Art Markman, Ph.D.: When Do You Practice What You Preach?

Art Markman, Ph.D.: When Do You Practice What You Preach?

Philosophers and observers of human behavior have noticed that people often make moral claims that they cannot live up to. There are countless examples of scandals involving religious and political leaders who talk publicly about living up to high moral standards, but whose personal lives do not measure up. These observations have spurred a number of lines of psychological research.

In 1997, Jonathan Baron and Mark Spranca focused on a particular kind of moral statement that people make, called a "protected value." A protected value is a moral line that people say they simply will not cross. For many people, for example, abortion crosses a protected value of the sanctity of human life. For these people, they simply will not accept any violation of this value. A key sign that a protected value is threatened is that people experience a sense of moral outrage.

This strong reaction to violations of a protected value are felt most strongly when the value is challenged directly. In fact, research by Julie Irwin and Jonathan Baron in 2001 suggests that even people who hold a particular protected value will make tradeoffs related to it when they are not asked about it directly.

In their studies, some participants were people who expressed a protected value for saving the rainforest. When faced directly with the opportunity to purchase furniture made from wood harvested from the rainforest, these participants were unwilling to do so. However, if participants with this protected value were asked about how much money they would spend for a variety of pieces of furniture (some of which contained wood from rainforests), almost all of them expressed a price that they would actually be willing to pay. So, when the protected value was not made overt in the choice, it had a much weaker effect on people's behavior.

Even in less extreme circumstances, people's beliefs about their behavior often do not match their actual behavior. An interesting paper by Oriel FeldmannHall, Dean Mobbs, Davy Evans, Lucy Hiscox, Lauren Navrady, and Tim Dalgleish published in Cognition in 2012 explores this issue. They compared performance in hypothetical and real moral situations.

The studies focused on a game called Pain vs. Gain. In this game, one participant is given £20. A second participant is strapped into a chair where they will be given moderately painful electric shocks. On each of the 20 trials of the game, the participant can pay up to £1 to minimize the severity of the shock. If they give up 1£, then the other participant receives no shock at all. If they give up nothing, then the participant receives the most painful shock.

In the hypothetical version, the game is described to people, and they are asked how much money they would keep. In this condition, participants predict they will keep about £1.50. This prediction reflects people's general belief that they do not want to cause harm to other people.

In the real version of the game, participants actually played the game. At the start of the study, they met a second participant who was assigned to receive the shocks. They got to experience a mild shock to get a sense of what the other participant might feel. On each trial, they made responses on a computer of how much money they would give up on that trial using a slider to pick a value between £0 and £1. Then, they saw the effects of the shock on the other participant by video. In actuality, the other participant was a confederate who was never actually given a shock, but was acting as though they had. In this version of the experiment, participants actually kept about £12.50. In this study, the data from a participant was only used if that participant believed that the study was real and the other participant had actually received the shocks.

So, people's actual behavior differed quite a bit from what they would predict they would do.

In a second study, the researchers explored ways to make people's predictions more accurate. They reasoned that people have a hard time simulating what it is like to be faced with this choice, and so they fall back on a general rule like "don't harm other people" to predict what they would do. In this study, they created three other hypothetical versions of the game.

In one, the game was described in great detail, and participants were asked how much money they thought they would keep. In this case, participants thought they might keep about £4. In another version, the game was described, and participants actually played all 20 rounds of the game. In this case, they kept about £8. In a third condition, participants went through the entire scenario of meeting another participant and getting a sample shock, but then, they were told to imagine that the other participant was connected to the shock. Then, they played all 20 rounds of the game. In this case, participants kept about £12, which is about what the participants playing the real game kept.

This research is related to a lot of work on the consistency between people's attitudes and their behaviors. In essence, it is hard to predict what you are going to do in a situation if you are not experiencing that situation. When you say what you are going to do in a situation, you are making your best guess about it. However, it is hard for you to simulate all of the other factors that are going to influence your behavior. As a result, your predictions are often inaccurate. So, if you want to be as accurate as possible in predicting your future behavior, make the circumstances in which you make the prediction as similar as possible to the situation in which you will be acting.

For more by Art Markman, Ph.D., click here.

For more on emotional intelligence, click here.

For more healthy living health news, click here.

Follow Art Markman, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/abmarkman

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

David Katz, M.D.: A New Kind Of Epidemic: FUN!

David Katz, M.D.: A New Kind Of Epidemic: FUN!

I was at the White House recently, for the 2012 Easter Egg Roll.

Before I get any credit I don't deserve for being among the chosen few invited to perform, I hasten to add I was there essentially as the unofficial photographer to the backup dancers for the invited act. The back-up dancers were three of my children. The main act was Kellee McQuinn, founder of KidTribe.

Kellee is a phenomenal performer, director, producer, and all-around force of nature.

She and I met not long ago when participating in a TEDx event for Mindstream Academy. We decided shortly thereafter to collaborate on a project funded by my non-profit, Turn the Tide Foundation, and tentatively called "Vitality Rap." The program will deliver empowering, inspiring, and surprising health messages to tweens and teens using music videos as the delivery vehicle -- with links to actionable programs that enable them to put their new awareness to work. The initial offering -- "Unjunk Yourself" -- is now in production, and got its pre-production premiere on the South Lawn of the White House.

Kellee and KidTribe were invited back to the Easter Egg Roll for the third year in a row, and after watching Kellee's performances (with, if I am allowed to express the potentially biased view of a parent, the very able back-up performances of my kids!) -- I can see why. She is an engaging, high-energy performer, and can do things with a hula-hoop that truly seem to defy gravity. My own efforts with a hula-hoop, in contrast, serve only to confirm that gravity is totally in charge.

Kellee reports going down two dress sizes as a by-product of her virtuoso hula-hooping. She also states -- with the kind of conviction that makes you believe it must be true -- that vigorous hula-hooping for 10 minutes burns the same calories as running a mile. I'm looking for the report of that randomized trial, and will get back to you when I find it. But for now, let's take it on faith.

Here's the part for which faith is not required, because I offer a firsthand account: What Kellee and KidTribe did on the White House South Lawn was highly contagious.

With each of the many performances throughout the day -- to sequential, lottery-winning crowds of roughly 6,000 Easter Egg Roll guests at a time -- a forest of hula-hoops was strewn across the lawn. The music began. Kellee -- with Valerie, Natalia, and Gabriel -- took to the stage. The hoopla commenced.

And then, inevitably, one by one, two by two, and group by group, people picked up the hoops. They shook, they shimmied, and in many cases, they hooped quite admirably. Few, I confess with some chagrin, were as hopeless as I. (I plan to keep my day job...)

But even those who couldn't hoop -- or didn't get a hoop -- danced alongside those who could, and did. Young, old; lean, heavy; adept, and not so much. They were all moving, and loving it.

And there were no hoops to jump through. There was no cajoling, coaxing, or coercion. There was no hullabaloo. Just fun, on public display. Just the up-side of peer pressure. A contagion of hip-swinging, calorie-burning fun.

Often -- too often, perhaps -- we clinicians, researchers, and public health practitioners speak of health as if it requires jumping through hoops. And in many ways, of course, it does.

Eating well in the modern world is hard. We are surrounded by a wide array of tempting food choices of suspect influence on health. We are exposed to the constant goad of food marketing. We may well be subject to foods willfully engineered to ensure that we "can't eat just one."

We are, as well, beneficiaries of ever more technology that does all the things that muscles used to do. We are victims of increasingly hectic schedules that squeeze physical activity out of the daily routine of adults and children alike.

And we confront these modern challenges with a Stone Age physiology perfectly suited for an entirely different world. A world in which calories were relatively scarce and hard to get, and physical activity -- called survival -- was unavoidable. Everybody did it every day.

We find ourselves in a modern world in which physical activity is scarce and hard to get, and calories are unavoidable. And with no native defenses against caloric excess or the lure of the couch -- never having needed them before. So we are all too readily undone by this foreign, toxic, modern world of our own devising.

Jumping from where we are to the native conditions of the Stone Age to which we are adapted involves one heck of a hoop!

We professionals also tend to talk about the costs of not making that leap. I tell this tale routinely, both on the page and at the podium.

It is a tale of epidemic obesity among adults and children alike. It is a story of the transformation of adult-onset diabetes into a pediatric epidemic of Type 2. It is a story of proliferating cardiac risk factors in ever-younger people. It is even a story of a rising rates of stroke in 5- to 14-year-olds. It is not a fun story. It is a story that might even imply: To hell with fun!

Up to a point, we professionals are quite right to note how hard getting to health can be through the obstacle course of the modern day -- for adults and children alike. We are right to report, and repeat, the dire consequences of poor use of forks and inadequate use of feet that constitute the status quo. We are right to clamor for changes in both programming and policies to help pave the way so that health might be diverted from the road far too seldom taken, to a path of lesser resistance.

But there is another story to tell about health, and it is fun. It's all about fun. The antidote for "to hell with fun" may just be: To health, with fun!

Healthy people have more fun. People having fun might accidentally get healthy. We can get health in the pursuit of pleasure, and pleasure in the pursuit of health. Peer pressure can have an up-side!

The fun story is what I saw on the South Lawn of the White House. I was invigorated and inspired by what I saw -- and hope that with words and pictures, I can to convey some small measure of that infectious energy.

Getting to health can seem like jumping through hoops. But do the hula with one, and you see a very different picture. Have fun -- put it on display in front of some kids, your own or anyone else's -- and you will likely find yourself at the center of a movement. Make it fun that involves movement, and you will likely find yourself at the epicenter of not only infectious fun, but a contagion of health promotion as well.

Here's to that epidemic!

-fin

Dr. David L. Katz; www.davidkatzmd.com
www.turnthetidefoundation.org

For more by David Katz, M.D., click here.

For more on fitness and exercise, click here.

For more on personal health, click here.

Follow David Katz, M.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DrDavidKatz

FOLLOW HEALTH AND FITNESS

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Susan B. Dopart, M.S., R.D., C.D.E.: Surprising Facts About Fat In Foods

Susan B. Dopart, M.S., R.D., C.D.E.: Surprising Facts About Fat In Foods

Fat has the reputation as the bad boy of the nutrition world. Maligned for decades, the message from many health organizations has been the same: reduce or cut the fat. For those who are overweight or have chronic health issues, this is probably the right advice. However, the idea of fat as universally "bad" simply isn't true. Maybe it's time to reframe the conversation, starting with the real facts about fat.

1. Eating fat does not necessarily make you fat.

Many think that if you eat any fat it will go to your sides, backside, hips or stomach. If you are consuming more food than your body requires it does not matter what you are eating -- carbohydrate, protein or fat. In fact, eating too many starchy processed carbs is more likely to trigger high insulin levels and fat storage or weight gain than moderate fat or protein.

2. No need to avoid nuts.

Nuts do contain fat but the healthy kind called monounsaturated fat, which helps not only with satiation (feeling full) but also increasing the good type of cholesterol, called HDL. Richard Mattes, MPH, R.D., distinguished professor of foods and nutrition at Purdue University, has studied the relationship between nuts and weight (1). His research shows nuts are not associated with weight gain due to their high level of satiety and inefficiency with being digested. Apparently nuts have cell walls that are not easily broken down during the chewing process. Translation: This means nuts basically go through the body undigested without releasing the fat they contain into your system. What great news for nut lovers!

3. Saturated fat is not the evil villain to avoid.

Once thought to be the villain, many health care professionals recommended avoiding all sources of saturated fat (fat that is solid at room temperature). We now know that having some saturated fat will not break your health bank and some types of saturated fat can be part of a healthy diet.

One healthy source of saturated fat is extra-virgin, organic coconut oil. Coconut oil contains a type of MCT (medium chain triglyceride) oil called lauric acid that is only found here and in mother's breast milk. Lauric acid is a powerful immune stimulant and may help in preventing sickness. In addition, coconut oil is safe to use at high temperatures since it is saturated and the molecules cannot be damaged. I've tried many brands of coconut oil and my favorite one is Kelapo -- great for stir-frying veggies and your morning eggs.

4. A label that says "no trans fat" may not be entirely free of trans fat.

Unfortunately, many manufacturers make the serving size on the label so small it falls under the "do not need to report" guideline. If the serving size has less than the .5 grams of trans fat, a manufacturer can state "no trans fat" on the label. If you ate several servings of a food with "no trans fat" it can quickly add up to well over 2 grams of trans fat per day, which has been consistently linked to heart disease.

5. You don't need to steam all your veggies to get the most nutritional value.

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published research showing that eating a salad with dressing containing fat significantly increased absorption of nutrients called carotenoids (2). Eating a salad with fat-free dressing resulted is no carotenoid absorption. Carotenoids are responsible for the yellow, red, orange, and green colored pigments in fruits and veggies -- important for disease prevention. If you want to absorb all the amazing nutrients in your veggies, have some healthy fat on them or fat within the same meal.

6. Extra-virgin olive oil is not ideal for cooking.

Although extra-virgin olive oil is a healthy monounsaturated fat, it can easily become damaged at high temperatures. Use it for making salad dressings or marinating vegetables and meats. If you want to cook with olive oil, use it only in recipes where the smoke point is between 200 to less than 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

A particularly good olive oil I found last year at the Natural Foods Expo was cold-pressed Olivaylle Olive Nectar -- processed within six hours of harvesting and put in an oxygen-free dark glass, which holds in the nutrients since olive oil is fragile and can be easily damaged or oxidized.

7. Fat plays an important role in the body.

Fat has multiple functions in the body and is so important that without fat, we would not be alive. Some important reasons we need fat are:

• Your brain needs fat: Approximately 60 percent of the dry weight of brain is fat, and healthy neurons contain a type of fat known as DHA.

• Sex hormones are derived from fat.

• Fats supply essential fatty acids the body cannot manufacture, which are needed for healthy skin and hair.

• Fat is involved in metabolism of food, immune function and helping to stabilize blood sugars.

Now that you know the facts, you can see how fat's bad rap is undeserved. As with all things, moderation is the key. Enjoy some healthy fat with meals -- and taste how good "bad" can be!

References

1. Mattes, RD., et. al. (2010) "Nuts and healthy body weight maintenance mechanisms." Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 19(1):137-141

2. Brown, MJ., et al. (2004) "Carotenoid bioavailability is higher from salads ingested with full-fat than with fat-reduced salad dressings as measured with electrochemical detection." The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 80(2):396-403.

Susan is the author of "A Recipe for Life by the Doctor's Dietitian." Her new book "Healthy You, Healthy Baby: A mother's guide to gestational diabetes" will be out in May 2012. For more information, visit susandopart.com.

For more by Susan B. Dopart, M.S., R.D., C.D.E., click here.

For more on diet and nutrition, click here.

Follow Susan B. Dopart, M.S., R.D., C.D.E. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/smnutritionist

FOLLOW HEALTH AND FITNESS

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com