This is the Sunday evening WHEE diary. Do take a look at the first three WHEE diaries from yesterday (sheddhead and bluesophie) and this morning (louisev).
WHEE (Weight, Health, Eating and Exercise) is a community support diary for Kossacks who are currently or planning to start losing, gaining or maintaining their weight through diet and exercise or fitness. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are working on your weight or fitness, please -- join us! You can also click the WHEE tag to view all diary posts.
My contribution to WHEE will mostly be in presenting some of the controversial issues surrounding fitness, exercise, and weight loss/gain to the group for discussion and analysis. I am especially interested in questions of science versus pseudoscience in the whole area of health and fitness. The politics of health/nutrition is also of concern and bears directly upon the dieting and weight loss/gain issues that so many of us struggle with.
Please consider this post a call for topics: what are you interested in that we might look into in more depth in terms of scientific validity or credibility? What skeptical questions come to mind regarding weight, health, eating, and exercise? I will do my best to find valid information that we can examine together and benefit from--or reject!
I am not a health care professional; I am a social scientist deeply concerned about the appalling lack of scientific literacy in our country and world. Unfortunately, much of this illiteracy infects the whole area of health and fitness, and health care professionals themselves are not necessarily good scientists, sad to say. Scientific ignorance--about processes, not just results--has ruined the health of the nation because we are so easily conned and bamboozled.
I teach anthropology at a small university and have been teaching courses on science and pseudoscience for years, in addition to my standard courses in cultural and biological anthropology, all of which provide much "food for thought" about diet and nutrition, illness, wellness, and exercise. I will be sharing some of the ideas and information that anthropology has to offer and that I have found helpful in everyday life.
I also have struggled for years with my weight. Like most girls coming of age in the 60s, I dreamed of looking like Twiggy and some of the other gaunt British models--remember them? I was fortunate to be a slender child and young adult (although I did not believe I was skinny enough at the time!), but gained weight in middle age. Like so many, I have tried numerous diets, which worked for a while but were unsustainable in the long run. Graduate school is what really did me in: I ate whole bags of Pepperidge Farm Brussels Mint cookies while typing my dissertation, as well as numerous other heavenly but deadly snacks.
But in retrospect, I now realize that my weight gain beginning in the early 80s corresponds with the acceleration of the obesity epidemic in America (and increasingly other countries), which itself corresponds with a dramatic shift in the diet away from fats and toward refined sugars and grains stripped of their nutrients, as well as the now-ubiquitous high fructose corn syrup. One of my anthropology colleagues is in the middle of a research project looking at child obesity, especially in rural areas, and I may bring you some of her findings (with her permission, of course) in the near future. (I'm also interested in what our "resident pediatrician," StrangeAnimals, has to say about all this!)
Planned WHEE diarists and their days and times (thus far) will include:
Sat PM - bluesophie
Sun AM - louisev
Sun PM - StageStop
Mon AM - Sheddhead (a joint diary with fitness Monday)
Mon PM - cusoon
Tues AM - help
Tues PM - debbieleft
Wed AM - Edward Spurlock
Wed PM - Sheddhead
Thu AM - StrangeAnimals
Thu PM - help
Our roster so far (let me know if you want to be added):
The current members of WHEE are:
1864 House
3rdGenFeminist
anotherCT dem
anotherdem
askew
batgirl71
bfitzinAR
bluesophie
Brimi
CA coastsider
Cassandra77
chicago minx
Chocolate Chris
coigue
CONEFLOWER42
crystal eyes (?)
cusoon
debbieleft
Dragonladykatie
Ebby
econlibVL - cheerleader
Ed G
Edward Spurlock
Embee
Fabian
fiddler crabby
flor de jasmine
freesia
gchaucer2
glow dog
GoldnI
Greasy Grant
it really is that important
jiffykeen
Ken in Tex
kkbDIA
lineatus
Lisamoe - cheerleader
louisev
luvsathoroughbred
marleycat
matching mole
Munchkn
Oke
Pandoras Box
Proylance (?)
RiaD
RLMiller
Roadette
roses
RunawayRose
SallyCat - cheerleader
Shayle
sheba
sheddhead
StageStop
StrangeAnimals - cheerleader
supenau
Tenn Wisc Dem
trs - cheerleader
volleyboy1
webranding
Wee Mama
xysea
Next week, I want to look at what anthropologists currently believe about the "prehistoric diet" and how humanity's nutritional intake has changed over the past few millennia with first the advent of farming and then the development of the so-called modern diet. There is so much bogus, pseudoscientific information out there regarding this subject.
For now, I have a topic for your consideration: in the WHEE diary comments, so many talk about trying to "eat healthy," but that leaves one big question mark--exactly what do we mean by "healthy"? Unfortunately for us all, that question has not been satisfactorily--nor scientifically--answered!
Have a great week, everyone, however you might define "healthy"!