Integritus Prime

This past week I was at the headquarters of award-winning organization FRIEND (the Foundation for Rural Integrated Enterprise Development), a nonprofit that focuses on everything from diabetes management to paper recycling to organic food to financial literacy. I featured them earlier in this blog and interviewed their CEO, Sashi Kiran, on Mornings with Marilyn.

During my time at FRIEND in Lautoka, I facilitated a 2-day workshop on behavioral approaches to diabetes management, dementia, and cancer for caregivers and community head nurses. The next day, Sashi and I co-facilitated a discussion with the business community on diet and non-communicable diseases, including diabetes, obesity, cancer, and high blood pressure.

I learned so much from my workshop participants, Sashi, and discussion participants about local health challenges, and was able to impart behavioral tools for these community and business leaders to make an impact in their daily lives. Let’s summarize and look at some of the insights  as smart behavioral strategies:

1. Address Stress: I found out from Day 1 with my workshop participants, that even though they had started eating salads instead of fried foods, and they had begun backyard gardening, which is one of FRIEND’s programs, they were so stressed that they were in tears talking about their challenges. I learned that stress is an underlying factor that can impede important habit changes. So, I included a body scan meditation and a mindful breathing exercise during the day to help alleviate stress. On Day 2, participants reported feeling a lot more relaxed, and one team even chose meditation as their team solution for stress reduction. Yes!
2. Sugar & Salt Suck: Processed sugar, such as in candy, biscuits, fizzy drinks or soda, and other products, cause imbalances in the body, which eventually lead to diabetes, feed cancers, and because sugar is addictive, we have a hard time stopping the habit. Excess sugars in the body also get stored as fat, leading to weight gain. Fruits offer a much better solution, and when taken in moderation, can give us many benefits like vitamins and fiber without raising blood sugar. Salt is another beast because it’s implicated in high blood pressure. We are wise to use herbs and spices for flavor instead of too much salt.
3. Gluten Begone: Gluten has many ill effects, for our gut, brain, and it is implicated in cancers too, as I learned from Sashi in the business roundtable discussion. Give up gluten and open your world up to delicacies like corn and cassava rotis, sorghum and rice bread, and many root crops and grains that are tasty and nutritious.
4. Ban Bacon: The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that processed meat is a level 1 carcinogen, which is the same category as tobacco. This means there is equivalent amounts of evidence for both processed meat and tobacco. It’s time to give up bacon, ham, sausages, hot dogs, lunch meats, and other forms of processed meat. Processed meats tend to be very high in salt. Why invite cancer and high blood pressure?
5. Oil Is Old News: We learned from Sashi (and others have also endorsed this practice), that oil is harmful and we should use only minimally-processed oils or stop using them altogether. This opens up paths for innovative cooking using steaming, charcoal-based methods, roasting, baking, and much more. Deep fried foods like chicken and fries contain lots of processed fats which lead to obesity and heart problems.

Many thanks to all my participants for teaching me about some of these local hazards and situations, and for being receptive to behavioral science tools. I look forward to staying connected with all of you! Stay tuned next week for Part II of this series on behavioral strategies for wellness.

If you like what you’re reading and want to know how to take your wellness practices to the next level, contact me.

Talking to the “Rose of Sharon” group about their project on Day 1 of my diabetes management workshop at FRIEND headquarters in Lautoka this past week. They are becoming behavioral change agents for wellness in their rural communities. Photo Credit: Ratawa.