Habits For Health
For two decades, Jane Brody has preached the benefits of regular exercise and healthful food. She’s written hundreds of health columns for the New York Times, which also appear in more than 100 other newspapers, given dozens of lectures, written magazine articles and eight books.
Brody hasn’t been on this mission alone. Still, 60 percent of adults in this country do not exercise or have a regular activity, according to Brody. They have lifestyles that lead to health woes rather than prevent them. “Most of the major things that go wrong with our health have something to do with how we live,” Brody said during a phone interview from her New York City home earlier this week.
Brody will bring her expertise and her message to Washington State University Oct. 22 where she will lecture about “how to take charge of your life and fit health and fitness into it.”
While most people know all about the benefits of eating well and exercising, they lack the willpower to make lifestyle changes, according to Brody. What they do have are excuses.
“The most common excuse I get for people not exercising or changing their diet is inertia, it’s just easier to do what you have always done.” Or not done. She advises initially changing just one meal a week to include more healthful food. “It won’t seem so odd that way and at the end of the year, you haven’t had a revolution in the way you eat, you’ve had evolution.”
The other excuse she hears most often is lack of time. Of that she says: “I don’t buy this business about time. If I have time, everyone has time. Exercising doesn’t take time, it makes time because it makes you more efficient the rest of the day.”
She admits there are circumstances in which daily exercise can be challenging, but she says it’s still far from impossible. “I hear women all the time say ‘I can’t go out and exercise because I have a baby at home.’ I say put the baby in a stroller and go. There’s a man I see in Central Park here in New York who has triplets he puts in one of those jogging strollers and he’s out there jogging with three babies.
“What we need to do as a society is increase the access to activity in all walks of life and for all ages. We can take the unused railroad beds and make them into biking and walking trails, we can create safe places to exercise that are accessible to older people.
“And we need to adapt to changing circumstances in our lives. When we go to our country home, it’s more difficult for me to swim. It is easier to exercise in New York City because there are facilities here. We need to expand that accessibility.
“We can make these changes; just look at what we have done with smoking. We need to keep emphasizing the benefits of being active our entire lives. Even now it’s become more a social norm to exercise. That’s how change occurs. Really when you look at the change in our attitude toward smoking over just the last 20 years (the change) is mind boggling,” she says.
Brody maintains a moderate approach to a healthful life. Where some urge elimination of fat from the diet, Brody says to simply cut back. “I don’t preach eliminating fat or red meat from your diet, I say eat those in moderate amounts and add fruits, grains and vegetables,” she says.
“I don’t believe in revolution, I believe in gradual change. I believe in moderation not in extremes and I believe in variety not restrictions.”
Where the options have been staying healthy or using the health-care system, that too is changing. “The day is coming when we are going to have no choice but to use the health system less, which makes it all the more important to stay healthy,” she says.
“To control costs, there will be less (health-care) services available and certain people won’t be given access to expensive procedures unless they can pay for them out-of-pocket.”
Brody has been the New York Times Personal Health columnist for two decades. She earned a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry from the New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University and a master’s degree in science writing from the University of Wisconsin.
She has also been awarded honorary doctorates from Princeton University and from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Staff illustration by Charles Waltmire
MEMO: Jane Brody will deliver the annual Holland Lecture Oct. 22 at 7:15 p.m. at the Washington State University Food Science and Human Nutrition Building. The lecture is free.