Technology Helping with Commitment Issues

I came across this article while surfing the internet, and I found it quite inspiring.

A senator loses weight by using twitter? Sounds a bit too good to be true?

The senator’s trainer comments on the issue saying that “what every program is missing is what holds it all together. It’s like a stool – one being exercise, the other being diet.  It’s missing the third leg to keep the stool balanced.  You have to hold yourself accountable. Claire used social media to keep herself publicly accountable.”

Twitter, doesn’t have to be the only form of accountability, you can also use Facebook, weight loss apps, or even just communicating with friends and family can help.

Senator uses Twitter to shed 50 pounds

 

Government & Policy

I went to high school in Southern California, and as most of us know California is a very health conscious state. I remember my sophomore year of high school, there was a new policy passed that no longer allowed our schools to sell soda. In theory this sounds like a great idea, but in reality what really happened? Well, by getting rid of all the sodas from the vending machines they then replaced them with sugary “sports drinks”, and majority of us just stopped using the school vending machines; instead we would walk across the street to the grocery stores or the fast food places and buy soda there and bring it back with us.

This story brings up the whole idea of government responsibility.  People can argue for days about how it’s the government’s fault that we are becoming obese and out of shape; however, the government isn’t force feeding any of us. I’ve heard the idea that fat is like a drug, sometimes compared to cocaine. When an addict wants a drug they will do anything to get it, no matter what laws are in place.

Part of living in America, is being able to exercise our free will thus in order to change our actions we need to WANT to change, not just be told to change.

 

Are school soda bans effective?

Gender Roles

The majority of us spend more than half of our time awake at work, thus many studies for health promotion have started to examine how encouraging healthy competition in the work place can help people lose weight.

The results of one study in particular showed that individual competition wasn’t as successful as team and cooperation competition; however, the results also showed that gender may have an effect on what type of competition works better.  The study showed that males benefit from any type of competition and that female’s benefit more so from smaller team competitions.

I understand that as our society progresses a lot more people are fighting for equal gender rights and treatment; however, the fact of the matter is that we are genetically, biologically, physically, and mentally different thus we need to tailor the way that we market health promotion based on these factors. For example, they tell parents every child is different and in order to be successful at parenting it is important to treat each child differently based on their personal needs. Why does this concept just disappear as we become adults?

Stunkard, Albert, Cohen, Rita, Felix, Michael. Weight Loss Competitions at the Worksite: How they Work and How Well. Preventive Medicine 1989;18:460-474.

Social Health

Last week I was presenting an idea for my undergraduate research project to a group or students who I am peer mentoring. I was explaining the concept of competition acting as motivation for people, when it was brought to my attention that we see this concept in group work out classes.

How many people are more motivated to do something because someone else is doing it? What about those who are already in shape? Could working out with a group of people who are the same gender, age and/or BMI as you motivate you to try harder?  For example, in high school I was on our track team and my best friend would go to cardio kickboxing right after practice and for some reason this always made me want to go to the gym after practice as well at an attempt to be in better shape than my friend. Or even better, I can’t even explain how many times I’ve gone to the gym and subconsciously start running faster because I feel like I’m racing the person next to me.

However, at what point does competition become discouraging? Are there different types of competition? How big would a “group” of people who work out or discuss nutrition together have to be? What about those who don’t really consider themselves competitive, could the right chemistry of a group motivate them?

The New Food Journal

Take a minute and think about your daily routine. How big of a role does technology play? Could you go an entire day without using one piece of technology? Could you go an entire week, or even a month? While everyone tends to criticize our society’s addiction to using technology, what would our lives be like without it? At this point we’re too far gone to even consider going back to the old days of pigeon mail and walking barefooted, up hill in the snow everywhere.

How about we stop complaining about how technology is ruining our social skills, and making us lazy and fat and actually do something about it. Here’s an idea, how about we start using technology to address a few of these issues.

Since the modernization of our society our work load was greatly increased; we no longer have the time or the energy to go out for an evening stroll, or to cook an extravagant but healthy meal. Most of us are lucky to even have a few seconds to relax and do something we enjoy thus contributing to obesity.

Studies over the years have proven that keeping a food journal can help us lose weight; however, how many people actually want to carry around a little book, record everything we eat, and then later look up the calories for each food. There is now an easy solution to this problem.

Today there are various applications for your trendy iPhone, or Droid that allow you to simply record each food you eat throughout the day and it will record the calories for you and then calculate your total calories for the day.