Dietician Visit

•      BBAHC’s new Dietician, Jennifer Simpson visited Igiugig and provided fun educational activities at school, individual consultations, and community education, as well as a wonderful array of prizes including all sorts of vegetables and several fruit baskets.  Along with these planned activities she also graciously provided us with an interview to comment on the most important aspects of Diabetes Prevention.

     When asked whether she thought diet or exercise played the most important role in prevention, she said that they appeared to be inextricably linked—you can’t just do one or the other they need to be done together because lots of exercise will be negated by drinking a bunch of soda and eating unhealthy food, just as a fabulous diet is reversed by never getting physical exercise.

     For adults she suggested that anything active counts as exercise—we don’t need to be only counting our trips to the gym or weight room.  A partner to inspire, motivate and encourage you to keep on going is a great way to stay with a regular exercise program because you are accountable to someone else who will remind you to be active.  The other component is, make it fun.  If you dread your workouts, it will never become a lifelong habit.  Some people opt for an indoor track around the perimeter of the living room or up and down hallways that you can hike during commercial breaks in your TV shows.  Exercise in small increments is also fine, if ten minutes at a time is all you have, do that several times throughout the day.  If all you have time for is one walk, scheduling it for after dinner is most effective and a good time to try to get the whole family to join in.

      On the subject of children Jenny felt that they should never be put on a diet.  Further, she shared that up until about the age of seven, portion control isn’t generally necessary because kids will normally lose interest in eating when they are full at younger ages.  For older children you may need to help them learn what a regular portion size looks like since our society has generally supersized all of its fast food options.  Jenny’s best suggestions for keeping our children healthy and happy are:

• Play fun active games with your children to teach them to enjoy being physically active.
• Offer up only healthy foods (don’t keep pop, candy, chips, etc. in your house and they won’t be tempted to want them.)
• Reorganize your pantry and refrigerator to put the healthiest snacks at eye level so when they are looking for food, they will find things that are good for them readily accessible.
• Model a healthy lifestyle—be a productive, active, non-smoking individual that they will want to copy.
• Never promise unhealthy food as a treat for good behavior, either offer them fruit, or something non-edible (i.e. reading their favorite book, first turn at a fun activity, bubble blowing, games, etc.).

…one further suggestion on your healthy lifestyle, use a pedometer and shoot for 10,000 steps each day!

Always ask for the information you need – prevention is the best option!