Figmentations

What a great depiction of a story of revenge. The movie “Sweeney Todd” is emotionally powerful. I’ve always loved Johnny Depp, but even to anyone who didn’t know of his prior movies, it’s clear that he can convincingly capture the consuming emotions of this fictious character fully.

I particularly liked the visuals during the song “By The Sea”.

This movie is a great combination of emotions (anger, humor, love, sadness, etc) and it’s amazing how a musical format delivered by non-singers comes together in such a perfect package. True talent all around.

Enjoy the clips available through this Sweeney Todd link.

Similar to the fundraising badges that you can get at SixDegrees, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) now also has fundraising badges under a site called: mycommitment.org. Note that CGI lists the definition of “commitment” as: “the transformation of ideas into action”.

A recent blog post on the site had two points that I thought were worth highlighting.

First, regarding the rise of the Internet: “… our newest threats have arisen at nearly the exact same time as our newest tools. It makes sense to use the one to fight the other. “

The other point is this:

“Truth” is not merely honesty, it’s information, and the knowledge of what to do with it.

While I do believe in the mind-body connection, that what we think and believe has an effect on our body and our outcomes, some theories are more of a stretch than others. Clearly lack of sleep coupled with mental stress will eventually takes its toll on our immune system, our overall health, and our weight.

In the Dec 2nd issue of Parade magazine, there is an article on the impact of stress on weight gain. The article points out that when under stress, not only are we more prone to emotional eating and more likely to forgo our exercise routine, but “stress seems to release a chemical reaction that triggers fat cells to grow and multiply in number.” Thus, weight gain can be amplified when we are under stress. And in this scenario, the weight gained is the more dangerous type, around our mid-section. A useful possibility to keep an eye on.

So, stress does have a negative physiological affect on us. And, in the same way there are things that will have a positive physiological effect on us, including relaxation, positive thoughts, compelling goals, as well as feel-good joy achieved through helping others and from having a meaningful life purpose.

However, the recent study about the likelihood that the initials in our name can affect our performance, particularly for people with a ‘C’ or a ‘D’ in their name, and baseball players with a ‘K’ in their name (who “struck out slightly more often than batters whose names didn’t”), seems to be a bit of a stretch.

People can have associations or anchors to particular things, such as how the thought of a lemon can make you salivate, so I suppose an association to a letter is possible. But, I can’t help but believe there are more powerful factors that influence ones performance than a person’s initials.

There is a great podcast/video clip of former President Clinton at the recent Fit Nation Summit with Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Some very interesting points about the initiative to fight Childhood Obesity were raised and discussed.

Interestingly, it starts with a mention of the partnership betwen Clinton’s Alliance for a Healthier Generation and Rachel Ray’s Yum-O Organization. Both with the same vision of creating “healthier” affordable food choices for families on the go. That ties in quite interestingly with Rachel Ray’s signing on to work with Dunkin Donuts to develop new, “better for you” food and beverage options.

Rachel Ray is quoted for her love of coffee. President Clinton is pictured with a Diet Coke next to him at the Fit Nation Summit. Clearly, some health enthusiasts wouldn’t consider them to be ideal representatives for the health issue, but then again these two public figures are what the general public will most relate to. And, it goes with the sentiment that change has to start somewhere, and that all change, both big change and small change is still change from which momentum can build.

This goes with the premise from Clinton’s book “Giving” on “how to get people motivated to care and act”. His four-part answer on the childhood obesity issue is: make it user-friendly; provide information and options to act; make the environment healthy; provide affordable options; and make it fun.

This podcast also included some great insight into the trans-fat debate. The need to get rid of trans-fats is not under question, but the debate arises out of what to substitute for it. Replace one “bad” ingredient with another “bad in another way” ingredient is not a solution. Creating foods that aren’t palatable and that no one will eat is another non-solution.

Clinton adeptly pointed out both sides to the issue and stated that a solution needs to be one whereby no one is unfairly hurt by it. The initial reason why trans-fats came about was to make food more palatable and to increase shelf life. Increased portion sizes also were initially introduced to create more value for the consumer, plus the fact that the marginal cost of providing a larger portion size was less than the increase in market share gained by doing so.

The point of “dietary schizophrenia” was brought up and described as a mindset where people would “talk skinny, but eat fat”. And, that now, in general, public perception is changing, that if the consumer demands healthier food choices, the food service industry will be there for that.

So, the change begins at home and with each of us individually. This is supported by the fact that 74% of meals are consumed in the home anyway, thus leading to one recommendations for education and not necessarily regulation. Though, as Clinton brought up, when public money is being spent in the schools, on exercise programs, and through health care programs, this isn’t just a private issue, the government has a right to be involved. After all, who wants to see what he claims can potentailly happen, “the American healthcare system could collapse on itself”.

A clear enough point was made that there is a need to make health fun again. Success in the Philadelphia area focused on helping people “re-imagine their possibilities and make it easier for them to do so.”

And, as Clinton pointed out from his experience, it’s not just how much you eat and that you exercise that’s important, but it is also what you eat that matters, too.

Thus, the need to change the Farm Bills and make fruits and vegetables more accessible, especially in urban disadvantaged areas. Did you know that if every American were to follow the guidelines of having five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, there wouldn’t be enough fruits and vegetables to provide for us?