2013-05-20T01:48:06-04:00 Dr Mike Hart http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=dr-mike-hart Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Dr Mike Hart Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2883807 2013-03-15T12:53:38-04:00 2013-05-15T05:12:01-04:00

Dr Mike Hart http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mike-hart/
The underlying problem and forgotten solution

The underlying problem to the obesity epidemic is the current population's lack of connectivity to the soil, the environment and the food supply. There was once a time when food was scarce and acquiring a healthy food supply required hard work and sacrifice, nowadays you can purchase a thousand calorie meal (albeit with no nutrients) for a just a few dollars on nearly every street corner. Presently, kids, and many adults for that matter, have little knowledge about where there food comes from and how it was produced. Unfortunately, a large portion of the population understands their food comes from a box in a grocery store or from the delivery guy at the pizza parlour, and that's the extent of their knowledge. A hundred years ago people knew which farmers raised their chickens and which gardener grew their vegetables. They were connected to their environment and connected to their community; unfortunately many of us have lost this connection, which is vital to our health and well being.

Where to start?

The best place to start is with yourself and those around you. Get familiar with your local food supply and where it comes from. When you become interested in where your food comes from and how it became available to you, you begin to develop a curiosity about nutrition and your health. You may question if antibiotics or hormones were injected into your meat, or if your vegetables were sprayed with pesticides. You will no longer mindlessly place boxed hamburgers and canned vegetables into your shopping cart without considering the nutritional and ethical ramifications of purchasing low quality food. This type of questioning and thinking is critical if our goal is to develop a healthier population and more sustainable environment.

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Do health professionals know how to grow food?

During my academic career I completed a nutrition degree, a medical degree and a two-year family medicine residency program. That's over 10 years of health related education, yet I was never taught how to grow my own food. I believe that if you work in healthcare, it should be required to spend some time with an organic farmer. Organic farmers are the unsung heroes of the world and provide us with what is vitally important to our health and well being; high quality organic food that can prevent and treat disease. Organic farmers may not be trained to memorize the exact recommended daily intake of every vitamin and nutrient, but they know how to produce healthy sustainable food, critical knowledge that many health experts are lacking.

How to get your kids to eat vegetables

If you're having difficulty getting your child eating vegetables, I have a solution for you. Teach them to grow their own vegetables. You teach your kids to grow kale and they'll eat kale. You teach them to grow spinach and they'll eat spinach. It's that simple. They'll also start to develop an appreciation for food, soil, the environment and earth itself. In addition, it teaches kids valuable life lessons about community, teamwork, patience and respect for one another and their local community.

What should schools do?

Let's call a spade a spade. There's a lot of useless materiel in the curriculum of public education. I think we can all agree that it would be reasonable to eliminate some of the materiel in favour of teaching valuable lessons such as growing and preparing food. The fact that you can graduate high school without knowing how to grow and prepare a nutritious meal is not only pathetic, it's detrimental to our kids' health and well-being. The good news is that it can easily be taught. If you can perform grade 12 math calculations, you can learn how and what nutrients are necessary to allow our body to function properly.

Closing thoughts

The disconnection western society has from its environment -- the soil and the food supply -- is the underlying issue in the obesity epidemic. If we can reconnect our current population with the food supply and the community, we will create a healthier and brighter future for generations to come.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2806337 2013-03-07T08:37:18-05:00 2013-05-07T05:12:01-04:00

Dr Mike Hart http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mike-hart/ The 21st century is the century of excuses.

People don't like being held accountable for their actions and like to blame their problems on anyone but themselves. This is especially true when it comes to their weight and genetics. When you can blame genetics, you're no longer held accountable for your weight problems and you basically accept defeat.

Nature vs. Nurture
Let's say you have two different people (person A&B) from two different gene pools. Now let's assume that both people follow an identical unhealthy diet and poor exercise regime. Both people visit their family doc for an annual check up and get a fasting blood glucose test, which yield completely different results.

Person A has perfectly normal fasting blood glucose while person B has a sky-high reading and consequently is diagnosed with diabetes. So, if two people followed the same diet and exercise routine, and one person got sick while the other stayed healthy, the difference must be their genetics right? Wrong. Dead wrong.

Person B could have eaten green veggies, ditched the junk food and exercised in order to prevent diabetes. Even though person B wasn't as lucky genetically as person A, they could have controlled their environment and remained disease free. Despite their poor genetics, they still had control.

Genetics vs. Epigenetics
Some people are predisposed to certain conditions, like obesity. When you're predisposed to obesity, unless you do everything you can to control your environment you'll likely end up overweight. That means you can still decide your own fate. It means if you control everything in your environment no one will ever believe you have bad genetics.

Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype, caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence (1). It means that not all genes that you inherited from mom and dad (your genotype) are expressed (your phenotype). Yes, you read that correctly, not all of your genes (good or bad) will be expressed if you take control of your environment.

What if I do everything to control my environment and I'm still not thin?
Only worry about what you can control. I will never be Michael Jordan, Mohammad Ali or Wayne Gretzky. I guess I should never play basketball, learn how to box or play ice hockey. How ridiculous does that sound?

When most people workout they expect to look like Sylvester Stallone in a month. I'll tell you now: you probably need to be born with a genetic mutation to look like Stallone did in Rocky 4 (or a little chemical help). It's unreasonable to believe that everyone can diet down to single digit body fat. It's not unreasonable however to believe that we can all achieve a healthy body weight, a healthy body image and a healthy mind. The point I'm trying to make is that you should never compare yourselves to others and you should only strive to look, feel and perform the best that you can. That's all you can do, worrying about anything else is counterproductive and a waste of your time.

Acceptance & Responsibility
Accept your genetics and who you are but do not accept an unhealthy lifestyle. It's your responsibility to eat your veggies, exercise, get to bed early and decrease stress as much as possible. You can't control everything, but you may be able to control more than what you believe.

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