John Davidson's Intregrative Health Coach Column

Integrative health coaching is a concept pioneered by Duke University’s Integrative Medicine program. John completed training at Duke with the program’s second class of students in 2009 and brought this perspective into his columns alongside a deepening vision about the central importance of heart intelligence as a foundation of health.

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Current Integrative Health Coach Column

Obesity, National Security and the School Lunch

First Lady Michelle Obama is attempting to focus our attention on obesity.

Good for her!

Here are some facts, in case you’ve missed them.

One in three American children are obese. This is an epidemic far beyond the scope or even importance of an epidemic like the H1N1 virus. There has been less hype about obesity, perhaps because death from obesity is a slower process, and there is no vaccination for it.

Obesity is a primary risk factor for all major diseases, and continues to increase among younger age groups.

Mission: Readiness – an organization of retired admirals and generals – notes in a recent report that 75% of all young people aged 17 to 24 are unqualified for military service. One in four doesn’t qualify for want of completion of high school. One in ten doesn’t qualify because of a criminal record. One in two doesn’t qualify due to health reasons, and obesity accounts for one third of those health problem.

These are incredible statistics. Seventy-five percent! And the 75%, when you dig into health studies, is all related in some degree to the same high sugar diet that fuels the obesity that makes up a good part of that figure.

It takes no imagination to guess what will happen to an overloaded health care system due to this problem alone in just a few years, not to mention the other health issues increasingly suffered by young and old alike.

A recent study from Temple University suggests that eating together as a family, reducing television time, and getting adequate sleep reduces the rates of obesity.

Dr. Mercola, who has several articles on this subject on his website www.mercola.com, focuses on exercise (he wants to begin treating exercise like medicine: ughhh! What happened to play?), getting away from television, limiting intake of fructose to 25 grams a day, and cooking from scratch.

Most children are getting fructose in vastly higher amounts from processed foods, soft drinks, and candy, any of which may contain high-fructose corn syrup. High-fructose corn syrup has recently been reported to contain mercury, a toxin that is associated with many other health conditions, including autism.

Studies show that a diet high in fructose can create fat around the major organs in just a matter of weeks.

In today’s political climate, its unlikely that Congress is going to limit advertising by corporate sponsors who market fructose to children by intensive television campaigns.

What can you do?

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