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October
5, 2006
After attending three conferences in the last three weeks, I have come to a fairly radical conclusion. I think meetings can be bad for our health. You may or may not agree with that statement, but I have some research backing my claim. With about two of three adults overweight or obese, we all need to think about our lifestyle decisions at every turn. Generally, meetings are inactive times. A case in point: I have been wearing a pedometer with a goal of doing 10,000 steps (5 miles) a day. At a meeting a couple of weeks ago, my morning activity consisted of walking around my small hotel room and then walking to the breakfast table in the meeting room. I ate, sat and listened, nearly motionless, for a couple of hours. The bowl of candy at my table beckoned me. Then we had a break to amble over to the snack table. I checked my pedometer. I had walked 800 measly steps. I would have had even fewer steps, but I got lost in the mazelike hotel on the way to one of the presentation rooms. This was not good. To meet my goal, I needed to walk more than 4.5 miles by the time I went to bed. I didn’t make my goal, even with a walk to a restaurant that evening. I was too busy sitting. I could almost feel myself expanding. For every 3,500 calories taken in over the amount of calories expended, we have the potential of gaining a pound of body fat. Maybe I should fidget, I thought. People who “can’t sit still” are burning more calories than “calm” individuals. Mayo Clinic researchers measured the energy used by people who aren’t consciously exercising. It’s called “nonexercise activity thermogenesis” or N.E.A.T. Compared with people sitting motionless, fidgeting people burn up to 13 times as many calories. So, if I had fidgeted during this meeting, I had the potential to burn an extra 60 calories an hour. I didn’t want to be a spectacle, so I sat still. Maybe I’ll sit in the back of the room and fidget next time. If you’re the meeting planner, consider incorporating some activity breaks or stretch breaks to activate the audience. This Web site, www.ag.ndsu.edu/stretching/stretching.htm, features some stretching exercises to get you started. The exercises also can be done seated at a computer. Next, consider the food served at many meetings. It doesn’t always earn a gold star for nutritional content. We chose from a wide assortment of pastries and donuts. By the way, this was a food safety conference, not a nutrition conference. Deep-fried food is rarely associated with foodborne illness outbreaks. If you’re the meeting planner, consider some tasty, healthier fare for snacks, such as fresh fruit, low-fat yogurt, veggies with dip, baked tortilla chips with salsa, raw veggies with low-fat dip, whole grain crackers or seasoned popcorn or pretzels with sweet mustard dip. Check the labels on packaged snacks and aim for products with 5 or less grams of fat per serving. Try this reduced-fat recipe from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Recipe Finder Web site at http://recipefinder.nal.usda.gov/. Substituting yogurt for eggs and oil reduces fat and cholesterol.
### Source:
Julie Garden-Robinson, (701) 231-7187, jgardenr@ndsuext.nodak.edu |
Market Advisor: |
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North Dakota State University |
