Health
Habits
Food
Weight 
Better Than Butternut: Roasted Delicata Squash Recipe
10 Simple Ways To Eat Less Without Noticing
Juicing: Stupid and Pretentious or Nourishing and Enlightening?
10 Tasty Carbs That Won’t Make You Fat
How To Start Working Out When You Don’t Like To Exercise
Focus More on Your Brain and Less on Your Diet if You’re Serious About Losing Weight
Home Court Habits: The Secret to Effortless Weight Control
10 Reasons You Aren’t Losing Weight When You Think You’re Doing Everything Right
How To Burn More Calories Without Breaking A Sweat
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Foodists
For the Love of Food
by Darya Rose | May 22, 2015
For The Love of Food
Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.
This week the science of Dad Bod, omega-3s impact kids’ behavior, and the dangers of drinking before you know you’re preggers.
Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app I just discovered to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!
Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). Be sure to follow me on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (Yes, I took that picture of the pepper heart myself.)
Links of the week
- The Dad Bod, Quantified <<My friends, especially the male ones, won’t shut up about the new hot “Dad Bod.” I have mixed feelings about it. While I’m all for realistic expectations and body acceptance, I also think taking pride in caring for yourself and your health are important values to us as individuals and as a society. Ladies, are you really digging this? (NY Times)
- Can drinking alcohol harm the child before the mother knows she is pregnant? <<I feel like the vast majority (98%?) of the women I know who are pregnant or recently conceived didn’t worry about their alcohol intake until after knowing about their pregnancy (several weeks after conception). Apparently, this is a really bad idea. (ScienceDaily)
- Skipping meals linked to abdominal weight gain <<Intermittent fasting is all the rage in some circles, but be careful what you wish for. (ScienceDaily)
- Lack of Exercise Can Disrupt the Body’s Rhythms <<Super preliminary research, but also super fascinating implications for the impact of physical activity on circadian rhythms and aging. “Take away a young mouse’s running wheel and its activity patterns will look similar to that in an older animal.” (NY Times)
- Obesity increases risk of developing cancer <<In case you were wondering, metabolic health is not the only thing to consider when it comes to obesity. (ScienceDaily)
- The Kitchen Garden Goes High Tech <<If I were to ever leave my garden in SF and move into a smaller apartment in Manhattan, I would totally consider one of these. (NY Times)
- Nori Is My Go-To, Wheat-Free Burrito Wrap <<I had an intense craving for seaweed recently (maybe I needed iodine?) and was making similar snacks to this all this week. Yum! (The Kitchn)
- Omega-3: Intervention for childhood behavioral problems? <<Impressive study. I’m excited to see science finally trying to connect the dots between nutrition and behavior. (ScienceDaily)
- Omega-3 fatty acids enhance cognitive flexibility in at-risk older adults <<I love when nutrition science acknowledges that there is a difference between sufficient and optimal nutrition. You should shoot for optimal. (ScienceDaily)
- A Few Words on How to Cook Artichokes <<Artichokes are one of my favorite foods, and this is similar to how I cooked the smaller ones. I eat as many as I can get my hands on this time of year. (101 Cookbooks)
What inspired you this week?
Drinking alcohol while you’re actively trying to get pregnant (or not trying not to be, depending on how coy you want to be about things) has always been a terrible idea. All of us physicians, regardless of specialty, will tell you that the first 15 or so weeks of fetal life are absolutely critical for proper brain and organ development. Because of the incredibly complicated and high rate of cell growth and migration, the fetus is exquisitely sensitive to any kind of toxic influence during this time. This freaks some people out but really all it means is don’t have more than a few sips of your hubby’s bubbly during this special time- a small sacrifice for the sweet little bundle you will eventually receive!
Really the science is simply proving what should be common sense that fast dividing cells of an embryo are sensitive to anything artificial and harmful to humans. No excuse for drinking in our current culture of planned pregnancies. If women are drinking up until they find out they ARE pregnant could be a reason for so many childhood issues (ADD, ADHD, autism, leukemia, brain cancer, allergies, etc.) on the rise.
The Dad Bod article says they carry 10 more pounds than non-dads. How do you find that this doesn’t correlate with taking pride in caring for yourself and your health? 10 pounds! In my 30’s I struggled mightily to get my weight as low as possible, luckily I avoided an ED in the process. I’m now almost 50 and I weigh 10 pounds more than I did in my 30’s. I’m very happy at this weight now and very healthy. I wish I hadn’t struggled so much when I was younger, and it was only because I was trying to conform to a societal ideal that is clearly not healthy for me. I never did get into a size 2, but with age comes the wisdom to realize that it doesn’t matter — and dress size has nothing to do with health. My body functions optimally with a higher amount of body-fat…everyone is different.
It’s not the weight I was referring to it was in the increase in visceral fat, which is known to be dangerous.
Regarding the “dad bod” — I really wouldn’t want to hold up my man (men, if you count the guys in my family) to the same beauty standards that society holds women to. If they’d rather have some low-maintenance belly flab than a sixpack, that’s perfectly fine with me, and I love my boyfriend with this and all! 🙂
Only if he or someone else in my family was heavily overweight, I would share my concern for their health with them; but so far, no one is.
The articles in your list are very interesting.
About Dad´s bod article. We as parents (men and women) worry about taking our kids to a bunch of activities during the day, sports, art, etc. but something funny happens, we forget about keeping up our own activities.
We seem to find the time for our kids to be active, but not for ourselves.
I believe the Dad´s bod issue applies to women as well, and I think the reason is that we tend to put our kids as a priority without considering that if we are healthy we can offer them more.
As per the exercise and the circadian rhythms article goes. I think it is very interesting but at the same time makes a lot of sense that physical movement affects your natural rhythms.
Just look at your sleep and hunger when you exercise, that changes. Your stress levels decrease and your mood improves. All of that must contribute to your internal clock.
Bottom line, I agree that exercise improves the rhythm of our lives and how we age.
You really think 10 lbs of excess adipose tissue is dangerous? Citations, please. I think you’re over-reaching here. Perfection IS the enemy of good.
From NYT – http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/health/study-suggests-lower-death-risk-for-the-overweight.html
Regarding the dad bod, I also have mixed feelings. On the one hand, we should be expanding our notions of what’s attractive, because it’s not realistic to expect every man to have a 6 pack.
On the other hand, my husband is overweight, and at his heaviest he would see stars or lose his vision during physical exertion that would only be moderate for most people. He also wouldn’t walk short distance with me (to the store, for example) because it was too tiring for him. This was pretty scary, because we are both young and I didn’t want to see him develop obesity-related diseases and see him suffer into his middle and old age. Moreover, it was harder to share our lives together when his primary hobby was staying inside and playing Warcraft.
That was a few years ago, and he’s made some important changes since, like quitting smoking and (almost) completely giving up soda. He did not enjoy being unhealthy and he feels a lot better. We play basketball and tennis together now, and go on impromptu walks together. Going outside and getting some sunshine and activity together is the highlight of our weeks; nothing brings us more joy. It’s not about our physical appearances, but our ability to share our lives together, to be alert and energetic, to have the motivation to simply go outside and unplug from distraction together.
‘Skipping meals linked to abdominal weight gain’ how about those cheating days when, after having a healthy breakfast, one indulges in a massive lunch (starter, main, dessert) and is literally not hungry for the rest of the day? Does this affect metabolism and result in weight gain in the same manner as described in the study? And what if this happens on every weekly cheating day?
I’m not a fan of the formal cheat day, but rare skipping is fine I’m sure. These research studies are just to show general guidelines of healthy behavior, not inviolate rules.
I believe Darya meant ‘visceral fat’ not ‘adipose fat’ (which would be redundant). And indeed, increased visceral fat is a well documented risk factor for all sorts of metabolic and endocrine derangements. Ten pounds of visceral fat is NOT a matter of vanity- that amount of fat surrounding your vital organs is a true health concern. As a pathologist, I’ve done autopsies on people with relatively ‘normal’ body weights but a slightly increased abdominal girth and upon opening their abdominal and thoracic cavities found liver, heart, kidneys and other vital organs obscured by this highly metabolically active (and not in a good way) type of fat.
I completely agree that striving for the cologne ad six pack is not what we should be going for, and no one should hold themselves to the superficial standards of the commercial industry we are so immersed in on a daily basis. However, we should be using all the tools at our disposal to make sure we are giving ourselves as many highly functional and vital years on this earth. Those tools include monitoring our abdominal girth and, unless we’re building muscle, trending our weight over the years. Nothing wrong with that.
Darya is simply reminding us that we must not mistake body acceptance for ignoring potential signs of impending disease. Keep up the good work, Darya!
Thank you, Natalie. Clearly I have vacation brain. Cheers from Italy 🙂
I believe that the attraction towards “dad bod” is indirect (spurious correlation). I think many women associate “dad bod” as those who prioritize their children than themselves (which is attractive) , like another commenter mentioned, we only have so much time in our hands, sometimes it’s difficult to actively strive for both one’s personal health as one would like to (I’m not saying they completely neglect their health and fitness, it’s just difficult to do it as diligently as one would like too. On the other hand, if I saw a dad with a six pack and who was super fit, I can’t help but assume that he cares more about his body than the priorities of the household. I think we subconsicously or consciously assume that their body is a reflection/indicator of their personality and how they prioritize children/home. (whether it’s true or not, i believe we make these assumptions).
I believe that the attraction towards “dad bod” is indirect (spurious correlation). I think many women associate “dad bod” as those who prioritize their children than themselves (which is attractive) , like another commenter mentioned, we only have so much time in our hands, sometimes it’s difficult to actively strive for both one’s personal health as one would like to (I’m not saying they completely neglect their health and fitness, it’s just difficult to do it as diligently as one would like too. On the other hand, if I saw a dad with a six pack and who was super fit, I can’t help but assume that he cares more about his body than the priorities of the household. I think we subconsicously or consciously assume that their body is a reflection/indicator of their personality and how they prioritize children/home. (whether it’s true or not, i believe we make these assumptions). So it’s not the extra 10 pounds that makes them attractive per say, but the association we tie to that image. and if this is true, the productive thing would be to rid the assumption and equip dads with tools that can help them attend to their children while achieving their desired optimal level of fitness/health. not to say that every dad wants to be this way, if they like to be 10pounds overweight without it being detrimental to their health, then more power to them 🙂
they are just mind-blowingly beautiful, creative, and I wish I could have a big stack right now. Pinnnnnnned! 🙂