StrongWomen Newsletter

Issue 105, June 2007

I hope you find this newsletter helpful, and that you share it with your friends. Feel free to forward, post or reprint it – but please credit strongwomen.com for the information and don’t change the content.

By Miriam E. Nelson, PhD
Author of
Strong Women Stay Young
Strong Women Stay Slim
Strong Women, Strong Bones
Strong Women Eat Well
Strong Women and Men Beat Arthritis
The Strong Women’s Journal
Strong Women, Strong Hearts
Strong Women, Strong Backs
Founder of www.StrongWomen.com

IN THIS MONTH'S ISSUE 

• One Community’s Fight Against Childhood Obesity
• Upcoming StrongWomen Workshops
• Reader Questions and Answers
• Which Ankle Weights are Most Appropriate?
• Is Spinning a Weight Bearing Exercise?
• Success Stories
• Recipe – Strawberry Spinach Salad

ONE COMMUNITY’S FIGHT AGAINST CHILDHOOD OBESITY

Over my twenty-year career I have had a few great moments that have reinforced my love of research. One of those moments came May 10 when a research project of ours at Tufts was released—many of you may have read about it on the front page of the Wall Street Journal that morning or seen it on NBC Nightly News (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18597948/). Shape Up Somerville (SUS), led by Dr. Christina Economos, my closest colleague at Tufts, took a new approach to solving the current epidemic of childhood obesity. Instead of working to change just one factor in a child’s environment that might promote weight gain, SUS attempted to change the child’s entire environment as a community-wide research initiative.

SUS was a controlled trial that included three communities in the greater Boston area. All of the children participating in the trial were in grades 1-3 and attended public school in one of the three participating communities. Two communities were considered controls and the children who lived in those areas did not receive any of the intervention components. The third community (Somerville) was considered the intervention community. The SUS intervention lasted for one school year (second year results are being analyzed right now). The height and weight of each child was measured at the beginning and end of the intervention.

The goal of the SUS intervention was to create activities that would influence a child’s entire day―before, during, and after school. In order to do that successfully, the SUS initiative called upon the entire community to participate in the intervention, for example: parents participated in nutrition forums and multiple family events; teachers included nutrition and physical activity lessons into their curriculums; school food service workers made fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products more available in the cafeteria, the City of Somerville worked to make the city more walkable; local restaurants offered healthful menu selections and highlighted them on their menus; and the local media worked to promote SUS activities.

The results of the SUS program are very exciting: the elementary students in Somerville gained significantly less weight during the school year than the students in the control communities. These results suggest that communities working together to create a healthier environment may be the best tactic to fight the obesity epidemic.

Lifting women to better health,
Miriam E. Nelson, PhD

(Reference: C Economos and colleagues. A community intervention reduces BMI z-score in children: Shape Up Somerville first year results. Obesity. 2007;15(5):1325-36.)

UPCOMING STRONGWOMEN WORKSHOPS

Several upcoming StrongWomen Program workshops are scheduled for the next few months. In order to be eligible for StrongWomen training, you must be actively strength training right now, and you must have a firm commitment to starting a program in your community. This training is to teach you how to “lead” a StrongWomen Program, and should not be attended simply for informational/personal purposes.

Date: July 19, 2007
Location: Colorado Springs, CO
Contact person: Sheila Barry or Debbie Rivera
Phone (719) 636-8920
Email sheilabarry@elpasoco.com or debbierivera@elpasoco.com

Date: August 8, 2007
Location: Dushore, PA
Contact person: Nancy Wiker
Phone (717) 304-6851
Email nwiker@psu.edu

Date: September 5, 2007
Location: Casper, WY
Contact person: Christine Pasley
Phone: (307) 322-3667
Email: chrisp@uwyo.edu

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Q: I purchased a 10-pound pair of ankle weights, but see that your books suggest a 20-pound pair. Should I exchange them?

A: The 10-pound cuffs are fine as long as they allow you to challenge yourself. For most women, 10-pound cuffs are fine for six months or so. Once they become too light, I recommend buying 20-pound leg weights because they allow you more of a chance to progress and gain the full benefits of strength-training.  For some women, the 10-pound cuffs last forever.

Q: Does a Spinning class count as weight-bearing exercise?

A: Spinning is a great aerobic workout and because most Spinning classes involve several minutes of standing climbs, it can be considered a hybrid of both weight-bearing and non-weight-bearing exercise. As far as I know, there isn’t any research that looks at the relationship of Spinning and bone health. If your goal is to keep your bones strong, be sure to keep up with your traditional strength-training program, too.

FROM THE MAILBOX: SUCCESS STORIES FROM INSPIRING WOMEN

This is the 4th 8-week session that my current class of strength-training is doing.  Twenty-two women started the first session and all returned every time except the ones that went to Florida for the winter.  When they return home, they come back. We started this session May 8th and have four new members.  We are a close-knit group, very caring and concerned about each other. When this session began one of the ladies said her grandson was just sent to Iraq.  At the next class another lady suggested we all bring something to pack in a box for him.  We had enough things to fill three boxes.  One of the ladies made a great card. It said “From your grandmother's StrongWomen class.” We are working to be the strongest, healthiest women in Pennsylvania.

― Dottie

RECIPE OF THE MONTH

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