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Healthy Aging By Sharon Johnson Food rules help us eat well and live longer "Food Rules" is a book inspired by a passion for food - and goofy humor. Author Bill Haduch begins with a quote from food-loving writer M.F.K. Fisher, "First we eat, then we do everything else." Haduch tells us we spend 15 full days a year eating. Every year we each eat 170 grocery bags of food. "Not hungry? Don't worry. You will be. You have been hungry every few hours since the day you were born. Hunger is powerful," he says. I see the power of hunger most clearly demon-strated in the behavior of first-graders. Once a week, during the school year, I spend my lunch hour in an elementary school cafeteria. Hungry kids descend on the cafeteria as early as 11 a.m. My favorite comment from one of the ravenous 7-year-olds is also used in the book: "I never eat anything bigger than my head." These are clearly hungry kids, but they often include one of the salad options on their plates. They munch on carrot sticks and try a few bites of the canned peaches. They do not (well, occasionally they might) eat their cookies first. I join these kids in eating the allotted six chicken nuggets or the single piece of cheese pizza. These kids have certain "food rules" that positively affect their eating behaviors. It's tougher for us, as adults, when restaurant portion sizes may be three times what we need in a single serving and that dessert tray beckons deliciously. Our eating behaviors are probably best reflected by data on obesity. Studies released in 1999 indicated that the number of Americans considered obese (30 percent over your ideal body weight) had soared from one in eight to one in five. In Oregon, since 1993, obesity has increased by 66 percent. On the same day I eat lunch with 7-year-olds, I find myself in an assisted-living environment with 70-year-olds. Again, I observe a certain discipline about what is eaten. Portions are controlled. Bananas and oatmeal for breakfast. Nobody eats the cookie first. Perhaps the only way to manage the swelling tendency to becoming a nation of very fat people is to regulate our eating behaviors - through a school lunch menu or by the dietitian in an assisted living facility. What will it take us to be more self-regulating about the food we eat? Perhaps if we adopt our own personal food rules. I know people who have vowed to eat "no white food" or who follow a dietitian's directive to eat "red meat only once a month." There are even folks who post "do not enter" signs on the refrigerator. Food rules. Five fruits and vegetables a day. Make that three cups of vegetables, two of fruit and one of complex carbohydrates. Limit sweets and fats. Eat what satisfies you, but less of it. Scientists in Australia have studied foods that keep people satisfied. Plain baked potatoes keep a person satisfied five times longer than doughnuts. Popcorn is twice as filling as a candy bar. Consider having that bowl of popcorn. Just make sure it is no bigger than your head. Sharon Johnson is an assistant professor in family and community development at OSU Extension and a member of the Senior Advisory Council. Reach her at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.