It took me travelling to the Bay Area for a public health conference a couple weeks ago for me to gain a better understanding of some more of our food habits. In a nut-shell, we love sugar, we're not that afraid of fat, and we really love bread. Across the aisle from me, a woman ate every last morsel of a thick steak she had left-over from lunch. I listened as she scraped deep into the crevices of that plastic container, and made sure she got every last bit of that fat from the corners which she licked off her little plastic knife. Between her, the calzone and garlic bread guy, and the "election day in VA" length line at McDonald's, I got thinking about how hard it is to travel and eat well at the same time. With Thanksgiving around the corner, and the rest stops teeming with turkey-bound travelers, I had an Arsenio Hall "things that make you go hmmm" moment.
I love good food, and over the years I have managed to find a lot of food to be, well, "good". My scientist / public health / physician brain may know better, but it definitely knows what tastes good. I have what I call “funny food moods”, and I do not make my best food decisions when I am hungry. This is a major problem when in the grocery store and when I am traveling, because even the "healthy" fridge looking stall at the airport is stacked with sandwiches, wraps, and parfaits. Not all bad, but limited at best. What if we had some better options to choose from? A "real nut stop", fruit stand, or a "bun-less burger bar" for example. Would people frequent them? I think so.
Having fought with food, weight, body-image, and self-confidence over the years, this food thing is personal for me. It has taken small steps to keep my personal gains in place, and there have been all sorts of excuses for my occasional lapses. I could (and have) blame my work schedule, my friends, and even my genes. At the end of the day, the desire to start my changes had to start within me, but I needed support. We all do.
With our current preventable chronic disease statistics moving in the wrong direction, the support I am alluding to can no longer only come from caring families, social networks, and some media outlets. Civic and corporate engagement in creating and sustaining commercial and environmental support mechanisms are also necessary. The talk of meeting the "double bottom line" (doing good, while doing well) needs to be more than rhetoric for end-of-year reports. Accountability on health outcomes would do well to be woven into inter-departmental government and business strategic plans and operations. I am not suggesting additional oversight, regulation, or crutch creation. I am simply suggesting more shared responsibility for that valuable intangible, sustained social support - the kind that helps you stay on track when you are on the road. Healthy by default...hmmm.
PV
P.S. Congrats (& thanks) again, Mr. President!
