How To Apologize, When To Forgive

I wanted to post this photo and give it a beautiful caption, like 'Blissful way to end the long weekend'. And it was, but that's only half the truth.

The real truth is that, yes, this was what the end of what our long weekend looked like— settled, calm, happy, loving, and together in a booth at a somewhat fancy, somewhat pricey (for us) restaurant— but it took a storm to get here.

My daughter is 2 years old, nearing three. Her 'terrible twos' days are numbered— I know, I've heard, three's are actually worse but I am in complete denial about it. I have to give her credit, though, because with me she's only had maybe one... ok, two, major public tantrums.

The first was in Trader Joes. She needed to go to the bathroom (bad) but we didn't have her toilet seat and she went hysterical, too afraid to use the 'big' toilet as is. She ended up peeing in her pants, which made the hysteria that much more amplified.

The second time was in the car at her school's parking lot. Maybe no one saw it (I'm hoping, but I'd again be in denial to really think that). She wanted to go back into the school to wash her hands, as I had asked when we were in there, but it was late and I wanted needed to hit the road because traffic was already bad and we have a long commute home.

This most recent time (yesterday) happened in the swimming pool. We were at the pool for a good 2 hours— I was going to limit the time to less than that because I was exhausted when we did that last time but that obviously didn't work. Nearing on hour 2, another family came to swim. We had seen and played with them last time, so knew they were good company. Shortly after, two other families came. It was like a party. I had just spent 2 hours carrying her back and forth in the pool, 'swimming', and my only child all of a sudden was at a pool party with kids all somewhat around her age.

But it was really time for us to go. We stayed another half hour and then I put my foot down, or tried to at least. All I can say is that she really wasn't ready to go. She let me know that, the other families, along with the whole neighborhood.

I always worry about times like these, where I am filled with insecurity and self-doubt. Am I a bad parent? What will these people think of me? Will I be reported? Yes, it goes that far. The media has done its job well— stories have successfully been sensationalized enough times and I, as a parent, have been sufficiently provoked. Thankfully, though, I'm pretty trained in self-talk as well, and can rationalize with myself that, that's ridiculous and I'm having idiotic thoughts.

When we got home and things settled down, was the time I took to talk to her, recap what happened, and teach her how to apologize for her actions. Previously, my method was three-pronged but, in between this latest hysteria and calm, I've made it four-. This is NOT something you should necessarily do with your child(ren) but this is what I did and will keep doing until I refine my parenting to do something else, hopefully better (more effective)?

First, I let her know she needs to apologize. Kids quickly learn and know when they've done something wrong, and when they need to do (or not do) something. As parents, we need to help them formally recognize these things by telling them direct. Their recognition skills are still underdeveloped. It's just like taking a shower. They know they need to do it but, still, they continuously need to be told for quite some time before they learn to actually do it themselves.

So she says sorry. But is sorry enough? That's a rhetorical question. I asked her why she was sorry. This is really important because just saying sorry is a cop-out— just saying sorry doesn't require her to think or reflect on anything. Asking why makes her think and learn to recognize the actual actions/behavior that warrants an apology. Hopefully, doing this enough times will sink in and she will be able to recognize the consequences of her behavior before she actually does anything.

Typically, then, after she says sorry and 'what for', I ask her if she's going to do it again, and if what she did is being good or naughty (translated from a different language). I do this sort of to summarize and drive home the message without dragging things on.

This time, however, I realized it would be good to add just one more piece to the apology: I asked her what can she do different for next time. I realized this was important because (clearly) she didn't know how to respond to something against her desires. In my original set of questions (arguably, a 'lesson'), she can recognize what she's done but, from there, doesn't learn how she can handle similar situations going forward. She obviously doesn't always know what she can do instead, so sharing some better options with her isn't 'cheating' by giving her the answers, but it can actually help her grow her 'good behavior vocabulary', so to speak.

Finally, I forgave her. I always do, once we've reached the end of the apology. This is actually what I consider one of the most important, if not the most important, steps of this apology process. Being able to forgive someone is an invaluable lesson to learn and skill to do. We gave each other a kiss and a hug, and said I Love You. Then, we kept on dancing.

Parenting can be tiring— after 2.5 hours in the pool, I was already drained— and challenging. But it can also be one of the most rewarding and strengthening things you ever do. My kid teaches me so much and continues to make me into the best version of myself... how's that for a sappy ending after all? :> 100% truth.

Below is a recap of how we apologize and when we forgive.

• Say sorry...
• Why are you sorry...?
• Is that naughty or nice?
• Will you do that again?
• What will you do different next time?
• Forgive: Kiss. Hug. I Love You. Keep on dancing.

How do you teach your kid(s) to apologize and forgive? Share in the Comments below, we'd love to hear! :>

Written by piecesofm.

How To Get Kids To Eat Their Vegetables

I just read this story on Reuters Flavor-Pairing May Teach Kids To Like Vegetables. And, meh.

Here are my unsolicited tips (take it or leave it):

• Cook vegetables in a way that taste good: So good that YOU like eating them yourself, too, and actually do. Forget the vegetables for a second. Kids are heavily (primarily?) influenced by their role models, which includes you (the parent). Don't overanalyze how to get to them to eat vegetables. The problem might be that you might not be eating them either.


• Really show them your eating vegetable: Ok, so say you really do like eating vegetables and eat a decent portion no less. Kids have short attention spans and get easily distracted. You are a role model, yes, but they're not necessarily watching your every single move. Eat it out— plain and clear. Just like you have to create sentences for them to say to teach them how to speak, the same could go for eating vegetables. If your kid is not eating theyr vegetables, tell them how much you love eating yours. Verbally tell them you're doing it as you are doing it. Chew. Open your mouth and show them how you do it. Swallow. Smile. Verbally tell them how 'yummy' it is.


• Eat together: Kids love doing things together. As you wrap up the above bullet point, verbally suggest, 'let's eat it together!'. As they pick up their vegetable(s), cheers your forks (or hands). Make it fun and something to celebrate. Because isn't it something to celebrate? :>


• Let it go and try again... later... and again and again: If all that doesn't work, let it go. Don't force your kid to do something s/he doesn't want to (if it isn't absolutely necessary). Kids are smart and they remember. A) It's not worth the struggle or energy. B) It might leave them with negative associations. C) As the article mentions, it does take several times of offering/tasting before kids will like a food. The number of times it takes varies and can be great [ie. up to 20 times?] but I definitely learned that one in grad school after getting it wrong on a quiz— it's stuck with me ever since. Thanks, Ellyn Satyr. But when the vegetable is available, always offer it to your kid, rather than say, 'O, s/he doesn't like it.' By doing that, you're only reinforcing that belief.


• Offer variety, offer daily: Do you love every single food that exists? Probably not. Your kids won't either. But the odds of your child not liking every vegetable is silly. Try to figure out different textures and cooking methods of a wide-variety of vegetables— they're bound to like something. Also offer vegetables daily. Be sure to make vegetables a given. Keep dinners, for example, consistent, like carb (rice, bread, pasta), protein (chicken, beef, pork, beans), and vegetable.


• Be mindful of kids' development, cook appropriately: Be sure to cook or serve vegetables that are somewhat easy (or just easy) for them to chew and swallow. Cook leafy greens soft and cut it up into kid-bite-sized pieces. Peel off the outer layer of broccoli stalks. Yes, by doing so you are losing some fiber and nutrients but this, I think, is more effective than dousing the vegetable(s) in cream cheese, for example, which has an even more canceling/negative effect. Serving vegetables by themselves, I believe, will get kids to like them for 'who' they are vs. masking them in over-poweringly flavored costumes/dress.




• Take it with a grain of salt: The cohort of the study— that is, the number of people participating in the study— amassed to 29 kids. Twenty-nine. That's not very many kids whatsoever. What other factors could have twisted the results? How did the kids feel about the vegetables by the time they reached adulthood? What culture/environment do these kids/families live in and are they applicable to everyone outside that bubble? These are the questions you should be asking yourself when deciding on the strength of the study and whether you want to apply the results to your own behavior.

I take pics of what I eat. For ideas on meals and portioning, check out my Instagram @mdesenna!

Have some tips of your own? Share them in the Comments below, we'd love to hear! :>

Happy Healthy Juicy Kids Eating Vegetables!

Why I'm Thankful - Reflecting On International Day Of The Girl

Last night, I spent a more-than-expected amount of time reading this UNICEF report about FGM/C, or Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting, a practice that is highly prevalent in Africa and perhaps occurring elsewhere.

Yesterday was the International Day Of The Girl, a United-Nations-declared day that seeks to 'recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world'. Girls' rights to Education is this year's focus but FGM/C is another pressing issue that girls face too amongst a list of others. The numbers and data are staggering and so very sad. Over 125 MILLION girls and women are subjected to this cruelty.

I had vaguely remembered reading about this horrid practice in a women's magazine once but couldn't remember the details (or maybe I didn't want to). In brief, according to the WHO (World Health Organization), FGM/C is defined as 'all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons'.

The horrid procedure can be performed at varying degrees— cutting, removing, pricking, sealing, to name a few— but to whatever degree, it is heart-wrenching and traumatic to even hear about. Even more unfortunate is to hear about the hardships these girls and women have to endure for the rest of their life, if they even survive— forced marriages, rape, beatings, denial of basic human rights... the list goes on. And on.

It's scary to see some of the data that shows the opposition of the desire to end these inhumane practices. Even scarier, many of them are women. Did you know, daughters of women who were cut are more likely to get cut than those whose mothers have not been? As hard as it is to understand and even fathom, I guess this sort of makes sense. Brutality breeds brutality. Ignorance breeds ignorance.

To take away from this on a personal level is to reflect on my own life and situation. It reminds me how good I actually have it, some reasons why I'm lucky, and how thankful I am that I and my daughter have been born in a society where this is the not the norm.

My daughter is at the forefront of my thoughts. While some of these issues are not commonplace in my country, there is still hate. And no matter where we go, it will always be a threat. Give me the opportunity to answer the infamous Miss Universe pageant question— What do you wish for the world?— and it would be to eliminate all hate (and ignorance too)... followed by a Why can't we all just get along? :>

But, as I gripe about things like not getting my daughter's year-long portfolio of artwork from her previous school ('Some school/education, hmph!'), I quiet myself, turn course, and quickly let it go. Instead, I smile because she's sitting next to me, smiling back, happy, safe, and HealthyButJuicy.

Share your thoughts in the Comments below and SHARE/LIKE this post if you thought it was worth your while.

We appreciate your thoughts and support! :>

Happy Healthy Juicy Girls!


This piece is authored by piecesofm, who blogs about parenthood, tech, food, fashion, and inspiration.

The Future Of Higher Education? Disrupt!

During this week's TechCrunch Disrupt in SF, Gavin Newsom, Lieutenant Governor of California, sat down with Sebastian Thrun, CEO of Udacity, an educational tech start-up to discuss The Future of Higher Education.

You can read this article about it and see what people are saying in the comments.

I debated whether I should share my thoughts here or on my other blog, piecesofm, but decided to feature it here as I think this topic is 100% HealthyButJuicy, as it relates to education. Being unemployed with two degrees from an Ivy League institution, healthy, and juicy, this really hits home...

Contributing to the conversation, here are my thoughts:

In my experience, college is too heavily focused on its business-- increasing enrollment and tuition rates-- and not enough on equipping students with the skills they need post-graduation. Rationalizing that college graduates are 'exposed to many different forms of thinking', as Schwartz touts, may be a nice idea but they end up being pretty useless as well. Literally. How many times do you see History majors in completely unrelated professions? And what good is it for them to have the knowledge they don't use (and likely forget) IN ADDITION to the burden of never-ending student loans?

Flat out, schools are not prepping their students enough to pay off those loans with jobs in which they can actually apply the knowledge they learned and paid for. Practical makes complete sense and this disruption in education is exactly what we need. It's not to say all students should or will be redirected and/or geared to the tech industry but, at least for those who know that's what they want, they will be much better prepared and connected.

Share this post and your thoughts in the Comments below, we'd love it if you do! :>

Happy Healthy Juicy Education and Tech!

We Can't Stop... Talking About Miley Cyrus

Days after her performance, the world is still buzzing about Miley Cyrus and her performance at the VMAs.

This picture pretty much sums it up, in case you live in the outer-vortex of pop culture.
Source: Getty Images

It was all tongue and very raunchy. Man, her tongue.

But, really, could we have expected any less? Her latest hit, We Can't Stop, has over 162 million hits on YouTube alone (not to mention #4 on iTunes' Top Music Downloads, just under folks like Katy Perry and Lady Gaga) and, there, already, we got a glimpse of the ever-evolving, ever-straying-away-from-Disney sexual princess, tongue and twerk and crotch and all.

I just finished reading Miley Cyrus Inc.'s Branding Tips (via LinkedIn, no less!) and, despite the author's disapproval, personally, I think the girl got it right. Miley continues to engage audiences, larger and larger, and gives people something to talk about. As an entertainer, it's basically her job to do that and one she's obviously doing well. Marketers and branders can all learn from it since, apparently, We Can't Stop watching or talking about her.

That said, though, from a different, non-business perspective, where should the line be drawn? While her marketing/branding/engagement skills are top notch, as a public figure to such an influential demographic, is she violating her responsibility as a role model, which, unavoidably, she is and cannot escape. We get angry when images of murderers are shared and, arguably, idolized in the mass media, like when the Boston Marathon bomber was beautifully portrayed on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Equally, are we doing the same with Miley?

As a parent to a little girl [thankfully(?) not old enough to understand any of this], what would I say and how would I react if she were to have seen Miley's performance as, say, a t(w)eenager? Surely, I don't condone porn stars, which Miley is unfortunately erring on the side of; on the other hand, I don't know if the world really realizes how young Miley still is— she's not even 21 yet. Despite all the money and fame, she's still a kid and will make mistakes and go through stupid phases. As much as a role model I think/know she is, as a parent, my reaction would be continuous and way pre-determined. Way.

We all know entertainers and mass media are out there and can influence our kids, even ourselves. It's our jobs as parents not necessarily to abhor and shun it, because likewise, they can also be very positive forces in our lives and they're just sometimes simply unavoidable. In the very least, Miley wasn't hurting anyone, with the exception of maybe herself? (TBD) and some eyeballs and stomachs (which could have easily told their hands to change the channel). Take it/her for what it's worth (possibly nothing). Teach your kids values and media literacy and move on.

Here's a clip of her lyrics:

It's our song we can sing if we want to
It's my mouth I can say what I want to...

And we can't stop
And we won't stop
We run things, things don't run we
Don't take nothing from nobody
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, ehh

And this is what I take— (See the positive in everything).
' Source


What (positive) things can you take away from Miley's performance or after-effects thereof? Share your Comments below or Tweet/Instagram us your thoughts, we'd love to hear! xoxo

Happy Healthy Juicy Positivity!

How To Lose 10 Pounds In 1 Day!

So, you've seen the ads, you've seen the infomercials, you've tried every diet, product, and service known to man to lose weight. And all you want to do is add the HealthyBut to your Juicy self. Well, just because it's fall and we have two seasons of cold weather in front of us, doesn't mean you can't start shedding the weight as you pack on the layers. Start now and by the time spring rolls around your rolls will be nowhere in sight!

In this video, I share with you how I lost 10 pounds in 1 day and kept it off (true story!) That's the clencher with these rapid weight loss gimmicks— they don't last. Hear how I did it along with some tips on how you can achieve your HealthyButJuicy goals.

...dreaming of a healthier planet...

Enjoy!

An Education

And the Saga of the Food Label Continues..

Once entrepreneurs started tampering with the food supply— that's when things started to get a little tricky.

Food stopped being simply the substance that gives us energy and the nutrients we need to survive, and [rapidly] evolved into a product to sell sell sell. Forget survival of the fittest. Industry doesn't care about health fitness. It cares about financial fitness, which translates into maximizing profits, minimizing costs, and doing whatever else it takes to do just that, including constantly keeping your attention [and wallet] open, by developing new products [note: the avg. supermarket now has about 60,000 products, up from about 20,000, just decades ago], packaging, marketing, so on and so forth.

In efforts to somehow manage and regulate this crazy food processing, which continues full-force today, the food label was born— telling us what's in an unnatural, unrecognizable, processed food and some key nutrient information, including:

• Calories
  
• Fat [unsaturated, saturated, trans]
  
• Cholesterol
  
• Sodium
  
• Potassium
  
• Carbs
  
• Fiber
  
• Sugar
  
• Protein
  
• Calcium
  
• Iron
  
• Vitamins A and C
  
• Ingredients in descending order by weight

Phew. That's a lot of really useful information on nearly every packaged food you can lay your hands on.

But forget all that. In the next few months, food makers [will] devise [their] own label plan, which consists of listing calories, saturated fat, sodium, and sugar on the front of packages, with the option to include [ahem, market] one or two more 'positive' ingredients as well, such as fiber.


Is the food industry really making genuine efforts to help consumers make healthier choices, as they claim?

And, more importantly, will consumers know how to use this new label plan any more effectively than what is on packages already?

And note: to say that the current food label is hidden, is bogus [or, complete BS]. Think for a minute: Do children have a difficult time finding games on their cereal boxes? [Case and point.]

Like an unknown foreign language, you can present the same information in a million different ways, but you still need an education or translator.

Happy Healthy Juicy $50 Million for Nutrition Education Just Might Prove More Effective Than Advertising This Initiative!

Facebook has Nothing & Everything to do with Health

Check out this Businessweek article: How Facebook Sells You.

No worries, this is not one of those paranoid Facebook articles that's preaching abstinence from the world's largest social networks. So you can still keep your virtual friends, just.. beware of them.

FB is a tool, still very much in development and changing, and one that can be used in many great ways. Take, for example, me & you, together at last. [giggle]. Likewise, however, it can also be abused— or used in ways NOT intended— in equally as many ways, if not more.

The point is to UNDERSTAND how and why FB is used [not just quit it altogether].

The article is great for illustrating how hungry businesses are to wet your appetite and swallow your cash, and, with that in mind, how much media can affect our psyche, behaviors and, ultimately.. ugh, I know, but health.

When it comes to nutrition and health education, businesses really do reign supreme. Is it really any surprise, considering the amount of money that goes into advertising and healthcare?


Some food for thought and some highlighted snippets, in case you don't care to read the whole thing:

Question: How many times have you done something because someone you care about did it?

"The whole premise of the site is that everything is more valuable when you have context about what your friends are doing," says Facebook co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, who started accepting ads on Facebook as a Harvard sophomore in 2004 in an attempt to cover server costs. "That's true for ads as well. An advertiser can produce the best creative ad in the world, but knowing your friends really love drinking Coke is the best endorsement for Coke you can possibly get."

Question: Are there really that many people engaged in advertising and branding?

"A year ago, Facebook was an afterthought," says Carol Kruse, vice-president, global interactive marketing, at Coca-Cola (KO), which has more than 12 million Facebook fans. "As we go into 2011, it's fully integrated into our marketing plans, with a reliance and a focus on it."

Question: How are businesses using social media?

Facebook calls its ads "engagement ads," because they ask users to take action: play a video, vote in a poll, RSVP to an event, or just comment or click a button to indicate that they "like" it. The "like" button, which Facebook has gradually attached to just about every piece of content on its site and others across the Web, is intended to convey a general recommendation to a member's friends. So while a great majority of users ignore the great majority of ads on Facebook, the numbers change when, say, an ad for a local restaurant is footnoted by friends' names: ("Jordan, Jen, and 3 other friends like this").

That social endorsement is a tiny mnemonic designed to make the ad catchier, and it works. Nielsen, which started measuring the efficacy of Facebook ads a year ago, says that if users see their friend "likes" an ad or has commented on it, they are up to 30 percent more apt to recall the ad's message.

If enough of your friends like or comment on the ad, the ad can escape its right-side quarantine and jump into your main news feed, along with the names of your friends and all the conversation around the ad. The advertiser pays nothing for this migration. In the industry, it's called "earned media." (Think of a teenager wearing a Nike T-shirt or Ellen DeGeneres enthusiastically talking about a product.)

Question: What are the consequences?

Facebook's promise to advertisers isn't to get consumers to buy their products—or really even to get them to click through to their website. Instead, it wants to subtly park the advertiser's brand in the user's consciousness and provoke a purchase down the line. More immediately, it also aims to get you to "like" the brand yourself, which then serves as a sort of all-purpose opt-in, allowing the advertiser to insert future messages into your feed.

Think about it. Amongst the advertising fiends is Big Food trying to get you to eat as much of their manufactured crap as often as possible. Diet [& activity for that matter] is about ongoing lifestyle. So essentially, it's their job to take yours over, and, with 2/3 of our population suffering from overweight/obesity, it looks like they're doing a hell of a job. Literally.

What do you think? Do you buy it? ..oops. Not buy buy, but you know.. agree with, or Like, the argument? [grin].

Happy Healthy Juicy Powers of Social Media! For Better or For Worse.
Educators, Pay Attention!

16 Simple Ways to Decrease Quality of Life - Overweight/Obesity Edu-tainment PSA

Should Doctors Be Responsible for Nutrition Education?

New York Times 'Views' Article:
Teaching Doctors About Nutrition and Diet

HealthyButJuicy comments on the New York Times' Well Blog.

Is Snooki Fighting Too Hard for Fame?

I don't know what The Situation is or what everyone thinks is so Woww, as I have yet to witness respectable-enough media coverage of the Jersey Shore cast for me to actually check out their MTV reality hit.

Case and point: Snooki on the cover of OK! mag, plastered with the words: 'My Battle with Anorexia'.

I commend the editors over there for doing their job, as the cover lured me into picking up a copy to check out the story with such a powerful title. That's not to say, though, I condone them for turning a serious issue into what seems to be fodder.

So what does the beehived tanning queen have to share about her experiences?

'In high school, my weight was a very big deal, but when I went to college, it wasn't as big of a deal to me, and I got over it pretty quick, which is pretty surprising to me...

You know, how in college you're eating all kinds of crappy food? That's when I started eating bagels again. I was like, '"Eh, screw it, I'll just eat." I wasn't, like, downing cheeseburgers. I just started eating like a regular person again. And I started to gain the weight back. I really didn't have any problems in college because I was too busy worrying about my studies.'

Worrying about her studies, I'm sure..


We throw around the term 'depressed' when we're bummed out about something. But depression, in the actual clinical sense, is more than being just bummed out— it's long[er] term, affects daily life, and is seriously debilitating. The same goes for anorexia. Usage of the word is sometimes [or often] thrown around as if it's nothing and without understanding of what it actually means or is.

According to the DSM-IV— the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental health professionals in the US— anorexia nervosa is classified using the following criteria:

1. Refusal to maintain body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for age and height (e.g., weight loss leading to maintenance of body weight less than 85% of that expected; or failure to make expected weight gain during period of growth, leading to body weight less than 85% of that expected).
   
   
2. Intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even though underweight.
   
   
3. Disturbance in the way in which one's body weight or shape is experienced, undue influence of body shape on self-evaluation, or denial of the seriousness of the current low body weight.
   
   
4. In postmenarcheal females, amenorrhea, i.e., the absence of at least three consecutive menstrual cycles.

Snooki claims to have gotten down to 80 pounds in high school, which does sound low, but, note, today, she's only 4' 9''. Moreover, eating disorders, whether it be anorexia, bulimia, or EDNOS [eating disorder not otherwise specified], typically [typically] is NOT something you just get over by saying 'screw it' and then eating bagels. If it were only that simple..

If reality is what you're after, chew on this:

• Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.
  
  
• The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate associated with all causes of death for females 15-24 years old.
  
  
• 20% of people suffering from anorexia will prematurely die from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems.
  
  
• Five to ten percent of anorexics die within ten years of onset, 18-20 percent die within twenty years of onset, and only 50 percent report ever being cured.

Stats taken from The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness

Ergo, the point isn't did she/didn't she [have an eating disorder] or was she/wasn't she [anorexic], though it is two-fold:

1. Whether she was sick or not, if she's going to take the responsibility of addressing the issue—which she did by agreeing to give a highly publicized exclusive interview and don the cover of a popular magazine— then she better own up to it and do it with extra care— it comes with the territory of fame, where one is no longer responsible just for oneself.
   
2. Ditto for the magazine/publisher. Though what they're publishing is 'trash', still, it's national, and social responsibility is in order. It's not like they're talking about a trivial thing such as her hair. For some, this really is a reality and really is a matter of life or death [..to be as dramatic as the bold yellow cap-sized font..]

Happy Healthy Juicy Being Responsible, and Knowing What's Appropriate & What's Snot!

Public Health/Edu, meet Today, Social Technology..

Food+Tech: that's the name of a meetup group I joined recently. Upon signup, they require you to introduce yourself. I didn't fawn over it and kept it succinct: 'electrical engineer turned nutrition educator. i blog about health.'

I didn't really know what the group was about so I attended their latest meetup about a week ago to find out. They call it 'Five On Food', where basically, five presenters have the opportunity to share what projects they're working on, theoretically in the realm of its name, food+tech.

Highlights of the event included these three speakers from..:

1) WindowFarms, which are vertical, hydroponic, modular, low-energy, high-yield edible window gardens built using low-impact or recycled local materials.

Goal 1: Empower urban dwellers to grow some of their own food inside year-round.

Goal 2: Create a web platform that allows citizens to collaboratively innovate globally toward more sustainable cities using locally available materials to suit locally specific conditions, a process we call R&D-I-Y.

R&D-I-Y: Mass Collaboration to Solve Environmental Problems:
The ultimate aim of the Windowfarms project is not primarily to create a perfected physical object or product. Rather, the targeted result is for participants to have a rewarding experience with crowdsourced innovation. The team is interested to learn from participants' experience as they design for their own microenvironments, share ideas, rediscover the power of their own capacity to innovate, and witness themselves playing an active role in the green revolution.

The windowfarms project approaches environmental innovation through web 2.0 crowdsourcing and a method called R&D-I-Y (research and develop it yourself). Big Science’s R&D industry is not always free to take the most expedient environmental approach. It must assume that consumers will not make big changes. Its organizational structure tends toward infrastructure-heavy mass solutions. A distributed network of individuals sharing information can implement a wide variety of designs that accommodate specific local needs and implement them locally. Ordinary people can bring about innovative green ideas and popularize them quickly. Web theorists like Clay Shirky claim that this capacity to “organize without hierarchical organization” will be a fundamental shift in our society brought about by the web over the coming decades.

2) Fresh, which is a grassroots efforts for a grassroots movement.. [It's] more than a movie, it’s a gateway to action. Our aim is to help grow FRESH food, ideas, and become active participants in an exciting, vibrant, and fast-growing movement.

Fresh uses social networking, such as Facebook and Twitter, to help spread the word.

3) NOAH [Networked Organisms And Habitats], which is a tool that nature lovers can use to explore and document local wildlife and a common technology platform that research groups can use to harness the power of citizen scientists everywhere.

An example of one of their current missions is called Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners, where users can share info with fellow gardeners to learn what can grow best in their garden.



Today, I went to another meetup event for another group- totally unrelated- on media and publishing. Co-founder of Foursquare and expert in mobile apps, Naveen Selvadurai, discussed key ingredients that go into creating a fun digital experience.

In case you don't know what Foursquare is, it's a mobile app that's focused on fostering social meetups/gatherings/community and learning/exploration/discovery of cities, particularly one's own, using game-based theory. The gaming aspect basically acts as an incentive for users— users 'check-in' to locations and when they meet certain criteria, they can win various badges [action->reward].

One such badge is called the Gym Rat, which you can earn if you check in to venue tagged 'gym' 10 times in 30 days. At one point in his presentation, Selvadurai shares a user's comment, which said his desire for this badge got him to go to the gym and is healthier because of it. Yoga studios, parks, farmers' markets, health food stores, restaurants with healthy fare, are other examples of how this app can and has been influential within communities, by themselves no less.


While these four ventures are very different from each other in content, they do all have an underlying common principle: that is, social media as a means to influence peoples' [each others'] behaviors. And isn't that what public health/education is all about?

[Rhetorical question.] Yes! Public health and education is about communication and influence. Social media is a [or, currently, the?] major portal & tool for both. We can't deny, overlook, or be ignorant of it anymore. It's time to get with the program, folks, there's a difference [many, actually] to be made.


Happy Healthy Juicy Wake UP! Social Technology [4BetterHealth], umm, rah!

Public Health Educators: Who are they really?

According to Wikipedia: Education, in the largest sense, is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense, education is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another.

When we think of the word ‘education’, we think: academia, discipline, school, classroom, homework, tests, studying [or cramming]..

When we think ‘physical education’, we think: manly female gym teacher, locker rooms, goofing off, class without tests..

When we think ‘health education’, we think: awkward lessons about and during puberty, birth control and STDs, smoking, drugs, alcohol, peer pressure..

But what about ‘nutrition education’ [NE]? I mean, unlike the above, nutrition education is still a very new and emerging field/area/subject. After all, it’s only since about the ‘80s—that's a mere 30-some years ago—that the nutritional health of Americans has plummeted, weight sky-rocketing.

Typically, though, NE is associated with learning about healthy eating/eating healthy. Sub-consciously, that translates into die with a T, deprivation, restriction, bland, hunger, guilt, preaching, nagging, rules to break. Realistically, it often translates into type A dietician[?]; blowoff course, or a joke, but an easy A; just knowledge like anything else; lame, or worse, boring; inaction; useless; zero improvement and perhaps further decline in health.

Moreover, because of the term education and the implications of learning, NE is generally thought of/envisioned as occurring particularly on the grounds of an educational setting— ie. school, [organized, do-good] programs, etc.

But wait! What is education again? For one, it is not location-specific. School may be in the business of, but it definitely is not the monopoly. Parents, friends, celebrities, media, people around us are all teachers by their power to influence. That said, education isn’t just about facts or knowledge. What we do with that knowledge, or understanding, and how it affects us, is just as relevant, if not more.

Girls, for example, learn that they aren’t naturally beautiful and so, fueling a multi-billion $$ industry, they wear makeup, day.in.&.day.out. Kids, for example, learn what’s cool and then themselves, drink, smoke, use, wear, listen, watch, act whatever it is that they learned. What we learn affects our behavior, for better or for worse.

The premise of nutrition education lies on the same principle: its aim isn’t to look prettier or be cooler, obviously, but [rather the opposite, oops..] to live a more optimal, healthier, happier life/style and is achieved via both knowledge and ‘behavior change’.

Ack, behavior change: I vividly remember my professor preaching this in my intro class to nutrition education. I remember [vocally, oops] only partially agreeing. As an educator, I thought it would be my job to empower others to make better decisions/choices—whether they actually would, though, would be up to them and not within my control.

I mean, it’s not my job to force feed people [here doesn't come the choo choo of broccoli..] but just be convincing enough that they’ll do it themselves, on their own. *Like*, you could be the best parent in the world but that doesn’t necessarily guarantee your kid won’t turn out to be a criminal. Over the years I guess I’ve come to accept it as true, though: my actions/purpose as an educator is geared toward [un-forceful, yes, but nonetheless] behavior change [for the better].

But wait! [sorry, again]. These non-optimal [aka. unhealthful] behaviors, who/what are exacerbating them, fueling the fire? Exactly—the real educators.

In the realm of nutrition, this translates into:

Marketers—think ads/commercials, product placements etc.

Designers—think product packaging, food styling etc.

Writers—think articles, posts, blurbs [newspapers, magazines, websites].

Producers—think tv shows [news, cooking shows, reality tv, morning tv etc.]

Business(wo/)men—think $$$. They do. And look at the results they get..

Entertainers—think anything remotely interesting enough to catch someone’s attention and good enough to have it stick and play into action.


These are the folks who really have a handle on education— nutrition, health, and all. Currently and unfortunately, those with the actual titles do not.


Public health has to change if the goal is for the health of the public to. Period.