Happy Memorial Day!

Pat Hartman May 25, 2020 No Comments

Happy Memorial Day!

There’s no post today. We will return with a new post tomorrow.

Enjoy the holiday!

Coronavirus Chronicles — Uncertainty and Responsibility

Pat Hartman May 22, 2020 No Comments

It may seem like there is a lot of discussion here lately about eating disorders in adults, and a seeming neglect of child obesity. But it is all part of the same complex problem, for many reasons.

When everybody is stuck at home together, there is a lot more opportunity for mutual observation. Parents find themselves asked to rationalize and justify activities that in “normal” times would slide under the radar. Children flirting with dangerous nonsense like ana might be watched closely enough to make red flags very obvious. If teens are already committed to destructive eating disorders, their behavior has been much easier to scrutinize, of late.

When relative isolation is combined with food insecurity, things can go haywire. One dimension is, the emotional trauma and psychological effects are not always proportional to the actual deprivation. This dimension of sequestration can affect adults directly, making them less effective as parents, which in turn hurts the kids.

If a parent already was dealing with food issues, being cooped up and massively anxious can present what psychologist Lauren Muhlheim terms “new stressors and disruptions to treatment plans.” Everyone has been losing things that meant a lot to them. She advises,

Allow yourself space to grieve and experience the whole range of emotions that ensue.

Good luck with that, overwhelmed parents who have no peace or privacy. Those are privileges that, face it, some may never enjoy again. But if you are a grownup responsible for children, you have a special mission, which is to not let your crazy rub off on the kids.

How? Muhlheim advises staying connected. She writes,

Use the internet to connect with family, friends, and people in your professional life. Don’t just text but do facetime and video chats. Have a video meal with a friend. Many people are having online cocktail parties, Netflix watch parties, and the like.

But again, those latter three suggestions may not be a good fit, for parents in these particular circumstances. Likewise, telemedicine and virtual treatment can be wonderful, life-saving instruments — if patients have electronic equipment and the savvy to use it, and a way to pay for enrollment.

Academics are sometimes seen as ivory-tower fantasists, and this is one reason. They often do not understand the unlikelihood of ordinary people owning or having access to goods and services that the professional class takes for granted.

Parents or not, adults may have to ask themselves hard questions about their relationship to exercise. If a person had already not been doing enough physical activity, that really needs to be taken into consideration. Some kind of plan needs to be made. If, on the other hand, over-exercise was part of an eating disorder, a period of isolation might allow transition to a less rigorous exercise regimen.

In the virus avoidance department, things seem to be easing up — but there are no promises. Many parts of the United States appear to be ripe for a “second wave.” Rather than saying goodbye to restrictions, we may be headed into times of even more confining lifestyles before this is all over.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Eating Disorders During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic,” VeryWellMind.com, 03/30/20
Image by Sebastien Gagnon/(CC BY 2.0)

Coronavirus Chronicles — When Shelves Are Empty

Pat Hartman May 21, 2020 1 Comment

Yes, that title is a trick — because the shelves don’t need to be literally empty for people to emotionally go off the deep end. In what we used to think of as normal life, anyone with an eating disorder faced plenty of difficulty already. Every day would involve walking a tightrope of avoidance in environments strewn with triggers on every side.

For people whose world is much smaller because of sheltering in place, that world has become both more and less controllable. Just as one example, the risk of contagion can justify asking certain people not to visit. But it can also trap someone in shared isolation with the person or people who pose the biggest threat to their mental equilibrium.

Drawing lines

In the current situation, even if there is still food in the retail establishments, and even if a person can afford to buy it, and is able to get to the store or have food delivered, the specter of scarcity looms in the background. The people who pick the food and work in the packaging factories and drive the trucks and stock the shelves are sick. Every break in the supply chain sets off a cascading series of consequences down the line.

The need to ration food may be quite real, or not… but even if there is no genuine risk of starvation, the disordered mind can seize upon the idea and use it to rationalize calorie restriction that is not objectively necessary, and is in reality harmful.

What about stockpiling and hoarding? Is there a difference? One term implies a reasonable and prudent measure, while the other suggests a reaction that is unhealthful and antisocial. But in such uncertain times, who even has enough reliable information to draw that kind of line? Journalist Gabby Landsverk spoke with Sarah Herstich, a licensed clinical social worker and body image therapist, and learned that…

Anxiety could drive people to purchase more food than they typically might and, with many people confined to their homes, that can be a challenging environment for people with a tendency to binge-eat.

Melainie Rogers, executive director of Balance Eating Disorder Treatment Center, adds:

If you’re bringing more food into the home, you’re more at risk of overeating because it’s right there. For some people it’s their worst nightmare. Like an alcoholic being locked into a wine store.

Silver bullet thinking

Orthorexia, a relatively new term that does not yet appear in the official literature, signifies going overboard with the notion of healthy eating. Dawn Delgado in Psychology Today wrote,

Society’s fixation on perfection, social media, and health-ism help to reinforce this obsession in those with orthorexia… You may become obsessed and extremely focused on the quality of your food, specific ingredients, or healthy trends…

You may have orthorexia if you become fixated on the fear of sickness, disease, and unhealthiness, and the need to control your health through any means necessary.

So now, with the world swamped by a disease whose details are not yet fully understood, the circumstances are tailor-made to foster orthorexia. We are ripe for “silver bullet” thinking. In our hearts we all want to believe that if we ingest a sufficient amount of a certain nutrient, and avoid certain other substances, we will be protected. People with orthorexia can persuade themselves right smack dab into a dangerous state of malnutrition.

Note from Sarah Herstich:

The National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) offers many resources for people to connect with virtual support, as well as a map of treatment centers across the US. Many dietitians are now offering meal support, chats, and support groups online via live streaming or other virtual platforms.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Coronavirus anxiety and quarantining could increase eating disorder risk. Here’s what to look out for,” Insider.com, 03/23/20
Source: “Orthorexia: 10 Signs You Should Seek Help Now,” PsychologyToday.com, 02/26/19
Image by Martin Thomas/(CC BY 2.0)

Coronavirus Chronicles — Again, Water

Pat Hartman May 20, 2020 3 Comments

Childhood Obesity News has been discussing how obesity puts people at greater risk of catching COVID-19 and also of dying from it. We looked at India, where water that the people need, if they are to have any hope of defeating the virus, is wrongfully appropriated by the very same corporations that promote obesity.

Here, incidentally, from the news service Reuters, is the latest:

Coronavirus cases in India reached 100,000 on Tuesday, matching the number of intensive care unit beds in the country, while the rate of growth of new infections showed little sign of slowing.

Then we skipped across the ocean to see the same wretched history of water-grabbing in Brazil. Today, we consider North America. The photo on this page is what might be called a misdirect, because it originates not in the Navajo landscape of the USA, but in East Africa. The point is, these East Africans are probably in a better situation, in terms of having access to water, than the Navajo people in America. In both populations, food insecurity is definitely rampant. In America, inadequate nutrition often coexists with obesity.

We have seen that obesity and its co-morbidities, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, are found more often in Native Americans than in the general population. Here are a couple of discouraging sentences:

American Indian/Alaska Native adolescents are 30 percent more likely than non-Hispanic white adolescents to be obese. American Indian or Alaska Native adults are 50 percent more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic whites.

By mid-April, the Navajo Nation was one of the top three coronavirus hotspots in the country, and in third place, after New York and New Jersey, in terms of the percentage of population affected.

Inescapable paradox

An extended family might live miles from anyone else, but among themselves, isolation is problematic. It’s not as if everybody can have their own room with en suite bath. These are some of the materially poorest people anywhere. When resources are scarce, cooking cannot be a DIY project. The young and the old have to be cared for. Orders for strict lockdown came swiftly, but even if the culture were more amenable to the concept of quarantine, the circumstances are not.

On the gigantic, 27,000-square-mile reservation, only 30% of the homes have running water. Families might drive as far as 18 miles, on bad roads, in dicey vehicles, to replenish their supplies. Getting water can involve many hours and enormous distances, and necessarily, human contact.

Here are hard facts from Grace Baek of CBS.com:

Over 2 million Americans across all 50 states don’t have any running water or a flush toilet at home, but Native Americans have trouble accessing water more than any other group.

Navajo Tribal Utility Authority […] operates 11 external watering stations for residents to haul water, charging $5 for up to 1,000 gallons. But for those who have to purchase water elsewhere or rely on bottled water, it can cost $1.50 a gallon. A study […] found Navajo households without running water paid 71 times the amount that water users in typical urban areas paid.

A lot of residents do not have reliable electricity or telephones. Although 80 people have been trained as contact tracers, the vast distances and wobbly telecommunication infrastructure present huge challenges. Medical personnel are in short supply. There are very few hospitals, and severely ill patients are airlifted, at great expense, to cities in New Mexico and Arizona.

But what about the special COVID relief funding? The Navajo and other tribes did not get their shares, and are suing the federal government. It’s a mess.

If everyone is so remote and far apart, how did COVID-19 become so devastating? Last week, Felicia Fonseca and Tim Sullivan related the chain of events for AP. Before the virus became common knowledge, one man went to a basketball game in Tucson. He came home and went to church, and the contagion was off and running.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “India coronavirus infections surge past 100,000, deaths top 3,000,” Reuters.com, 05/18/20
Source: “Obesity and American Indians/Alaska Natives,” HHS.gov, undated
Source: “Navajo Nation residents face coronavirus without running water,” CBSNews.com, 05/08/20
Source: “‘The grief is so unbearable’ — Virus takes toll on Navajo,” APNews.com, 05/11/20
Image by Oxfam East Africa/(CC BY 2.0)

Coronavirus Chronicles — More on Water

Pat Hartman May 19, 2020 1 Comment

The most recent post outlined India’s dire state of water shortage which prevents people from following handwashing recommendations, and makes them more vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus, which is especially dangerous for obese people. This links back to previous Childhood Obesity News topics. Groundwater depletion happens for other reasons of course, but one reason for it is the greed of international corporations like the Coca-Cola Company.

India has been in drought status for years, but in that country alone, Coke operates 58 water-sucking bottling facilities. Thoughtco.com quotes protest organizer Nandlal Master:

Coca-Cola is creating thirst in India, and is directly responsible for the loss of livelihood and even hunger for thousands of people across India… Drinking Coke is like drinking farmer’s blood…

And today, drinking Coke is like spraying COVID-19 in people’s faces. They are unable to wash or to properly hydrate their bodies because Coke has drained their land of water.

In Brazil

Not surprisingly, other countries around the globe are also victimized by corporate chicanery. Aided by Coke and Nestle, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro appears to be the human being most responsible for destroying the Amazon forest, sometimes referred to as the lungs of planet Earth. Peter Koenig reports,

Under his leadership, not only water is being privatized, but all of Amazonia is up for grabs — that’s what Bolsonaro says and wants to make sure the corporate thieves understand. Rain forest can indiscriminately logged and destroyed, water can be captured and privatized, by major water giants to the detriment of people — and ultimately of peoples’ lives.

Now, the corporations want the Guarani Aquifer, the world’s largest (or maybe second largest) source of fresh water. Apparently they have not yet succeeded in controlling it, but their track record suggests that they will. When they do, Koenig believes, “the world water supply is doomed.” Also doomed will be many of the people who do not volunteer to be obese or catch COVID-19, which is especially hazardous to the obese.

The author speaks scorchingly of the Water Resources Group, a “multi-agency sham” — comprising global financiers, “high-level technocrats,” and representatives of AB Inbev, Coca-Cola, Dow, Nestle and PepsiCo, among others. These self-entitled folk enjoy hopping around the planet in luxurious jets to meet up and parlay at the fanciest hotels, treating themselves to prime lodgings, top-shelf entertainment, and luscious meals with copious liquid refreshment.

Faced with anything less than the most opulent products and services, they are incapable of discussing and deciding the fate of everybody else’s water supply. Koenig asks, “How many people could be served with drinking water and safe sanitation for this amount of money?,” and his point is not lost.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Charged With Groundwater Depletion and Pollution in India,” ThoughtCo.com, 07/17/19
Source: “Water Is Life — They Are Stealing Our Livelihood and We Aren’t Even Noticing,” GlobalResearch.ca, 10/20/19
Image by Patrick Emerson/(CC BY-ND 2.0)

Coronavirus Chronicles — Water

Pat Hartman May 18, 2020 2 Comments

Imagine a huge pond whose water is so placid the surface looks like glass. If a stone is flung into any sector of the pond, ripples will ensue, and they will affect every molecule of the surface, to the farthest edges. The effect is more visible on a calm surface, but the basics of fluid dynamics apply in agitated water too.

Put some salt in a boiling pot, and all the water becomes salty. Water is actually a good metaphor for the overarching effect of the COVID-19 virus on the entire planet. Everything is affected.

Some experts think that life on Earth will never be the same, and will be subject to periodic shutdowns, as the contagion flares back up or another one takes its place. According to the authors of this article,

The experiences in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore suggest that social distancing orders, if lifted after short periods, will have to be periodically re-instated to control COVID-19 flare ups.

Inevitably, this would make the “vacation effect” even worse, with constant escalation of child obesity.

While most places are still in the first wave of the pandemic, others appear to have a good head start on their second wave already. When rules about social distancing and personal protective equipment are relaxed, the whole thing takes off again with renewed energy. Science writer Robert Roy Britt says,

Between people who are sick but have not been tested and the unknown number of people carrying the disease without any symptoms and transmitting it […] epidemiologists says it’s completely unknown how many people are actually infected.

We are nowhere near having a handle on this thing. As we have seen, people more likely to suffer severe cases, and to die, are those with underlying conditions like heart disease and diabetes which share their comorbidity status with obesity. None of those predispositions is likely to disappear any time soon.

We may cling to a naive belief that hot summer weather will quell the virus, but as immunologist Mark Cameron says,

COVID-19 has already bulldozed through multiple different climates in the Northern and Southern hemispheres quite easily.

The World Health Organization defines an “improved water source” as “water that is supplied through a household connection, public standpipe, borehole well, protected dug well, protected spring, or rainwater collection.” In the world, around 780 million people do not have access to any of those alternatives. In many developing countries, clean water is a luxury, while in others, it may not be obtainable for even the relatively affluent class. There are places where the nearest drinkable water is three miles away.

More than 1.38 billion people live in India — that’s 17% of the world’s population — and water shortage is a way of life. Most people do not have running water in their homes. In some areas, the women walk a mile or more to wait in line for water that they carry home, where they store it in anything that doesn’t leak.

There are communal taps in public places, and so, writes Nilanjana Bhowmick,

They can wash their hands or they can keep their social distance, but it’s hard to practice both methods of warding off the disease at the same time. A single 20-second wash plus wetting and rinsing uses at least two liters of water, more than half a gallon. For a family of four washing 10 times a day each, that’s 80 liters just for handwashing.

If there is water, there may not be soap. In rural areas, citizens depend on the government to deliver water in trucks — with any luck, enough for handwashing, but not for anything fancy like cooking or bathing. India’s caste system is still strong, and of course the upper-caste people have first dibs. And if the trucks fail to show up, as often happens, even the relatively wealthy inhabitants are out of luck.

Next time, we look at some other hot places with insufficient water supplies.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “COVID‐19 Related School Closings and Risk of Weight Gain Among Children,” Wiley.com, 03/30/20
Source: “The Covid-19 Pandemic Has Only Just Begun,” Medium.com, 04/04/20
Source: “Global WASH Fast Facts,” CDC.gov, undated
Source: “Handwashing helps stop COVID-19. But in India, water is scarce,” NationalGeographic.com, 04/07/20
Image by Oxfam East Africa/(CC BY 2.0)

Coronavirus Chronicles — Multiple and Overlapping Risk Factors

Pat Hartman May 15, 2020 1 Comment

So, the problem with being obese in the current health climate: Fat cells contain macrophages, which try to defend the body by releasing cytokines, which cause inflammation. Bad things happen, like insulin resistance, and a vulnerability to COVID-19. Many researchers have things to say about this unhelpful behavior, looking at it from their own particular angles.

The previously quoted Camilla Cavendish, who advises the United Kingdom’s health services, puts it like this:

Surprisingly for a virus that hits the lungs, the researchers say that excess body fat seems to matter more than heart or lung disease, or smoking — perhaps because obesity triggers chronic inflammation, leaving sufferers more susceptible.

The title of the next article we look at is worrisome, beginning as it does with the words “Being fat triggers a ‘troublesome’ immune response to Covid-19…” Just a moment, please — isn’t the immune response desirable? Sure, but as we have seen, there can be too much of a good thing.

Immunity and cytokine storm

In the intensive care units of hospitals in the United Kingdom, almost three-fourth of the COVID-19 patients are overweight or obese. There obesity raises, by almost 40%, the chance that the patient will die. One current theory is that fat cells somehow trap immune cells, keeping them from doing their good work elsewhere.

Or maybe it’s just that the immune response gets all hyped up — which is a cytokine storm, and leads to fatality. Health reporter Vanessa Chalmers describes how the immune systems of obese people…

[…] are constantly ramped up as they try to protect and repair the damage inflammation causes to cells. Using all its energy fending off inflammation means the body’s defense system has few resources left to defend against a new infection like COVID-19.

Cytokines are chemical-signaling molecules which guide a healthy immune response. They tell immune cells to attack viral molecules in the body. But in some people, this response goes into overdrive and immune cells start attacking healthy tissue as well, known as a cytokine storm.

Biggest risk factor

Risk factors seem to vary from one country to another, but in most places, the most significant risk factor seems to be excessive body weight. Cavendish describes a huge COVID-19 study collaborated on by researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh, Liverpool, and Imperial College London. Working with information from almost 17,000 British subjects in 166 hospitals, they concluded that the other main risk factor is poverty.

The economically disadvantaged tend to be overweight or obese, and to suffer from Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, kidney disease, and other conditions that make them more likely to wind up in the ICU even under normal, non-pandemic conditions. The poor also tend to belong to minority groups. Cavendish says,

They have weakened immune systems which often relate to chronic stress from low-income jobs, poor diet and physical inactivity.

Everything is worse for them, and any advantage that youth may confer is negated by minority status and poverty. And despite all its victim-blaming and societal unrest, Britain is a relatively benign and caring country. Imagine places like Saudi Arabia and Singapore, where foreign migrant workers endure miserable, and miserably crowded, living conditions. Where undocumented immigrants make up the workforce, a room might be slept in by one group of inhabitants at night, and a different group by day.

Completely in their employers’ power, they can’t quit. But if their jobs disappear because of mandated isolation or economic failure, these folks have literally nowhere else to go. Imagine a couple of dozen young men compelled to shelter in place, in a single room, for an indeterminate period. It seems as if even a medical miracle will not be enough. Saving the world from this pandemic might require an entire reshaping of the social order.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Obesity dangers make Covid-19 a rebuke to unequal societies,” FT.com, 05/01/20
Source: “Being fat triggers a ‘troublesome’ immune response to Covid-19,” DailyMail.com, 05/03/20
Image by Hsing Wei/(CC BY 2.0)

Coronavirus Chronicles: How Does Inflammation Come Into the Picture?

Pat Hartman May 14, 2020 1 Comment

There is more to be said about the conjunction of obesity, inflammation, and the disease. For instance, why does COVID-19 prefer to afflict obese people, and why does it give them a particularly hard time, compared with people whose weight is in the normal range?

Inflammation is basically defense mode. Cells contain mitochondria, which convert fatty acids to energy, and when there are too many fatty acids to handle, the mitochondria are stressed and eventually damaged. An accumulation of damaged mitochondria kicks off the immune response.

In adipose tissue, or fat, most of the immune cells are macrophages. Here is one capsule description:

Fatty tissue in the body is comprised of adipose cells (adipocytes), which increase in volume but not in number, and primarily expand based on poor diet choices and a sedentary lifestyle. Adipocytes also contain self-defensive macrophages which have shown to produce cytokines, or a general name to describe various pro-inflammatory substances in the body.

Macrophages are the disposal system to get rid of bacteria and other invaders, but the process causes fat cells to release cytokines, and they trigger inflammation. Short-term inflammation means some good cleanup work is being done, but long-term it is not beneficial. Unfortunately, obesity appears to guarantee a pretty much perpetual state of inflammation. That sets off insulin resistance and diabetes.

It has been said that aging and obesity both involve chronic inflammation, which triggers the symptoms of disease, and causes nearly all chronic health issues. Dr. David M. Marquis uses the word “smoldering,” inviting comparison with an ember that devours the stuffing of a sofa for a while before finally becoming a legit fire. He wrote,

1 in 12 women and 1 in 24 men are dealing with full blown autoimmune mediated inflammation. The number of undiagnosed people is going to be much higher.

So a lot of people are walking around full of cytokines that are poised to do any number of destructive things, like delay post-surgical healing. Let’s get back to the virus causing this pandemic.

The medical profession wants to know two things right now: how to improve the prognosis of patients who are hospitalized, and how to prevent the spread of the disease. August establishments like the World Obesity Federation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are discovering that obesity and its complications are bad news when it comes to COVID-19.

Obesity causes hyperglycemia by way of insulin resistance, and the virus appears to also cause hyperglycemia by an as-yet-unknown mechanism. Adipose tissue, aka fat, causes low-grade inflammation that is a constant background in the bodies of obese people. Then the virus comes along and stirs up more inflammation, which raises the levels of cytokines.

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Being overweight causes hazardous inflammations,” ScienceDaily,com, 08/25/14
Source: “Fat’s Role in Causing Inflammation,” BistroMD.com, 11/07/12
Source: “How Inflammation Affects Every Aspect of Your Health,” Reset.me, 12/08/15
Source: “SARS-CoV-2 infection and obesity: Common inflammatory and metabolic aspects,” NIH.gov, 04/29/20
Image by Muenocchio via Flickr

Coronavirus Chronicles — Obesity and Virus Relationship Under Observation

Pat Hartman May 13, 2020 3 Comments

Sure, COVID-19 invades the lungs, and some patients need to be on ventilators. Then, it turns out to be about weird stuff like metabolic syndrome, and having diabetes is extra hazardous.

Camilla Cavendish, senior fellow at Harvard University, wrote:

A recent commentary in the journal Nature stated that “patients with type-2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome might have up to 10 times greater risk of death when they contract Covid-19”.

In terms of its proclivities, this disease is all over the place. Being old is more dangerous, or maybe being young is worse. Youth has a lot to do with it, and so does obesity. When both those factors are in the picture, things really become interesting. Every day, science learns more about the virus’s affinity for obese victims.

In Italy, a study of 1,591 intensive care patients showed their median age was 63, and only 13% of those patients were younger than 51 — which is still a pretty advanced age. But that was Italy, where only 20% of the adults are obese. As it turns out, the USA is different.

In this country, about 40% of adults are obese, and researchers who studied records from the intensive care units at Johns Hopkins and five other American university hospitals were shocked to find “significant inverse correlation between age and BMI, in which younger individuals admitted to hospital were more likely to be obese.”

Obesity prevents the immune system from responding vigorously to an invading virus. Obesity “is pro-inflammatory, and induces diabetes and oxidant stress to adversely affect cardiovascular function.” If the patient needs a mechanical ventilator, their fat fights against the machine by impeding the diaphragm’s freedom of motion.

Cavendish, who also is an adviser to the United Kingdom’s government, wrote,

In France, the US and UK, figures suggest that patients who are overweight are at significantly greater risk…

In New York City, a study of 4,000 Covid-19 patients found that obesity is the second strongest predictor, after their age, of whether someone over 60 will need critical care…

A second New York study says that being overweight is the main driver of whether younger people will be hospitalized with Covid-19.

Cavendish also pointed out a historical precedent that perhaps should have been noticed sooner:

In 2009, 51 per cent of Californians who died from the H1N1 Influenza A were obese: this was 2.2 times more than the prevalence of obesity in the state population.

US Right to Know is a not-for-profit food industry research group. Speaking for it, public interest researcher Carey Gillam wrote that food quality, access, marketing, and choices have more than ever become matters of life and death. The obese are at higher risk for severe illness, and obese young people are at particular risk. That is no small matter in a nation where more than two-thirds of adults and nearly one-third of children and youth are obese.

Add the fact that in the United States, a disproportionate number of African-Americans and other people of color are obese, and that means members of minority groups are disproportionately at risk of dying from the virus.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Obesity dangers make Covid-19 a rebuke to unequal societies,” FT.com, 0/01/20
Source: “Obesity could shift severe COVID-19 disease to younger ages,” TheLancet.com, 05/04/20
Source: “What does junk food have to do with COVID-19 deaths?,” EHN.org, 04/28/20
Image by Talbot Troy/(CC BY 2.0)

Emotional Mastery, a Matter of Time

Pat Hartman May 12, 2020 No Comments

Dr. Joan Rosenberg is a psychologist and author whose TEDx talk “Emotional Mastery: The Gifted Wisdom of Unpleasant Feelings” (15:17) is available via YouTube. For people who read faster than they listen, there is also a transcript of the talk.

When a person feels an emotional upset, it might resemble what Dr. Rosenberg describes as a “gut punch” (like when someone said she was boring). It may not be quite so painful, but any one of the eight basic unpleasant feelings — sadness, shame, helplessness, anger, vulnerability, embarrassment, disappointment, or frustration — can interrupt the flow of a day and make us feel bad in a way that the primitive core interprets as a threat.

Whether it is the office manager saying, “We have to let you go,” or a stranger delivering a shove on the sidewalk, or even a child sassing back, on some level we feel it as an existential threat, even if only for brief moment. Fighting is probably out of the question, and so is running away. But we need something to make us feel better right now. This is where displacement activity comes into play.

How do these relate?

All too often, the attempt at an immediate fix turns out to involve grabbing the nearest food and stuffing it into our wounded selves — which is why any of this is discussed in a space devoted to obesity prevention. Recently an article titled “Treatment of the sensory and motor components of urges to eat (eating addiction?): a mobile-health pilot study for obesity in young people” appeared in the journal Eating and Weight Disorders.

Written by Dr. Pretlow, Carol M. Stock, Leigh Roeger, and Stephen Allison, it describes addictive-like behaviors that…

[…] might include repetitive biting, chewing, crunching, licking, sucking, tongue action, swallowing, and hand-to-mouth motion. These behaviors have previously been described as “nervous eating” and appear to represent displacement of stress, tension, and anxiety.

Previous versions of the “Rosenberg Reset”

Many of us grew up with the maxim, “Just count to 10.” It has been widely recommended as a response to anger. Various spiritual teachings emphasize the usefulness of taking a deep breath and allowing time for the insulted ego to recede. Taking a few seconds to regain composure, even without any other type of applied mindfulness, can keep a person out of serious trouble. Back in the day when pills known as “mother’s little helpers” were popular, it was said of meprobamate that it would provide that crucial pause between stimulus and reaction — enough time to decide not to make a situation worse.

Rebranding the emotions

Dr. Rosenberg suggests thinking of those eight emotions as not bad or negative, but as merely unpleasant or uncomfortable, and allowing them a relatively generous 90 seconds to wash through the body and then dissipate. The ability to do that is the winning key to self-esteem and self-confidence. That ability is gained and strengthened by refusing to utilize the numerous substitutes we have available to distract us — otherwise known as displacement activities.

Displacement behaviors are tricks. And sure, tricks can work, but they are a form of resistance. A famous saying from a popular 1970s self-help program is “Resistance causes persistence.” While tricks might make an uncomfortable feeling go away 1,000 times, it will come back 1,001 times.

Tricks, like feeding yourself or someone else as a way to escape from a fraught moment, are cheap and unworthy. When someone says, “I’ll just put the kettle on, shall I?” it may break the tension, but it doesn’t solve the problem.

Instead, Dr. Rosenberg recommends staying in the moment, which requires “a willingness, a formula, and a decision.” She writes:

So, the thing again here for you to do is to stay present to the experience, surf those ninety-second waves, surf them any way you want, and just let them ride out their course. In the moment, you’ll feel centered, you’ll feel calm and you’ll feel relief. Insights will follow.

Make the choice to stay present, fully present. Be aware of and in touch with your moment-to-moment experience. It’s about awareness, not avoidance.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Emotional Mastery: The Gifted Wisdom of Unpleasant Feelings,” YouTube.com, 09/21/16
Source: “Treatment of the sensory and motor components of urges to eat (eating addiction?): a mobile-health pilot study for obesity in young people,” Springer.com, 01/14/20
Image: Public Domain