Chapter 6: Choosing a Healthy, Sustainable Lifestyle

1. Chapter 6: Choosing a Healthy, Sustainable Lifestyle C H A P T E R 6 Choosing a Healthy, Sustainable Lifestyle

2. Learning Outcomes • Understand how modern agriculture creates environmental problems and affects health. • Explain how diet contributes to the explosion of modern health problems. • Explain how different farming practices can solve environmental problems and improve overall health. • Understand how living a more active lifestyle brings a higher quality of life.

3. Reasons for Poor Health • Crop monocultures • Contaminated and processed foods • Obesity • Sedentary living

4. Chronic Health Problems From Diet • Type II Diabetes • 1 in 3 chance for Americans born in 2000 • Cancer • Cardiovascular disease

5. Food Dilemma • Industrialized diet • Processed foods high in fat, sugar, and salt • Green and Industrial Revolutions • Allowed for increased crop yields by using pesticides and fertilizers • Higher yields per harvest

6. Industrial Farming • Emphasis is on more yields, thus more profit. • It degrades soil. • It creates social and ecological problems. • It contributes to increased obesity and malnutrition. • Leads to chronic disease and increased costs for health care

7. Farm Economics • Governmental subsidies • Give a faulty perception of the actual costs of food • Corn, soybean, and meat • Healthier crops not given the luxury of government subsidy • Developed countries spend 10% of income on food; undeveloped countries spend 75%. • Fossil fuel use and farming

8. High-Meat Diet • Associated with affluence • Problems with CAFOs • Energy intensive, creates pollution, degrades soil • Causes digestive problems in most animals because they do not naturally eat corn • Why can’t animals be put out on pasture? • Not enough land; decrease in profits (continued)

9. High-Meat Diet (continued) Overgrazing results in desertification.

10. Overgrazing Leads to Soil Failure

11. Industrial Versus Sustainable Farming (continued)

12. Industrial Versus Sustainable Farming (continued) • Biodynamic farming • Three sisters crop system • Perennial polycropping • Seed banks • 90% of crops are hybrid strains or genetically modified organisms • Titanic syndrome

13. Community Agriculture • Buy local, seasonal food directly from the farmer. • Farmers have a set market. • Shared risk and reward promotes a sense of community. • Farmers’ markets are an example.

14. Campus Garden

15. Smart Choices Campaign • “Smart Choice” certification • Still contain lots of fats, sugars, salt, and chemical additives • Can be highly processed

16. Healthy Lifestyle Choices • Your food purchases are a choice for or against sustainability. • Choose foods your grandparents would recognize as food. • Avoid processed foods. (continued)

17. Healthy Lifestyle Choices (continued) • United States grows large quantities of food. • Obesity • Malnourishment • Creates emotional problems and poor discipline • Soils devoid of nutrients (continued)

18. Healthy Lifestyle Choices (continued) • Lack of exercise exacerbates the problems of a poor diet. • Exercise has many benefits for individuals and the community. • Lowers risk for diabetes, heart disease, back pain, osteoporosis • Increases social networking in the community (continued)

19. Healthy Lifestyle Choices (continued) • Centers for Disease Control (CDC) • Each day 1,200 deaths are attributed to bad diet and inactivity. • Childhood obesity has tripled in the past 30 years and continues to rise. • Blue Zones Vitality Project • Creating community change in regard to diet and exercise (continued)

20. Healthy Lifestyle Choices (continued) • 70% of healthcare spending is attributed to preventable illnesses. • Lack of exercise • Poor diet • Smoking • Alcohol consumption (continued)

21. Healthy Lifestyle Choices (continued) • What do you notice about people in the 1940s-1950s? • Dieting is a modern phenomenon. • Healthy lifestyle promotes: • Healthy eating • Activity • Healthy agriculture (continued)

22. Healthy Lifestyle Choices (continued) • Sustainability is looking systemically at how you live and making choices to live better. • Benefits of 30 minutes of exercise each day • Reduces stress • Improves self-esteem • Increases overall sense of well-being • Increases cognitive performance • Decreases risk for major medical problems

23. Good Versus Bad Stress

24. Esperanza • What do you think a trip to the grocery store looks like for Esperanza? • Do you like that vision? Why or why not? • How does your current lifestyle in terms of diet and exercise look in comparison to that of Esperanza? • Do you prefer your lifestyle or would you prefer that of Esperanza? Why?