Learning to become healthier from the healthiest among us
The end of the year is a good time for self-reflection, and we’ve been thinking about the advice we give you — on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle and achieve a younger RealAge, especially in light of a powerful new study in The Lancet that offers a new perspective on Americans’ collective health challenges.
We talk a lot about what it takes to make you healthy — to resist diabetes; avoid heart disease, cancers and depression; and maintain a healthy weight:
• Avoid the Five Food Felons (saturated and trans fats, added sugars and syrups, and any grain that isn’t 100 percent whole).
• Exercise 30 minutes five or more days a week; do 30 minutes of strength training twice weekly; do 40 jumps a day.
• Sleep seven to eight hours nightly.
• Avoid first-, second- and thirdhand smoke.
• Stay connected with friends and family; volunteer for a charity, club or other organization.
But have you done those things recently? Chances are with chilly weather, holiday schedules, the winter sniffles, work, family … well, only 2.7 percent of American adults answering a survey published in 2016 in Mayo Clinic Proceedings could say they met the criteria for a healthy lifestyle!
So we need to find additional ways to help you achieve your goals. Maybe if you meet — first on paper, then face to face — some folks who, without much trying, turn out to be healthier than the average American, that will inspire you to do the max for your healthiest, happiest future and a younger RealAge.
Twenty-plus researchers from Johns Hopkins and Dr. Oz’s Columbia University Medical Center spent two years analyzing data on immigrants in the U.S. and published their findings in the journal The Lancet. One finding: Immigrants to the U.S. are less likely to die from heart disease, cancer, respiratory illnesses and other chronic diseases than native-born Americans.
That means that not only do they not increase our health-cost burdens as much as natives do, but the kind of diet and lifestyle they had in their homeland helps protect them once they are exposed to the processed foods and low-energy, high-calorie habits of their new land.
What’s so special about their diets? Two examples: Guatemalan cuisine is built around corn, beans (black beans are called Guatemalan caviar), squash, rice, tomatoes, chilies, tropical fruit, cocoa and wild game. The locals eat on average 2,150 calories a day. In Ethiopia, the diet centers on millet (including a unique variety called teff ), sorghum and plantains. Many folks are vegetarian. The locals consume about 1,950 calories daily.
Homegrown Americans down an average of 3,750 daily calories! Our diet is heavily weighted toward not-so-healthful choices: Only 8 percent of the average American diet comes from fruits and vegetables. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says flour and cereal products make up 24 percent, added fats and oils are 23 percent and caloric sweeteners are 14 percent! Meats, eggs and nuts account for 21 percent; dairy products 9 percent.
What does this mean for homegrown Americans? It’s time to go on culinary adventures — visit restaurants to sample cuisines from around the world. Stop in ethnic (Thai, Japanese, Chinese) groceries and bodegas to explore their offerings. At restaurants, opt for the genuine cuisine, no salmon-cream cheese maki rolls or super-sugary, deepfried chicken bits in General Tso’s Chicken (strictly American inventions). Stick with steamed, stir-fried or roasted veggies; braised, roasted, steamed or pan-cooked chicken and fish. Try new grains (teff, anyone?). At ethnic groceries ask about foods you don’t recognize; find out what they are, how they taste, how they can be prepared. Take time to get to know the cuisines and the people.
To get you started, we love the recipes from the Cleveland Clinic’s Heart Healthy Recipe Corner and Dr. Oz’s Bite Club. There’s Tofu, Broccoli, Shiitake Mushroom Stir Fry; Thai Fish with Red Curry; and Crepes with Moroccan Vegetable Curry. Open your mind, your heart and your mouth to the amazing culinary gifts immigrants bring you.
Prevent Type 2 diabetes (and still have fun!)
Movies about food are as common as indigestion after a greasy meal. Some, like “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” make it clear that when unhealthy food choices rain down on you, it’s time to take action to save the planet. Others, like “Babette’s Feast,” are revelries on flavor. They both get it right. You can experience the joys of great flavor — and avoid the health risks that come from being pelted with unhealthy foods!
How? The recent Twitter backlash over Harvard professor Eric Rimm’s suggestion that a serving of french fries be limited to six sticks, shows that simply reducing your intake of unhealthy food isn’t the solution. (A sample tweet: “What kind of MAD MAN would want six french fries? I get it, they are bad for you, but eating SIX sounds like torture. I’d rather not have them at all …”) Clearly, the solution is to opt for substitutes that taste as good as or better than the original, and protect your health.
In “What to Eat When” Dr. Mike lists mouthwatering food substitutions. Here are a couple you’ll love at first bite.
• Bye-bye fries. Try baked potato skins! You’ll dodge loads of carbs-to-sugar and inflammatory fats. Top toasted skins with olive oil, pressed garlic and ground pepper. Have handfuls!
• Bye-bye delivery pizza. “Hello pizza with pizzazz!” Control fats, sugars, salt and carbs by making pizza with 100 percent whole-grain crust; olive oil; marinara; loads-o-veggies; lowfat or skim mozzarella.
Q: My 8-year old daughter and I got our flu shots and then got sick anyway. I think next year we’ll skip it. What’s the use? Carolina B., New York, New York
A: It’s not fair to blame the flu vaccine. There are several viruses out there that are not influenza: respiratory syncytial virus or RSV, rhinovirus, croup and the common cold. You may have had one of those common infections, and your flu vaccine may be protecting you and your daughter even now. Plus, it has many remarkable benefits including, but not limited to, preventing the flu or lessening its impact.
For example, a recent Danish study found that kids who experience a bad-enough infection to require hospitalization are at an 83 percent higher risk of developing a mental disorder and a 42 percent higher risk of using psychotropic medications. The flu qualifies as one of those potentially hospital-serious infections. You want to help your child dodge those risks for sure! And we wonder, could that be related to another study from the U.K. that identified a rise in anxiety among British children, in a country where many kids don’t get flu vaccines?
Adults also are at risk if they skip the shot, and a survey shows that over half of all adults are currently not vaccinated against the flu, and 4 in 10 don’t intend to get the shot! That’s a shame. A 2013 study of randomized clinical trials published in JAMA showed that “influenza vaccine was associated with a lower risk of major adverse cardiovascular events. … The greatest treatment effect was seen among the highest-risk patients with more active coronary disease.”
So for young and old, remember the saying: “For want of a horseshoe nail, the kingdom was lost.” It means if you ignore first steps, one thing leads to another until the end result is not what you want. The same thing can be said about skipping your flu shot. It’s not too late to get one!