I asked Anne and Mike if they would be willing to take a crash course on food choices and start using a shopping list I would supply. I explained that families who eat together with planned menus fare much better from a health and weight perspective. Although that suggestion didn’t meet with great enthusiasm, I made it clear that if they didn’t try to adjust some of the habits in their home, Anne’s diabetes could get worse and Samantha’s weight issue would go nowhere fast.
There was a lot of work to do. If Samantha and Anne were ever going to get past the bad feelings, they would need to work together, make choices together, perhaps even shop and cook together.
It’s hard to say how much of the poor relationship between mother and daughter was due to teen angst and how much was due to a mom frustrated with her own poor health and her feelings of guilt. (“I got my kid into this situation—at least partially—through my own inability to control the pantry, the fridge, and our eating patterns in a coherent, responsible way.”) Parents often feel they’re to blame, even when they can’t articulate their guilt aloud.
Sam, on the other hand, clearly felt miserable as an overweight teen. After a couple of meetings, I could tell that the haphazard way their kitchen was run had frustrated her for some time. She knew healthier food always seemed to be available in her friends’ homes, but she also knew some of the responsibility for her problem was the result of her own out-of-the-house food choices and her unwillingness to get involved in sports or physical activities.
The solution to their problem boiled down to Anne and Sam getting past their guilt and anger so they could work as partners, giving and taking on responsibilities, and finding healthy ways to verbalize frustration and encouragement, rather than nagging or criticizing. They achieved some of that with list-making (which everyone in the home contributed to), joint and shared shopping responsibilities, family conferencing, better prepping techniques, and more weekends devoted to physical activity.
Sam and her mom also became walking partners, which was a huge step toward working together for a common cause. They still had other conflicts, but they were able to join forces so both of their needs—weight loss in Sam’s case, better diabetes control in her mom’s case—could be met.
By now, you’re probably asking the million-dollar questions: How did the family do? Did they make changes? Did Samantha lose weight? Did Anne gain better control over her diabetes? Did Mike climb on board?
This is what happened when Anne, Mike, Samantha, and Heather (the other daughter, the one who was “fine”) worked together. Samantha lost twenty-three pounds and helped empower
herself in the process. She learned that she needed to shop for herself when her mother’s ability to stay organized and on top of menus slipped a bit. Sometimes Mike drove her to the supermarket, which brought them closer together. Mike learned to be more involved with his family. The whole family tried a lot of new recipes together, and they decided to use a delivery food option for a couple of weeks to help manage their choices and food amounts (a good learning tool for this busy family). The family began sitting down to eat together at least three times a week. They all started to exercise, albeit on their own schedules.
Samantha and Heather worked together and sometimes even shopped together to eat healthier. In the past, Heather had felt a little neglected at home, so she liked their new habit of family dinners. And she revealed to her parents that she had been afraid that she too would gain weight, and was happy the family was eating a healthier, more balanced diet.
CHRONIC HEALTH ISSUES ASSOCIATED WITH OBESITY
• Type 2 diabetes
• Heart disease
• Hypertension
• Metabolic syndrome
• Chronic respiratory diseases like asthma
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• Asthma
• Macular degeneration
• Osteoarthritis
• Certain cancers
• Low self-esteem
• Depression
• Cavities
• Poor healing post-surgery
As the sisters gained a better understanding of their mother’s diabetes, they could encourage her to cultivate better habits. Most weeks, the family made an effort to shop and prepare food on the weekend so there was plenty of healthy food in the fridge and pantry during the rest of the week. Most dinners could be prepared quickly with the nutritious ingredients on hand. The family also learned to troubleshoot their eating challenges, not to point fingers or simply give up.
They managed to change their food-style both in the home and outside it. And I felt sure that when Heather and Samantha someday became parents, they would take these new habits and behaviors into their own homes and create excellent HFL families. Are they now a family that eats perfectly? Not even close. They still eat too much fast food; sometimes they still fall back on old habits like snacking in front of the TV; they still are not consistently as active as they could be. But they have made a lot of progress by working together.
Families Can Change
By working together, every family can create healthier eating and activity habits. I know because I’ve seen it happen so many times. However, I also know from experience that there is no one-size-fits-all-families solution. Every family is different. Some families are constantly on the go. Others face a lot of conflict about what foods they should eat because some members want to make healthier choices than others. Sometimes one family member has developed a health or weight problem; unfortunately, all too often, this is viewed as an individual problem rather than what it really is—a family problem.
Some families make generally healthy choices, but they are hooked on big portions or they completely avoid activity. Sometimes the whole family practically lives on sugar and fat, although the weight effects may not yet be evident with every family member.
For some families, all members face similar challenges; most struggle with weight, for example. For others, there are individual considerations such as health conditions or unique lifestyle distinctions (family members who are athletes or vegetarians, who have food allergies, etc.).
For some families, serious medical consequences make it urgent to make changes promptly. For others, the consequences haven’t caught up with them yet.
Your first step toward becoming a Healthy Family for Life is to assess your family’s needs and take a closer look at the realities your family faces: genetics, medical indicators, and habits that could be undercutting your efforts to be healthy.
The Genetics Excuse
You can’t talk about families without talking about the role of genetics, an area of research that will continue to offer new insights into family nutrition and weight management. I’m confident the emerging field of “nutritional genetics” or “nutrigenomics” will find genetic markers that predispose some individuals to store fat more easily, to be more adversely affected by high-fat or high-carbohydrate diets, and/or to burn calories less efficiently.1234
Genetics contribute to body composition from birth and may influence how you process calories, both when you eat and when you exercise. Your genes can influence how much body fat you have in early life and how that fat is distributed. They can also make you more susceptible to gaining weight.
It is a genetic fact that weight management isn’t a completely level playing field. Even within families, there can be considerable individual variation, which is why the Healthy Families for Life program is designed to be flexible enough to meet the unique needs of all family members. It’s easy for people to point to other weight-challenged family members in current or previous generations and throw up their hands in defeat, saying, “There’s nothing I can do—it runs in my family!”
However, the role of genetics is only one factor in the equation. As I frequently point out to patients, choosing to be a victim of real or imagined genetics is not a solution. In fact, there is plenty that you can do, regardless of genetics.
The nutritional decisions you and your family make can dramatically moderate the results of genetic predispositions. The hard truth is that heredity doesn’t destine you or your family to be fat. The nutritional
and activity choices you make greatly influence how your genes ultimately express themselves.
At the end of the day, everybody, regardless of genetics, is responsible for their own eating and activity habits. Eating poor quality food, consuming excessive quantities of food, or being inactive has the same result for all of us: poor health that puts us at risk for disease and unnecessarily diminishes the quality of our lives.
Your genetic factors should be used as motivation for you to take action, not as an excuse to give up. If your family has a history of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, strokes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or other conditions, understanding that history should be a wake-up call for you to make lifestyle changes.
Unfortunately, some people choose to ignore their family history, which can be just as harmful as using it to excuse poor choices. Knowledge is powerful, but only if you choose to use it.
The End of Family Denial
The whole point of this book is to put an end to family denial about health, nutrition, and weight management. If you are ignoring the truth about your family’s unhealthy habits and the dangers that arise from those habits, you are contributing to a family culture of denial that your children may well take with them into their adulthoods and pass on to the next generation. And this is the kind of denial that kills. Remember how our kids could be the first generation to die sooner than their parents? We are responsible for that—but we can also work to change that outcome.
Think about where your own denial tendencies may be affecting your choices. Are you, or is one or more family members, struggling with obesity? Are you ignoring your family’s history of health problems? Are your food choices irresponsible or haphazard? Do you devote inadequate time and energy to healthy meal planning and preparing? Are you conscious of portion control? Is your family inactive?
The first step out of denial is facing reality. Are you ready? Is your family ready?
The Denial Antidote: Honest Assessment
The first step to becoming a Healthy Family for Life is taking a good, hard look at where your family is now. You can use the series of assessment forms we’ve provided in this chapter and in the appendices at the end of the book to get a clearer picture of your family’s health status. I realize that answering all these questions can seem time-consuming, but the rewards are worth it. Even small changes in your family’s eating habits can create positive health results that last a lifetime. It’s a sad fact that we often take better care of our car, home, or job than we do our health—but these assessment tools can help you identify where you may want to shift your priorities, and why.
The Five HFL Family Assessment Tools
1. Family Health Tree: a “big picture” look at health conditions and family health history (Appendix 2A)
2. Individual Health Profile: health status of every family member (for details, see the forms provided for Adults, Teens, and Children, Appendix 2B)
3. Individual and Family Activity Profiles: a look at the lifestyle and exercise habits of every family member and of the family as a whole (Appendix 2D and Appendix 2E)
4. Family Food Intervention Stage (FFIS) Profile: a look at factors to help you determine the level of your family’s need to make lifestyle changes (later in this chapter, pages 41-43)
5. Family Food-Style Profile: a look at your family’s current lifestyle habits (later in this chapter, pages 43-47)
How critical are these assessments? It is no exaggeration to say that these assessments could result in life-saving changes for your family, and at the very least, will significantly improve your overall health and quality of your lives for years and even generations to come.
You may be tempted to skip the assessment stage and move right to the HFL program in the chapters ahead. Certainly, any positive food, activity, or lifestyle changes that result from reading this book are valuable. However, taking the time to get an honest, realistic picture
of your family’s health, weight, and lifestyle will give you the strongest possible foundation for becoming a successful Healthy Family for Life.
Genetics is not the only thing you pass down to your kids when it comes to health—far from it. Teaching your children to value honest health assessment rather than to deny health problems is a wonderful legacy you can give them that will contribute to their health for the rest of their lives.
HFL Assessment Tool #1: Family Health Tree
The HFL Family Health Tree is a quick way for you to get an overall picture of your family’s general medical history. You may need to call family members with questions, but think of it as a time to reconnect and get real with family members about your history. It’s important to fill out as much information as you can from all the various sides of your family (or blended families).
Try to write down the major health conditions of each relative. For example, for my great-grandfather on my mother’s side, I wrote: “diabetes, hypertension, died of stroke at age seventy-one.” You’ll end up with a typical family tree outline, but instead of just names, it will have names and conditions in each little box. So you’ll have what I call a “comprehensive family tree.” You’ll also have new insight into the possible diseases that may run (or hover) in a family line. When you combine your family line and your spouse’s, you’ll be able to see which conditions “double dip,” meaning which health issues can affect your kids from both sides of the family. (I inherited gum disease from both my mom and dad; there are stroke and cholesterol issues on my mom’s side, and diabetes was prominent on my dad’s side, although one great-grandparent on my mom’s side had it as well.)
When you’re done, you will have a better sense of the illnesses prevalent in your family that could affect you and your children’s health in the future. Just remember that you aren’t powerless. A disease like diabetes may be “hovering,” but your health habits can greatly affect whether or not it becomes a reality for your or other members of your family.
Recently, a number of health organizations have recommended that families come together and share health information. Have your spouse and/or ex-spouses create family health trees going back to their great grandparents, if possible. Knowing that there is heart disease, diabetes, strokes, cancer, or other diseases that you may be able to fight or prevent through lifestyle changes can further spur you into action. By all means, share this information with your children when they are old enough to understand it.
HFL Assessment Tool #2: Individual Health Profile
This tool requires the help of a physician. As much as you may want to skip this step, resist the temptation. Take the opportunity to get all the information you can. Consider getting a full blood panel, urinalysis, even an EKG if you want the full health profile. These profiles will look a lot like your doctor’s medical history questionnaires, and they will give you an at-home resource you can use as a reference for your HFL program.
Share your Family Health Tree with your doctor so he can guide you on which tests are appropriate for you and for your children. One of the best ways to get your family out of denial is for every member to know their “numbers.”
I think of these numbers as an invaluable key to life. In fact, if there is only one lesson you take away from this book, I hope it’s the importance of knowing your own health profile, so you have some objective quantification of your body’s current health status.
The “numbers” are:
• BMI—See Appendix 2C.
• Waist Measurement—This tells you if you are storing dangerous excess fat in your abdominal region; see Appendix 2C.
• Height and Weight
• Blood Pressure—We now consider normal blood pressure to be 115/75 mmHg, though most people are still familiar with 120/80. Pre-hypertension would be higher than 120/80 and researchers have found that very early changes in the heart and arterial systems are already occurring when readings fall between 115/75 and 120/80.
• Heart Rate or Pulse—Based on your physical fitness and other health parameters, this number can vary. Your pulse will usually decrease as you condition your heart with cardiovascular exercise. My pulse rate went from 74 to 62 over a ten-year period with serious training efforts.
• Cholesterol Levels (HDL and LDL)—According to the American Heart Association, you want to target an HDL (good cholesterol) of greater than 40mg/dL for cardio protection. An LDL of less than 100 milligrams per deciliter is considered optimal. An LDL of 100-129 is considered near optimal, while 130-159 is borderline high. An LDL of 160-189 is high, and anything higher than 190 is very high.
• Fasting Blood Sugar—This should measure at or less than 100mg/dL; a reading of 100-125mg/dL is considered pre-diabetes.
You should revisit these numbers once a year, especially if there are lifestyle-related diseases in your family such as heart disease or diabetes, if you have gained or lost a significant amount of weight, or if you are on medications (in which case, check with your doctor because some number assessments may need to be done more frequently).
One of the best signs of a family evolving into a Healthy Family for Life is a slow but steady change in these numbers. Weight loss is often apparent right away from how your clothing fits, but the shift in numbers gives you a powerful guide to your success. You may even see better sleep patterns, better school performance, better energy levels, and even better concentration.
It’s also important that you keep a written record of your health where you can refer to it when needed. Don’t rely solely on memory. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve queried someone on their hospitalizations, been told he or she didn’t have any, and then discovered a scar from a surgery and heard, “Oops, I forgot about that one.”
That’s another reason why taking the time to reconstruct your health history is crucial. If there are too many gaps in information or you haven’t seen a doctor in a long time, invest in a physical exam and blood evaluation.
I know it takes time and commitment to see a physician and fill out these forms. But education is the cornerstone of any health
makeover. You need to face facts. If you don’t think anything is broken, you’ll never be inspired to fix it.
Tips on Health Profiles for Teens and Kids
If your teen is willing to engage in this process from the beginning, great! Teens can fill out this form and even make their own appointments with a doctor to fill in the blanks. If your teen isn’t willing, then fill it out to the best of your ability and consider leaving it for him or her with a personal note attached that explains why this is so important to you.
Whatever you do, don’t point fingers or nag about weight or other negatives. Express your thoughts positively: “I think this could help you and all of us feel more energetic and develop healthier habits. I’m worried because I know ________ runs in our family and we can do something about it, if we’re willing to make some changes. I want to start buying and preparing different foods, and become more active. I definitely want you to help make food and meal choices. Maybe we can even do some activities together or you can let me know if there are sports you want to try or a gym you’d like to join.”
Obviously, the offers you make in the letter to your teen should be sincere. Don’t suggest anything that time or money will prevent you from following through on, but be willing to give creative ideas, especially ones that mean you’ll get to spend more time together.
For younger children, you will want to fill the form out with your pediatrician. Involve your child when age-appropriate.
HFL Assessment Tool #3: Activity Profiles
These profiles reflect the physical activity habits of your family as a whole and of each individual member. A big part of the HFL program involves getting activity and movement into your life. So often, we don’t realize how little we are actually moving on a daily basis. You need to take a close look at your personal daily habits, your family’s habits, and how much of your time is spent in sitting/couch potato time (and that includes TV watching, driving or riding in an
automobile, sitting on the job, and computer time) versus exercise and physical activity time. Study upon study indicates that it’s not just what you eat but how you use those calories that will partially determine weight gain. And exercise stands alone as an actual health therapy, helping to offset risk factors for disease. You can fill these forms out quickly, and they will give you a starting point for becoming more active.
DID YOU KNOW?
Myeloid leukemia risk increases with a ballooning waistline. This type of cancer is the most common adult leukemia, and every extra four inches of waistline increases the risk of developing this leukemia by 37 percent.
HFL Assessment Tool #4: Family Food Intervention Stage (FFIS) Profile
Health care professionals organize the progression of diseases into stages to indicate the severity of the condition and how the disease will respond to possible treatment. When it comes to cancer or heart disease, for example, most of us know the value of being diagnosed in an early stage so the condition will respond to treatment more readily.
The Family Food Intervention Stage (FFIS) Profile works in the same way to help you assess the severity of your family’s eating problems and the urgency needed to address them. Knowing your FFIS will help you determine which HFL tools and strategies are most suitable for your family’s needs. Take a look at the four FFIS categories and determine which one best fits your family:
Stage 1: Getting Healthier Together
If you are a Stage 1 Family, you need to develop healthier habits, but you are not currently facing critical health problems. No one
in your family is grossly overweight, although the adults may have shown more weight gain than is healthy and one or more of the kids may lean toward the top percentiles in weight. You have developed some unhealthy habits, such as eating on the run, making poor food choices, or not getting enough activity. Now you are ready to make some changes and get healthier together as a family.
Stage 2: Turning It Around (Facing Predisposition to Disease)
If you are a Stage 2 Family, you have concerns such as worrisome BMI, large waist size, family members with issues such as borderline high cholesterol level or blood pressure, or weight that is climbing too rapidly. Family members, however, do not yet have clear-cut, objective signs of early disease. Family members may need to lose weight to prevent full expression of diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, or heart disease.
Stage 3: Intervention Required (for Weight or Nutrition-Related Diseases)
If you are a Stage 3 Family, you and/or other family members are significantly overweight or have blood profiles or other medical tests that reveal disease. At this stage, you may be in denial due to fear, but you are also faced with the reality of health measurements that cannot be disputed.
Stage 4: Code Red (Rapid Change Required Due to Obesity or Disease)
At Stage 4, you and/or other family members have an ongoing need for a physician’s care because weight and health issues require intermittent or regular healthcare. You may be in denial, and you may or may not be receiving this care.
The HFL program can help Stage 1 families integrate new, healthier habits into their lives in a reasonably paced fashion. Stage 2 families are already showing physical signs of extra weight and/or poor lab results that indicate risk factors for diseases such as diabetes, so HFL tools will specifically guide members to goals that
include weight loss, a shift in HDL and LDL, and better blood glucose levels. Better quality food, portion control, and increasing activity will deliver a one-two punch on these health parameters. When it comes to Stage 3 families, who are showing early signs of disease or serious shifts in blood panels and other health measurements, the HFL program provides both assessments and a step-by-step guide to solutions that will shift poor habits and behaviors for optimal health.
The HFL program can help many Stage 4 Families stabilize health and even reduce the dosages or need for some medications, such as anti-hypertensive drugs, oral hypoglycemic medication, or medications such as Metformin (used for insulin resistance often found in pre-diabetes or early diabetes).
Note that once you or a family member has been diagnosed as a diabetic, you will always be a diabetic. But you can create a remission-type state, particularly in type 2 diabetes, in which blood sugar levels normalize and insulin resistance is diminished significantly, if not totally. Diabetes responds dramatically to weight loss and the health habits encouraged by the HFL program.
FFIS is a non-specific self-identification tool to help you increase your awareness of the medical consequences of your family’s eating and activity habits. It is not intended to encourage judgments, fear, guilt or shame—only to help you consider the medical facts and take charge of your family’s lifestyle choices.
Studies show that people who are suffering from serious and even life-threatening conditions can experience significant reversal of disease by committing to serious lifestyle changes. What may seem like insurmountable health hurdles may actually be conditions that can be dramatically altered by becoming a Healthy Family for Life. Whatever stage your family may be at, your goal is to intervene as early as possible to slow, stop, or prevent health deterioration.
HFL Assessment Tool #5: Family Food-Style Questionnaire
Our final assessment tool helps you identify family behaviors that sabotage your nutritional quality. Remember that these assessments are a gateway to a new way of living.
Family Food-Style Profile
Choose the eating behavior style(s) that best fits your family as a whole, as well as every individual family member. You may find that several food-styles apply both for individuals and for the family as a whole. There are many possible food-styles. We will point out some potential pros and cons for each style, but keep in mind that some of these food-styles are much healthier than others. Discuss, and see if you can identify any other patterns that have an impact on your eating habits and choices.
Q Do you eat three square meals plus snacks in between?
A You’re a “Square” Eater. Pros: You eat regularly and don’t often skip meals. You time your eating daily, never missing a meal or snack, and you never experience dramatic swings in your blood sugar levels because of your well-timed meals. You make the time to eat, realizing that skipped meals can impair your mental and physical performance. Cons: You enjoy those lunches with your coworkers at local eating haunts and those dinners out with family and friends. You always fit snacks in to their morning and afternoon slots, regardless of hunger. You don’t necessarily notice the portion size or quality of food you’re consuming. If your meals and/or your snacks are too big, you’ll get too many calories throughout the day. Strategy: Keep your regular habits but watch portions carefully. Snacks should have between 100 and 150 calories.
Q Do you graze throughout the day, eating few or no big “meals” but lots of mini-meals and snacks?
A You’re a Grazer. Pros: Eating more frequently discourages hunger bouts that can lead to overeating, and grazing with healthy snacks is a great way to stay energized around the clock. Grazers tend to gravitate to handheld foods like fruits, cut up veggies, energy bars, cereals and nuts. You never feel energy lows because of your approach to eating. Cons: Grazing can lead to
overeating for some people because they may not realize just how much food they’re actually eating, and avoiding sit-down planned and plated meals can sometimes translate into a lack of nutritional balance in the overall diet. Strategy: Portion control is the key; also pay attention to your choices, making sure you are getting adequate protein and eating from all the food groups. Healthy grazing doesn’t mean eating without awareness or discernment.
Q Do you go without food for most of the day (maybe coffee in the morning and a snack or two in the afternoon), then eat all night?
A You’re a Night Feaster. Pros: Eating a somewhat larger meal at night can be manageable if your food choices are smart and you eat a balanced meal with whole grains, lean proteins, cooked veggies, and fruit options. Cons: Eating way too much food at night, either in a large meal or in endless snacking, is unfortunately all too common—and typically results in overeating, because most people see it as an opportunity to eat through the evening hours to make up for the day’s “fast.” You also cannot possibly perform optimally at work or at the gym with inadequate mental and physical energy to take you through the day. Strategy: Apportion your food more evenly through the day and pay special attention to making healthier, portion-controlled choices for your evening meal and up until bedtime. Determine a cut-off time so the eating stops.
Q Do you live on fast food, either at drive-throughs, restaurants, or by eating mostly packaged meals and pizza at home?
A You’re a Fast-Food Junkie. Pros (sort of!): Some fast food choices can be healthy and convenient. There are now a wide selection of salads with healthy proteins, fat-free dressings, low-fat yogurt and fruit parfaits, and sandwich options. Cons: Most fast food choices, however, are very unhealthy, with portions that are too large and condiments that are way too high in fat. A fast food lifestyle is one of the worst things you can do for your family’s health. Strategy: Learn which fast foods are better
choices, and also start to make the transition to more nutritional meals, so that fast foods become a once-in-a-while option, instead of an everyday habit.
Q Are you always on the latest diet, from the Zone, Atkins, and South Beach to smoothies and fasts?
A You’re a Diet Junkie. Pros: It’s great to stay current with new nutritional information and to stay conscious of maintaining a healthy weight. No doubt certain core elements of these eating programs have merit and one that offers a rational approach to eating could be a match made in heaven. Cons: On-and-off dieting is unhealthy and has been shown to promote weight gain, plus it encourages short-term thinking and discourages long-term lifestyle change. Dieting is the short-term solution and diets rarely help you with long-term weight maintenance. Strategy: Learn to distinguish between the unrealistic promises of radical, short-term approaches and the lasting benefits of changing the choices you make.
Q Are you a vegetarian or close to it (you don’t believe in eating meat) but still eat a fairly high-fat diet?
A You’re a High-fat Vegetarian. Healthy vegetarians make sure to eat high-grade proteins like beans and legumes, soy and tempeh, and eggs and fish (if they are only excluding animal meats and poultry). They also make sure to eat whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and only healthy oils and fats. Many people erroneously choose to shun meat, fish, and poultry in order to eat foods like pasta, pizza, and high-fat salads. Pros: Vegetarianism can be a very healthy lifestyle choice when you know how to make smart vegetarian choices. But it’s not a license to simply eat everything in sight that is non-meat-based. Cons: A high-fat diet of any kind can promote weight gain and increase disease risk. You may also tend to overeat in the name of healthy eating. Strategy: Learn to make healthy vegetarian food choices and be sure to include adequate protein.
Q Are you extremely rigid in your food choices or obsessed 24/7 with weight, calories, fat content, and/or other aspects of nutrition?
A You’re an Overly Controlled Eater. Pros: You may be well-informed about many aspects of nutrition and weight management. You may feel that due to prior dieting cycles, this is the only way to maintain control and not gain weight. You may have a strong family pattern of lifestyle-related diseases (diabetes, heart disease, stroke, hypertension) and feel that an extremely inflexible eating program emphasizing tight portion control is the way to maximize a healthy outcome. Cons: Rigidity and obsession can lead to a variety of unhealthy eating habits. You may be cutting necessary calories or food groups out of your diet in the name of health. Your obsession may also be a sign of disordered eating, or mask emotional issues that need to be addressed. Strategy: Pursue a more realistic perspective and greater flexibility in order to achieve more balance in your eating habits and your overall lifestyle approach. Vigilant eating can be a plus, but obsessive control is often detrimental to your health.
Your Family Food “Values”
Throughout the rest of the book we’ll talk about strategies to change or improve your family food-style. Some patterns may need to change completely. Night Feasting, for example, almost always leads to gorging because you’re hungry from starving all day. It can also lead to the “atomic bomb meal” or a very heavy, high-fat meal that can cause dangerous sudden inflammation in the arteries and even lead to a heart attack or stroke. If your family is living the “high” life of Fast Food Junkies, you’re bound to be developing health problems from the poor-quality food you’re eating way too regularly.
Other patterns may simply need modifying. There’s nothing wrong with eating three solid meals a day with two small snacks; you may just need to downsize portions or upgrade the nutritional quality of your snacks. If your family has a Grazer food-style, you
may find you need to limit high-fat and high-sugar food choices and have easy-to-grab healthy food options in the fridge and pantry.
Some extreme food-styles may require professional help. Overly rigid or obsessive dieting or uncontrollable binge eating, for example, may signal eating disorders that can be helped with professional treatment. Also, if you or a family member is having trouble managing emotional eating, professional help may be beneficial.
Taking the time to assess habits will set you on the road to becoming a healthier, happier, and even closer family. Many, many times I have seen the journey toward healthier eating result not only in better numbers (such as cholesterol, blood pressure, and weight) but in better relationships and a much more satisfying family life. Isn’t that what “family values” are really all about?
CHAPTER 2 QUICK-SUMMARY
• Genetics and family history are part of the story but not “the whole enchilada.”
• Involve your family’s physicians, pediatrician, etc. Resist the urge to avoid the doctor. Be willing to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly. Now is the time to face your fears and take a look at the objective truth about your family’s health.
• The more honest you are about where you’re at, the more likely you are to make successful positive changes.
Tips for Teens
• Involve teens in health discussions: share your family health tree and talk about your own health concerns.
• Have teens list five foods they cannot live without, and discuss ways to make the choices healthier or how to substitute alternatives, smaller portions, etc.
• Have them list five new foods they’d be willing to try.
• Let them create their “fantasy menu.” Talk about how it does or doesn’t meet healthy, nutritious criteria.
• Have them plan one activity for the whole family to do together to “get moving.” Put them in total charge of snacks, water, directions to location, picnic lunch, etc.
Tips for Kids
• Let kids make a list of foods they like, don’t like, and are willing to try.
• Ask them to list differences between your kitchen routines and mealtimes and those of their friends. Ask them to rate those differences as better than, worse than, or similar to yours.
• Ask your children what they like and don’t like about their meals.
• Teach them a new “Word of the Day,” such as health, energy, nutrition, fats, carbohydrates, protein, exercise, treat, etc. (Make a game about using them in sentences or drawing pictures to identify their meaning.)
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