Let’s Move is a campaign started by Mrs. Obama two years ago to promote healthy living amongst our nation’s kids. It is a program that was made to solve the problem of childhood obesity. The Let’s Move campaign has ‘provided children with healthier food and greater opportunities for physical activity in schools and communities, helped get families the information they need to make healthier decisions, supported a healthy start in early childhood, and have worked to ensure more people have access to healthy, affordable food.’

The Let’s Move website has many useful tools including, food pyramids, portion recommendations, tools for child care providers and day care centers to help the youngest children get off to a healthy start, resources for parents, and much more.

The first lady has chosen Des Moines as the kick-off location for a three-day national tour promoting the Let’s Move campaign. Thousands of central Iowa elementary and middle school students will descend upon Wells Fargo Arena to participate in this 2^nd anniversary event. Mrs. Obama is scheduled to speak to the crowd at 11:00 a.m. Local acts will perform for the crowd. There will also be some local and national celebrities including: Biggest Loser trainer Bob Harper, ISU basketball coach Fred Hoiberg, figure skater Michelle Kwan, WNBA player Tamika Catchings, NASCAR driver Carl Edwards, and gold-medal gymnast Shawn Johnson. Organizers have said more celebrities could be added.

Des Moines University has recently implemented a new Vision statement. I believe this event fits perfectly with the vision’s main points which include: education, leadership, wellness, and community. We get many opportunities to volunteer here at DMU, but I feel this one is very unique. Our students and employees are getting a chance to come together as one body and represent DMU in one of the best ways they know how: by giving back to our community and volunteering for an event that will hopefully have a positive effect on the future of our children.

This year’s Mini Medical School begins this evening and runs for the five consecutive Tuesdays following. (February 7 – March 6, 2012)

The theme this year is all about becoming the healthiest you possible. You will learn how to do this through the five keys to living a happier, healthier life.

1. The 10 Pillars of Healthy Aging
2. Stress Management Techniques
3. Improve Your Physical Health
4. Enhance Your Emotional Well-Being
5. Establish Good Nutrition Habits

Register online or you can just sign up and purchase your tickets tonight before the talk.

Here are some ways to keep the dark days of winter from dragging you down:

Let there be light! Getting exposure to sunlight can be a powerful way to boost your mood.

Reach out. Maintain connections with family and friends. A little love and companionship can help sustain you.

Buy some bulbs. When you can’t get any outdoor light, a high-intensity indoor light fixture can help.

Get moving! Hit the gym and exercise. Doing so in the winter can provide a powerful lift to your mood and your energy.

Eat for energy. Combine lean protein and complex carbohydrates in your meals. Limit your consumption of alcohol, sugar, and high-fat foods, all of which may temporarily lift your mood but then leave you feeling tired soon after.

Change your thoughts. Learning to think less negatively will help improve your mood.

Reach in. Prayer, meditation, inspirational reading can provide a little relief during the dark days of winter.

WARNING: Overuse can be hazardous to your health.

As a New York Times reporter put it so well, “This is your body on chairs” (insert provocative CSI-style zoom-in to body): The assault on your metabolism begins as your calorie use dwindles to around 25 percent as compared to walking. Several researchers have published the sedentary body’s decline in sugar uptake, as insulin sensitivity drops by up to 40 percent. Several studies also show that our means of vacuuming fat from the bloodstream are also diminished after long periods of inactivity – particularly an enzyme called Lipoprotein Lipase (LPL). Increased levels of triglycerides and lipids and lower levels of HDL (the good cholesterol) have been measured in multiple studies. The combined harms of excessive sitting, especially over a lifetime, leave one with an increased risk for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

This whole time many of you have been thinking, “Surely my exercise routine of 40 minutes, four times a week, protects me from these problems.” Experts would tell you that this is like excusing a cigarette a day with some time on the treadmill – the health effects take their toll regardless of your fitness level. Intense exercise is simply not enough to burn off the calories equivalent to our daily intake, even though it may boost our metabolisms throughout the day. Think of your metabolism as a car on the freeway – and for a frame of reference, Lance Armstrong is an Indy 500 car. The goal is to keep your engine running to maintain a high speed. When you are inactive, you are pressing the brake pedal, and your relatively short bursts of exercise are punches on the accelerator. Put the time difference into perspective, and you can imagine how slowly this car would be moving.

The silver lining in all of this is that there may be a way to ease up on our brake pedals, according to Dr. James Levine, a physician at the Mayo Clinic who is pioneering solutions for our “chair-based lifestyles.” This is where things get so simple! All it takes are minor activities, and more of them, such as standing or pacing while studying or on the phone, taking the stairs, cooking more – simple alternatives to long-term inactivity. He has coined this type of activity as non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), which realistically accounts for most of our caloric burning throughout the day. He and other researchers have demonstrated these interruptions of inactive time directly decrease health risks. Study subjects had increased insulin sensitivity, lower triglyceride and lipid levels, and long-term studies had smaller waistlines and BMI’s.

Students and those with desk-based jobs should be especially aware of the risk factors and their individual solutions to their inactivity. So next time you hear about treadmill desks, or the use of exercise balls as office chairs, consider the benefits of these solutions. I’m gyrating on an exercise ball right now, and it’s fantastic! If you need baby steps, perhaps start by avoiding the elevator.

The spending bill also would eliminate other changes the U.S. Department of Agriculture had proposed, such as increasing whole grains in school meals, putting new restrictions on sodium, and limiting the use of starchy vegetables – e.g., French fries – to two servings per week.

“Pizza is a vegetable!” my daughter exclaimed in a way that reflected her happiness and her new knowledge of Congress’ ridiculousness.

Someone tell Congress THIS is what a vegetable looks like.

I’m not happy, and not just because the situation is reminiscent of the Reagan administration’s much-ridiculed attempt 30 years ago to classify ketchup as a vegetable to cut costs. According to the Associated Press, this time around, Congress was lobbied and swayed by the food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools, the salt industry and potato growers.

Now, I don’t condemn anyone who craves a slice of pizza or the occasional bag of salty fries. In fact, as a child of the 1960s and ’70s, I should praise Congress, having vibrant school-lunch memories of gloppy chipped beef on cold, coagulated mashed potatoes and stinky spinach cooked into what appeared to have spewed from Shrek’s nose. But these days, with obesity and diabetes rising at alarming rates among our kids, Congress simply did the wrong thing by kowtowing to the corporate food industry.

And just to show how honked off I am, today’s recipe features a real vegetable that used to really scare me during school lunch: Brussels sprouts. While the lunch ladies of my youth (God bless every one of them, I truly mean that) boiled them into frighteningly fragrant, sodden blobs, I’ve learned that these emerald jewels can be roasted and stir-fried into tasty, healthy perfection.

If you haven’t worked with these little nuggets of goodness, blogger and self-titled “veggie evangelist” Alanna Kellogg offers a very helpful post on how to cut Brussels sprouts, along with several recipes. Below I offer two other suggestions from Simply Recipes.

Roasted Brussels sprouts

• 1 pound Brussels spouts, rinsed, ends trimmed
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic – about three cloves
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons (or less) olive oil
• 1/4-1/2 teaspoons salt
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Optional: 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place Brussels sprouts in a cast iron frying pan or roasting pan. Toss in the garlic. Sprinkle sprouts with lemon juice and cider vinegar. Toss with the olive oil to coat well. Sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Place pan on top oven rack, cook for 20 minutes, then stir. Cook for another 10 minutes. Sprinkle with the Parmesan, if using, and cook for another five minutes.

Brussels sprouts with black bean garlic sauce

• 2 tablespoons olive, grapeseed or safflower oil
• Dash chili pepper flakes
• 25 Brussels sprouts
• 1 1/2 tablespoons black bean garlic sauce (found in Asian markets or the Asian aisle of most grocery stores; Simply Recipes recommends the Lee Kum Kee brand)
• Freshly ground black pepper

Wash the Brussels sprouts well. Trim the stems and discard any of the loose leaves. Quarter them lengthwise.

Place the oil and chili flakes into a large skillet and place over medium-high heat. Add the sprouts and cook for 3-5 minutes or until the sprouts begin to brown a bit. They may absorb all the oil; if they do, just add another 1/2 tablespoon of oil.

Add the black bean garlic sauce and stir until all the Brussels sprouts are well coated. Add ground black pepper to taste. Cook for about 30 more seconds. Take off the heat and serve immediately.

A study released last week by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that among 84 cereals, at least three that are marketed to children contain more sugar in a one-cup serving than a Hostess Twinkie. An additional 44, the study revealed, serve up more sugar in a cup than three Chips Ahoy! cookies. The three worst offenders: Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, Post Golden Crisp and General Mills Wheaties Fuel. Even more cavity-inducing is my guess that few kids limit themselves to just one cup of cereal per serving.

Like "crack" for kids?

“Most children’s cereals fail to meet the federal government’s proposed voluntary guidelines for foods nutritious enough to be marketed to children. Sugar is the top problem, but they may also contain too much sodium or fat or not enough whole grain,” the EWG stated in its report on the study. “The bottom line: Most parents say no to dessert for breakfast, but many children’s cereals have just as much sugar as a dessert – or more.”

Compounding the sugar shock, 56 of the 84 analyzed cereals contain more than 24 to 26 percent sugar by weight. The voluntary guidelines proposed earlier this year by the federal Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children recommend no more than 26 percent added sugar by weight for all foods marketed to children. The evil Kellogg’s Honey Smacks is nearly 56 percent sugar by weight, EWG says.

It’s no surprise that the big cereal makers have largely ignored voluntary guidelines and the alarmingly increasing rates of obesity and diabetes among our children. They’re out to make a buck by mercilessly marketing sugar-bomb cereals to kids with fun characters, commercial inundation and “a prize inside,” while also persuading parents to believe their products are the – and the only – nutritious breakfast choice of champions.

What are the best ways we as consumers can stop this morning meal madness?

Did you know that DMU is the only college or university to achieve Platinum Well Workplace Certification in the United States? That’s a pretty impressive feat.

DMU president Angela Walker believes, “Our wellness program enhances not only quality of life for our employees but also for family members, friends and the patients we serve.”

Our Wellness Center and its staff are just another one of DMU’s impressive attributes.

The program will use quality measures relating to reductions in length of patient stays, occurrence of preventable illness or injury in the facility, and errors in hospital care. These issues add to patient suffering and lead to significant unnecessary health care spending.

That has some hospitals worried. The New York Timesreported some institutions say lack of costly amenities and tasty food will harm patient satisfaction; others fret that patients in areas that tend to get lower ratings, like the Northeast and California, in general complain more about issues than we nice Midwesterners or Southerners do.

Will patients be happy to be here?

“Hospitals are going be punished financially by the federal government for things they can’t control,” Dr. James Merlino, chief experience officer at the Cleveland Clinic, told The New York Times.

Not so fast, say several Iowa hospital CEOs. In an Iowa Hospital Association blog post, David Brandon, CEO of the Finley Hospital in Dubuque, Iowa, tells author Scott McIntyre, “I think the focus needs to be on what staff, physicians and leaders can do to improve the patient experience instead of the ‘throw up your hands’ approach and blaming patients for being more difficult.”

The IHA blog further states that Dubuque is in a multi-county hospital referral region (HRR) that ranks in the top 20 nationwide for patient satisfaction. Out of nearly 300 HHRs, Manhattan is dead last and Cleveland is 237th.

Patient satisfaction is “directly related to quality outcomes, financial results and employee engagement,” Monroe County (IA) Hospital CEO Greg Paris tells IHA’s McIntyre. Better communication to patients, frequent rounding to improve care and reduce patient falls, checklists that reduce errors and discharge calls after patients leave the hospital are among the factors that enhance patient care, outcomes and contentment.

It’s in a hospital’s best self interest to improve its scores in these areas, Paris adds. “The next generation will pick their hospital based on outcomes and experience, not just by where their doctor sends them,” he says.

What do you believe hospitals should do provide both high-quality care and satisfactory patient experiences? What are the barriers in their success?

In the study, reported in The New York Times, scientists had a group of sedentary male college students watch a fast lineup of photos with the faces and names of strangers. They were then asked to recall the names as they again viewed the photos.

Moving these may pump up your brainpower.

Next, half the group rode stationary bicycles for 30 minutes, while the other half sat quietly. Then both groups again took the photo-name memory test. The students who had exercised performed significantly better than they had on their first try, while the resting students did not improve. In addition, blood samples taken throughout the experiment revealed that after exercising, the cycling students had significantly higher levels of the protein brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF. This protein is known to promote the health of nerve cells, the Times reported.

Findings of other recent studies – including on elderly and adult rats and experienced human pilots ages 40 to 65 – were similar, showing that exercise may increase BDNF levels, enhance memory centers and perhaps help us maintain the ability to perform skilled tasks.

Of course, research often raises more questions than it answers, and we have a lot yet to learn about our brains. But it appears we are wise – and maybe wiser – to exercise. Happy moving!

Photo: Hennepin County Medical Center

That’s an issue “that affects everyone,” says Dr. Diana Cutts, assistant chief of pediatrics at Hennepin. When a child suffers from hunger, it affects the larger community, “such as if a child falls behind his or her classmates in school and requires special education,” KHN says.

The article is a sad reminder of the hardships that many face in this economy. I’m gladdened by the Hennepin hospital’s efforts to help children and reminded to do my part by contributing to my local food pantry.

What needs do you see in your community?