Caregiver to Caregiver

Staying home. Gyms closed. Bored. Lonely. Food for comfort. Sound familiar?

I am hearing news reports and personal stories that seem to indicate many house-bound people have turned to food to help them deal with our current circumstances. The restaurants may be closed for fine dining, but the drive-thrus are still open for fat – oops – I mean fast dining. Full disclosure – I hardly ever eat at fast food places – especially after I peruse the calorie counts on their menus. YIKES!!

To make matters worse, the “experts” are noting that some data seems to suggest that people with obesity are more likely to become severely ill due to COVID-19. An increasing number of reports have linked obesity to coronavirus mortality, and the CDC has listed severe obesity as a risk factor for contracting severe COVID-19. The CDC defines severe obesity as having a body mass index of 40 or higher. 

Dr. Norbert Stefan of the German Center for Diabetes Research was quoted in Medical News Today (the source of the above information), “We concluded that obesity may put people infected with the novel coronoavirus (SARS-CoV-2) at a very high risk for a more severe COVID-19 illness and possibly risk of death.”

Considering that obesity is never a good thing – physically or emotionally – I considered this would be as good a time as any to revisit the series I wrote several years ago on nutrition for caregivers and their recipients.  Knowing that obesity is associated with heart disease, stroke, diabetes, migraine headaches, cancer , poor mental health outcomes, reduced quality of life and other negative conditions should encourage us to seek and maintain a healthy weight.

These dietary guidelines first flashed into my brain while I was watching a rerun of In the Heat of the Night. The former Archie Bunker – as played by Carol O’Connor – had taken on the role of a slightly more refined gentleman – Police Chief Bill Gillespie. One evening at the Tibb’s house, he was asking the blessing. The chief ended his simple prayer with, “Bless this food to our use.”  

Even though that is a familiar and often-used ending to a blessing, the sentiment hit me in a new way. “Of course that is what food is for!” I ruminated. The bounty of food sources available to us contains all the essential nutrients – carbs, fats, water, protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals and water – that our body needs for healthy growth and repair. 

Unfortunately, with the abundance of inexpensive food we also have available to us, almost 40% of Americans are eaten their way into the category of obesity. It seems we no longer view food predominantly as nourishment, but as entertainment, companionship, and celebration. Each of those have their occasional place, but the real purpose of eating is to maintain healthy bodies.

Nutrition plays an important part in everyone’s life – we all have to eat. As a caregiver, another of your many responsibilities is providing proper nutrition for your loved one, who may have special needs and restrictions. You also need to eat in a way that will ensure you maintain good health. Many of us also have children or grandchildren whom we want to encourage eating well to prevent illness and promote longevity. 

We have all heard “you are what you eat” and that has never been truer than today with the proliferation of processed foods, fast-food restaurants and a “food as a favorite pastime” mentality. Not to mention popular cooking shows in which butter and salt often seem to be the two main ingredients. 

There just seems to be something amiss when it is estimated that at least 20,000 people worldwide die every day from hunger or malnutrition – while two-thirds of Americans are overweight and over one-third are considered obese. As many children go hungry in poverty-stricken countries, the annual revenue of the weight-loss industry in our own food-obsessed land is over twenty billion dollars. 

In his book America the Beautiful, Dr. Ben Carson suggests that doctors would become “very bored” if people in our country :

• Ate three well-balanced meals each day
• Drank eight glasses of water or water equivalent
• Regularly got a full night’s sleep
• Regularly exercised
• Did not smoke or put harmful substances into their bodies
  
  

When Chief Gillespie (aka Archie/Carroll) spoke those words, bless jumped out at me, I grabbed a scrap of paper, and wrote down the following acronym: B (eat better); L (eat less); E(eat early); S (eat slowly); and S (eat simply smart). Later I researched each area and added guidelines. They are easy to remember, require no special equipment, and cost nothing to follow – but the dividends could be very beneficial.

I want to challenge you to try this experiment (if you are not on dietary restrictions that would prohibit you from doing so). Choose a day when your schedule is relaxed (I understand that is hard for a caregiver) and eat a bunch of junk food – fried and salty foods, sweets of all kinds, and other high-calorie/low nutrition foods. Record how you feel, both physically and mentally, that day and the next.

The following day, return to your normal diet. (I do hope the junk food extravaganza was not your normal diet.) After a few days, record how you feel. On the next day, eat reasonable portions of “clean” food. These include fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Avoid fatty foods, those that are processed or contain preservatives or additives, and high sugar/salt foods. Drink at least eight glasses of water. Record any changes you notice. 

A day may not be long enough to sense a big difference, but you may note differences in your digestive system or even your mood or sleep. For instance, eating junk food, especially late at night, can cause indigestion.

I also want you to consider the difference in the way your gut felt in the past when you have overeaten junk food, compared to the way it feels when you eat a moderate amount of nutritious food. Honestly, does anyone ever feel healthy and energized after stuffing themselves at an all-you-can-eat buffet? 

The “Bless this Food to Our Use Plan” is just a list of common sense ideas for good nutrition that can be personalized to fit individual lifestyles, likes, dislikes, and needs. As you read this blog, do your own research and add guidelines that you find most helpful to you. Just a word of discretion – be careful when the, “Life changing nutrition articles” are accompanied by a pitch to sell the author’s book, supplements or special foods. They may be legitimate, but check their credentials and make sure nutrition is their area of expertise. 

Next week we will begin point one in the bless acronym – eat Better!

Caring Quote:  “Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food.” – Hippocrates