ELLEN: The new book Good Calories, Bad Calories:
Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight
Control and Disease by Gay Taubes (Knopf) is a fat
little sucker in its own right. It makes a good
argument for the theory that refined carbs are
responsible for the obesity epidemic. Publishers
Weekly gave it a starred review. I don't think
there's a more serious or pervasive health problem
right now that this one.
MARGO: Oh please. I'm a skeptic when it comes to such
anti-pasta talk. Doesn't it seem odd that Italians
in Milan don't have the same obesity problem as
Americans in Muncie, Indiana do? Could our excess
poundage be caused by our sedentary ways and our
penchant for overeating and not by spaghetti alfredo?
I think Mireille Guiliano (French Women Don't Get
Fat) and Naomi Moriyama (Japanese Women Don't Get
Fat or Old) got it right. French women eat for
pleasure not for comfort and therefore they don't
binge. Japanese women have the lowest obesity rate on
the planet (3 percent) and they eat rice at almost
every meal, but their meals, which also usually
include vegetables and fruit, are never huge ones.
Supersizing Americans do nothing in moderation.
ELLEN: Based on my experience, I'd agree with you. An
au pair from Denmark who lived with us 20 years ago told me she
was amazed at how Americans snacked all the time, and
I suspect what you're talking about --lifestyle
habits -- are a big factor in our ever-expanding
waistlines. But Taubes says it's primarily because we're on a sugar
high. He's not the first one to associate weight gain
and the diabetes epidemic with the enormous amount of
sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup in our diets.
But he explains why, refuting the accepted wisdom of a
low-fat diet and exercise as keys to good health.
MARGO: Don't get me wrong. I do think that the rise in
diabetes and obesity in this country comes from our
dependence on corn syrup. Anyone who's read Michael
Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A History of Four
Meals will be convinced of that (his riveting account
of where our meals really come from by the way is just
out in paperback from Penguin, so if you haven't read
it, now's the time). But anyone who thinks he can eat
his way to health without getting up off the couch is
nuts. We need to get moving. I know you like yoga as
much as I do, so I recommmend Yoga As Medicine: The
Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing by Timothy
McCall (Bantam). Its a book geared to old ages and to people in
all states of wellness. An M.D., medical editor of
Yoga Journal and a longtime yoga practioner, McCall
combines Western medicine with the ancient discipline
of yoga and provides some practical ways to stretch
and breathe your way to feeling better, addressing
specific ailments such as back pain, arthritis, asthma
and even cancer. He doesn't over cures, but here's
what he says about yoga's effect on diabetes: "Because
high levels of stress hormones like adrenaline and
cortisol raise blood suar levels, and high cortisol
levels also tend to promote both overeating and the
accumulation of intra-abdonminal fat, which
contributes to insulin resistance, as well as to the
risk of having a heart attack, yoga's impact on stress
can ultimately do a lot to promote health and prevent,
delay, or minimize the effects of the disease."
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