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Staying Healthy Today With Kirk Hamilton
March 28, 2010
School Lunch Programs - A Prescription For Chronic Disease
I was just getting done taping an interview with Dr. Stella Volpe from the University of Pennsylvania on the Therapeutic Uses of Magnesium (Am Fam Physician. 2009;80(2):157-162) when I received an "out of the blue" phone call from a local television station. The reporter was interested in me giving my commentary on school lunch menus in the local Sacramento area. I said, "Sure." The interview at Channel 10 was maybe 15 or 20 minutes with reporter Cornell Barnard on my thoughts looking at several school lunch menus he gave me (maybe 10 seconds is in this TV spot). Since I have been so focused on finishing my book, "Staying Healthy In The Fast Lane", facts and figures just pour out of me when asked (even when not asked!), especially with regards to diet and lifestyle. Plus, I am pretty passionate about chronic disease prevention and reversal, especially when it comes to children.
The "Nutrition Gods" appear to be lining things up. A week or so ago I came into contact with Amie Hamlin, executive director of the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food. A fabulous group in the largest food service district in the country for children. They are doing fabulous work on bringing whole food to school children in the New York area and are a model for the country. In addition, as fate would have it, I posted the interview with Dr. Jean Buzby of the ERS of the USDA, which is the organization which really has put together the U.S. nutrition data on dietary patterns from the beginning of the 1900s to date. Their graphs and tables showing very clearly what has led the U.S. diet to such caloric excess and subsequent obesity and chronic disease. As mention before, these dietary patterns over the last 100 years are: 1) a steady increase in total meat consumption (reduction in red meat, but an increase in poultry) 2) dramatic increase in calorie dense added fats and oils 3) a steady rise in calorie sweeteners (sucrose and high fructose corn syrup) 4) dramatic increase in cheese consumption (milk consumption has gone down) and 5) A reduction in total grains since the early 1900s but an increase in refined grains since the 1970s (refined grains 85%, whole grains 15%). Throw in lack of physical activity and you have the sad fact of a tripling of childhood obesity in the last 30 years! Six to 11 year old obesity increased from 6.5% in 1980 to 19.6% in 2008. The prevalence of obesity among adolescents aged 12 to 19 years increased from 5.0% to 18.1%.
The School Menus - What I Saw
Here is what I saw while looking at 3 or so school food menus from several Sacramento school districts. Milk and cheese, milk and cheese, milk and cheese...A prescription for food intolerant reactions, and, cheese is a very calorie dense food as well. Cheese breadsticks, macaroni and cheese, nachos and cheese, pizza. Mostly "white flour" refined grain products. Very minimal whole grains. Canned fruit, probably syrupy, was prevalent with minimal whole fruit. And of course chicken and beef prepared in non-optimal ways. Looking at these menus it is very clear to me that dairy lobby must be very, very powerful - milk and cheese are the most consistent food items. Very little vegetables were on the menus, a few beans and no nuts or seeds except peanut butter in PB&J sandwiches. Aside from the lasting "milk and cheese picture" burned in my mind, when I envision those menus the other overwhelming impression is excess calories...it's so obvious why our children are fat ant there has been a tripling of obesity in children and adolescents over the last 30 years. The menus had so little of the protective plant compounds found in fruits and vegetables. They were also lacking in good carbohydrates from beans and whole grains. Those menus are a prescription to speed up the development of chronic diseases that will hit our children harder and sooner as they grow up - heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, high blood pressure...It really is so senseless and sad. But I believe we are approaching the threshold of a major change for the better in the way we eat. The signs are there, just like the "coincidences" setting me up for this interview. Hopefully most people can make a change to a whole food, unprocessed, largely plant-strong diet by education and common sense - and not terrible pain as the motivator from serious health problems. Whole food, ‘plant-strong' diets are the simple solution for not only health but also for preservation of our ecological balance. In my interview with Dr. David J.A. Jenkins MD, PhD, DSc, the discoverer of the Glycemic Index, he not only makes a pitch for a more plant-based diet (Dietary Portfolio) for health, but more importantly for the environment. The audio-interview will be posted on April 9, 2010. You can read the html transcripts now.
The reason Channel 10 was so interested in the school lunch menus in the first place was because of ABC featuring Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution that evening...A patriotic show by an Englishman - Bravo to him! I'll take any help we can get to help change the health of my country for the better. As I have mentioned several times, I feel strongly being healthy is being patriotic. The only way to truly reduce health care costs, and to increase our national productivity, is to be healthy as a country and avoid chronic diseases. What you put in your mouth and how you move your body is your responsibility - not your government's, your employer, your labor union, etc.. Likewise don't blame the government for your health care problems once you are educated. You are responsible. The government has supplied excellent information on how to stay and be well - it may be watered down, or influenced by powerful food lobbies, never-the-less it is there. Educate yourself and practice REAL and LASTING Health Care Reform doing the "9 Simple Steps to Optimal Health", my simple prescription to achieve a health society and world.
Expert Interviews by Kirk Hamilton at Vitasearch.com
Atherosclerosis, Aged Garlic, B Vitamins And Arginine, Matthew Budoff, MD, USA, 3/2010
Seizures and Pyridoxine (Vitamin B6) Dependency, Dr. Levinus A. Bok, M.D., The Netherlands, 3/2010
Aging, Sarcopenia (Muscle Loss) and Creatine Supplementation, Chad M. Kerksick, Ph.D., USA, 3/2010
Diabetes Mellitus, Polyphenols and Oxidative Stress, Assist. Prof. Dr. Aysen Kutan Fenercioglu, Turkey, 3/2010
PCOS, Endothelial Function, Folic Acid, Homocysteine and Metformin, Stefano Palomba M.D., Italy, 3/2010
Infertility, Semen, Antioxidants and Omega-3 and Omega-6 Fatty Acids, Mohammad Reza Safarinejad, M.D., Iran, 2/2010
Staying Healthy Today Show Interviews By Kirk Hamilton
Chronic Disease And A Century of U.S. Food Consumption Patterns - An Interview With Jean C. Buzby PhD
Nutrition for Exercise Performance and Preventive Health - An Interview With Ironman Champion Dave Scott
Memory and Cognitive Improvement With Daily Grape Juice Intake, and, Other Natural Approaches To Memory and Cognition - An Interview With Robert Krikorian PhD
Staying Healthy Webinar Series With Kirk Hamilton at EnergeticNutrition.com
Completed 6 part webinar series is available for FREE in video, audio or for download. Topics include:
Staying Healthy In the Fast Lane - Parts I How To Be Well In the Busy, Modern World
Staying Healthy In the Fast Lane - Parts II How To Be Well In the Busy, Modern World
The Disease That Doesn't Have to Happen: Reversing the Diabetes Epidemic
Reversing the Obesity Epidemic: The Gorilla Diet and Weight Loss Program
Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease: Putting The World's #1 Killer To Rest
Healthy Aging: Living Long and Living Well in the 21st Century
You can view/listen to the webinar by clicking here.
Staying Healthy Today - Current Research Nutrition & Prevention Research
A Preliminary Fast May Potentiate Response To A Subsequent Low-Salt, Low-Fat Vegan Diet In The Management Of Hypertension - Fasting As A Strategy For Breaking Metabolic Vicious Cycles
A Vegetable-Fruit-Soy Dietary Pattern Protects Against Breast Cancer Among Postmenopausal Singapore Chinese
Association Of C-Reactive Protein With Mild Cognitive Impairment
Childhood Obesity, Other Cardiovascular Risk Factors, and Premature Death
Dynamics Of Obesity And Chronic Health Conditions Among Children And Youth
Food Price And Diet And Health Outcomes: 20 Years Of The CARDIA Study
Green Tea Consumption And Gastric Cancer In Japanese: A Pooled Analysis Of Six Cohort Studies
Is There A Relationship Between High C-Reactive Protein (CRP) Levels And Dementia?
Is There An Association Between The Level Of High-Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein And Idiopathic Parkinson's Disease?
Medically Supervised Water-Only Fasting in the Treatment of Borderline Hypertension
Physical Activity And Weight Gain Prevention
Prediagnosis Food Patterns Are Associated With Length Of Survival From Epithelial Ovarian Cancer
Prevalence Of Diabetes Among Men And Women In China
The Association Between Dietary Protein Intake And Bone Mass Accretion In Pubertal Girls With Low Calcium Intakes
Vitamin B6 and Risk Of Colorectal Cancer: A Meta-Analysis Of Prospective Studies
Remember Until Next Time, Stay and Be Well
Kirk
Kirkhamilton@prescription2000.com
www.prescription2000.com
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