{"id":1318277,"date":"2020-02-16T19:48:01","date_gmt":"2020-02-17T02:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/doctors-tip-dietary-changes-are-evolutionary-not-revolutionary\/"},"modified":"2020-02-16T19:48:01","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T02:48:01","slug":"doctors-tip-dietary-changes-are-evolutionary-not-revolutionary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/doctors-tip-dietary-changes-are-evolutionary-not-revolutionary\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor\u2019s Tip: Dietary changes are evolutionary not revolutionary"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Being a newcomer to the valley, one of the first few people I met was Dr. Greg Feinsinger. I had previously read many of his columns and was thus delighted to have a chance to talk with him, and more than glad to write this guest column.<\/p>\n

As a university professor of public health, my career is based on investigating how people adopt health-protective behaviors. The principles are vastly different and vary based on the behavior in question. For instance, an easy health behavior to alter is having an annual flu shot \u2014 sound public health practice dictates that making vaccination \u201ceasy to do\u201d will greatly increase vaccination rates. A somewhat more demanding example involves screenings for preventable cancers such as those occurring in the cervix, breast or colon. My career has been focused on an even more demanding challenge: promoting the consistent use of condoms among people most at-risk of acquiring HIV.<\/p>\n

However, throughout my 22 years in public health it has been clear that two health behaviors are by far the most challenging to alter: exercise and diet. This is true for three reasons: 1) meaningful clinical benefit occurs only with constant (daily in the case of diet) repetition of the behavior, 2) \u201cresults\u201d of the behaviors are often not readily apparent (particularly with dietary changes), and 3) the surrounding cultural, physical and \u201cmarket\u201d environments may not support the new behaviors.<\/p>\n

Regarding culture\/environment, in my short time being part of the valley community it is apparent that the prevailing culture and environment strongly support vigorous exercise behaviors. Thus, the ultimate \u201chealth challenge\u201d for people reading this column is probably the ongoing process of making dietary changes. Although I am tempted to describe numerous theories of health behavior that explain how long-lasting dietary changes occur, I have opted instead to \u201ccompact\u201d the major tenets into a few key points to consider the next time you \u201cfeel guilty\u201d about not making a major dietary change or not keeping one you had begun.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Foods high in refined carbohydrates have an addictive quality \u2014 this physiological reaction sets up a positive reinforcement pathway that can be very difficult to overcome.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Social and \u201cmarket\u201d support for eating high-fiber, single-ingredient, low-sodium\/low sugar, and low-fat foods is often lacking in U.S. society \u2014 this barrier can be overwhelming.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Americans view food as a source of pleasure. This means that healthy alternatives must be prepared in a way that translates into a \u201ctaste experience\u201d meeting or exceeding that coming from traditional diets of meat, potatoes, refined carbohydrates, etc.<\/p>\n

So the solution here is not simple, but it does exist. First, learn as much as you can about healthy food options \u2014 the more you know the less you will appreciate the somewhat empty experience of refined foods and animal products. Second, engineer your environment as much as possible to make eating the right foods the easy option (your choices in the grocery store may be as important as your health care decisions). Third, learn how to cook (or where to buy) healthy foods that taste exquisite to your palate.<\/p>\n

Let me conclude with the counter-argument. Namely, these changes do not occur quickly. Instead, they should be thought about as evolving \u2014 often with instances of reversal or avoidance. What this means is that nobody should ever feel like they cannot succeed in making meaningful dietary changes \u2014 everyone who succeeds also has multiple instances of failures. In short, dietary changes are difficult \u2014 the key is persistence in your efforts rather than giving into feelings that the task is overwhelming.<\/p>\n

Dr. Crosby holds a PhD from Indiana University and began a public health career as a Fellow of the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine (assigned to the Centers for Disease Control and to the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University). Crosby has been an active researcher and teacher in public health since 1998. As the author of 10 textbooks used to train the next generation of public health professionals, Crosby\u2019s primary focal point is the application of the behavioral and social sciences to preventing both chronic and infectious diseases.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being a newcomer to the valley, one of the first few people I met was Dr. Greg Feinsinger. I had previously read many of his columns and was thus delighted to have a chance to talk with him, and more than glad to write this guest column. As a university professor of public health, my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1318277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-05 19:25:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1318277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1318277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1318277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1318277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1318277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1318277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}