Meet the “Big Three” Generals—in the War on Obesity

Posted on 10/26/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

Prominent leaders in academia, government and healthcare

Dr. Kelly Brownell, Director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.

Okay, I confess, the puns were intentional. In May of 2012, HBO aired a multi-night special entitled, “Weight of the Nation.” In my opinion, it was pretty much worthless when it came to helping people take charge of their health and lose weight. I wrote several blogs about it and you can see the links below. But I will tell you here what I remember most.

One of the leading officials in the video was a morbidly obese man (shown here). And guess what? He is arguably our nation’s leading authority on obesity. Armed with a fancy title at Yale University, he spends his day giving out advice about controlling obesity—advice  that is clearly not working for him.

But Dr. Brownell is not alone when it comes to “fighting obesity with obesity.” There are plenty of waistlines to go around in our world of big-time healthcare. How about Dr. Regina Benjamin, our nation’s Surgeon General (pictured below). How can we fight the war on obesity—when our leaders’ waistlines are the enemy?

Dr. Regina Benjamin, Surgeon General of the United States. Not a great pick, Mr. President.

How important is the messenger when it comes to promoting health? In my opinion, the messenger is very important when it comes to our leaders in the crucially important process of “taming the healthcare monster” in the USA and the world. We taught the world how to get fat—now we must teach them how to get healthy. And we need to put our best foot forward.

As for the messenger, can you imagine going to a weight-loss clinic that has obese trainers? How about taking lifestyle advice from a doctor who’s taking five prescription drugs and has a 40-inch waistline? How about going to a cosmetologist who has out-of-control acne? No, no, no. We all want to learn from teachers and coaches who model the behavior and exhibit the qualities that we want for ourselves.

Obesity is a big problem (and still growing) in America, in the rest of the western world and now in Asia. The experts are projecting that by 2030—a whopping 44% of Americans will be obese. That’s when some of our states, like my boyhood home of Mississippi, will have a population that is nearly 2/3 obese. Obesity is now trending to become the new normal.

Growing at about one percentage point per year, that equates to adding almost 10,000 people to the obese ranks—every single day in the United States.

George Halvorson, CEO of Kaiser Permanente, the nation’s largest managed care company and hospital system—plans to retire at the end of 2013.

Managed care & Hospital Sector. The biggest player in this field (there goes that pun again) is the CEO of the nation’s largest healthcare company. Not sure what he’s getting paid, but it’s safe to say that it is well north of the industry average of $10.3 million a year in 2011 (According to Becker’s Hospital Review).

The Bottom Line. These images of our nation’s most prominent generals in the war on obesity should be like a “blinding flash of the obvious.” Something is terribly wrong with our approach to obesity—and healthcare in general in this country.

Could part of the reason be that the “experts” that we have running the most important pieces don’t have a clue how to taking charge of their own health? It all begins with LEADERSHIP. We must correct this mess by putting some healthy people in charge—healthy people who look healthy and know how to help other people become healthy.

How about noted author and health promoter, Dr. John McDougall? I would wager that he has helped more people take charge of their health than any other person—ever. And he has publicly declared himself a candidate for the role of Surgeon General. He did so in the middle of this one hour video (October 2012), wherein he explains an innovative solution to our nation’s healthcare crisis.

As for our presidential election 11 days from now, my own voting decision was made months ago. But I would vote for the other guy if he promised to appoint Dr. John McDougall as our Surgeon General in January. (This is my 629th consecutive daily blog)

2008 Imaginary conversation (November 2008) between President elect Obama and Dr. McDougall—if he had been appointed Surgeon General four years ago

One more thing. I find that it’s difficult to find full-length photos of famous people, who happen to be obese. They tend to be somewhat camera-shy and prefer to use professional head-shots for the media. But there’s no hiding from the camera in this picture. The man in the khaki pants is our nation’s foremost authority on obesity.

In the khaki pants, Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity

A few of my earlier blogs on this topic:

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic Survey. It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online BookStore now

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

SHARE and rate this post below.

Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation

Posted in Activism & Leadership, Obesity | 9 Comments

Two Words. Two Pages. Two Months.

Posted on 10/25/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

Promoting the simplicity of plant-based eating

Blogging from Vermont in autumn—good for promoting clarity and simplicity

My mantra has always been K.I.S.S. — Keep it simple stupid. Unfortunately the rest of the world tends to complicate everything. Congress is split right down the middle on virtually every issue, there is rarely any common ground of wisdom—and confusion over clarity has never been worse.

Our mainstream journalists often write about urgent issues and desperately sad situations but rarely offer any kind of clarity when it comes to resolving them.

But, as for me, I specialize in CLARITY!

Want to learn how to take charge of your own health, solve our nation’s cost of healthcare dilemma, end world hunger, nurture the environment, curb global warming, conserve fossil fuels and end the barbaric torture of two billion sentient beings every week? What could be simpler than 2 words, 2 pages and 2 months:

  • Two Words are WHOLE PLANTS. We need to get most of our calories from whole plants.
  • Two Pages are the 4Leaf Chart and the 4Leaf Survey. Take a look at both and you will quickly understand the concept and how far away you are from a near-optimal diet. From the survey, you can see real clearly the changes you’ll need to make in your diet in order to be deriving the vast majority of your calories from whole plants.
  • Two Months are up to you. That’s about how long it will take for you to form some new eating habits and take charge of your health. You just need to make the commitment to eat at the 4Leaf level for two months. During those two months, your tastes will change, your body will reward you in a number of ways and you will lose your cravings for the unhealthful foods of your past. Don’t try to gradually move up the scale to 4Leaf. Do yourself a favor, do it all at once and never look back.

628 Consecutive Daily Blogs (numerals from the “sportsman’s paradise”)

Conviction. Okay, there’s probably one more “two” that you might need. You might need anywhere from two weeks to two months of study and contemplation to convince yourself to make the “two month” commitment described above. A good place to start that initial study period is right here. Order these four items shown below and get started. That will cost you about $50.

But this site is free. As of today (10-25-12), there are now 628 blogposts that may help you experience your own “blinding flash of the obvious.” There are over 60 categories of topics on this  site and you can easily find multiple blogs on any of those topics. Have you read my piece on the “sustainability of the human race?” That might be a good place to start.

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic Survey. It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online BookStore now

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

SHARE and rate this post below.

Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation

Posted in Activism & Leadership | 2 Comments

Multi-vitamins for preventing cancer? Give me a break!

Posted on 10/24/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

Great news for Pfizer’s Centrum — Great disservice for the public

Great free advertising for Centrum

In the New York Times, the story began: “After a series of conflicting reports about whether vitamin pills can stave off chronic disease, researchers announced on Wednesday that a large clinical trial of nearly 15,000 older male doctors followed for more than a decade found that those taking a daily multivitamin experienced 8 percent fewer cancers than the subjects taking dummy pills.” (See link below)

Talking about confusion over clarity—and giving the public a false sense of security that comes with continuing their vitamin-taking regimen.

So John Q. Public hears the news that was announced on all the major networks on 10-17-12 and says, “Boy, sure glad I’ve been taking my Centrum Silver.” He also hears that doctors also recommend exercise, no smoking and balanced diet to help reduce the risk of cancer.

Later, while reading his New York Times online, he notices a link to the balanced diet that he heard about on the broadcast. There he learns absolutely nothing of value. In fact, he learns more dangerous information.

The American Cancer Society recommends that people eat a balanced diet, but that those who take supplements choose a balanced multivitamin that contains no more than 100 percent of the daily value of most nutrients.

Early detection continues to trump true prevention—the elimination of the cause.

Notice the link to a “balanced diet” in the above text. Well, here’s the first two components of that “balanced” diet recommended by the American Cancer Society, the very “foods” that science has shown are among the leading causes of cancer. Makes me wonder why they left out the eggs. From the balanced diet link:

The term “balanced” simply means that a diet meets your nutritional needs while not providing too much of any nutrients. To achieve a balanced diet, you must eat a variety of foods from each of the food groups.

Milk group (dairy products)

      • Cheese: fat-free or reduced-fat (1%)
      • Milk or buttermilk: fat-free (skim) or low-fat (1%)
      • Yogurt: fat-free or low-fat, regular or frozen

Most of us have been taught that we “need” to eat animal protein to be healthy. Apparently the American Cancer Society still believes it.

Meat and beans group

      • Legumes (including beans, lentils, peas, and split peas)
      • Meat (beef, pork, poultry with skin removed, game meats, fish, shellfish): select lean cuts; trim away visible fat; broil, roast, or poach
      • Nuts and seeds (including almonds, hazelnuts, mixed nuts, peanuts, peanut butter, sunflower seeds, walnuts)
      • Tofu, tempeh, and other soy-protein products

Sadly, John Q. draws his conclusions about doing all that he can to prevent cancer before reading from another article published the same day by the BBC.

Dr Helga Groll, health information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: “Although this study suggests that men in the trial had a slightly lower cancer risk if they took multivitamins, we can’t be sure from this research whether this is a true effect or down to chance.

“Many other large studies tell us that vitamin and mineral supplements don’t protect against cancer – they either have no effect or can even increase cancer risk in some cases.

“The best way to get a full range of vitamins and minerals is to eat a healthy, balanced diet with a wide variety of fruit and vegetables. Most healthy people shouldn’t need to take supplements although some may be advised to do so by their doctor.”

The Bottom Line. John Q. Public is dealing with a serious shortage of accurate and complete information. Even if he read fifty other stories on this topic and consulted with umpteen oncologists, he would still know very little more about truly preventing cancer.

627 Consecutive Daily Blogs (With the numerals on a big diesel locomotive; reminding me of my college years working for Norfolk Southern Railroad.

Why is that? We devoted an entire chapter to that question in our book. Dr. Campbell devoted a full one third of his 300 pages in his book, The China Study. For your convenience, here are links to the source articles and a few of my earlier blogs on this topic:

Want to reverse 95% of heart disease and type 2 diabetes? Want to prevent, slow, stop and/or reverse some cancers? The following 4-piece “clarity kit” is a good place to start.

Footnote: While wondering about the funding for the study, I found this paragraph in the article:

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and a grant, initiated by the investigators, from the chemical company BASF. Pfizer provided the multivitamins. The sponsors did not influence the study design, data analysis or manuscript preparation, the authors said.

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic Survey. It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online BookStore now

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

SHARE and rate this post below.

Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation

Posted in Cancer, Vitamins & Supplements | Tagged | 1 Comment