WHAT TO EAT
- Whole grains (whole wheat, steel cut oats, brown rice, quinoa)
- Vegetables (a colorful variety — not potatoes)
- Whole fruits (not fruit juices)
- Nuts, seeds, beans and other healthful sources of protein (fish and poultry)
- Plant oils (olive and other vegetable oils)
- Drink water or other beverages that are naturally calorie-free.
Limit these foods and drinks:
- Sugar-sweetened beverages (soda, fruit drinks, sports drinks)
- Fruit juice (no more than a small amount per day)
- Refined grains (white bread, white rice, white pasta) and sweets
- Potatoes (baked or fried)
- Red meat (beef, pork, lamb) and processed meats (salami, ham, bacon, sausage)
- Other highly processed foods, such as fast food
Source: Harvard School of Public Health Obesity Prevention Source website
If America’s obesity rates are any indication, we don’t give much thought to belly fat.
But according to Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, dean of the Morehouse School of Medicine, there’s a lot going on beneath our overstretched shirts, and it can lead to all sorts of complications.
“There is good data now to support that if you decrease your waist size, you decrease your risk for Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease,” she said.
In an effort to decrease those risks, Rice, who was recently tapped to succeed MSM President John Maupin, issued a challenge to women to trim their waists.
“This challenge is about getting women healthy through lifestyle changes and fitness and healthy nutrition,” Rice said.
It’s also about raising money to support the Morehouse School of Medicine’s scholarship fund.
By Monday, more than 200 women had logged onto www.msm.edu to accept Rice's 12-week challenge to lose 15 inches from their waist, hips, thighs and arms.
Wonya Lucas and Gwen Wade were among them.
“I have a family history of high blood pressure, plus at 55 you still want to think you got something cute going on,” Wade said. “You want to look good.”
Although she doesn’t consider herself overweight, Wade said she is “learning it’s more about the middle.”
And so not only did she jump at the chance to trim her waist and contribute to the School of Medicine’s scholarship fund, she recruited several colleagues to join her.
“We want to get fit in a healthy way,” Wade said.
Once the registration period is complete, the women will be divided into teams of 10 and assigned to a nutritionist and fitness coach. In addition to weekly motivation information, Rice said they will receive complimentary visits to a local gym, free fitness training sessions and consultations with fitness experts. The team that reaches its 15-inch milestone will be eligible for a grand prize to be announced in September, when Rice is scheduled to be installed as the nation’s first African-American woman to head an independent medical school.
“We’re asking participants, for every inch they lose, to pledge or raise donations to support our scholarship fund,” she said.
Rice, who has spent most of her career advocating on behalf of women, said she first noticed the link between women’s waist size and heart disease a decade ago while she was still a practicing obstetrician/gynecologist.
As her patients gained weight, Rice said, their vitals, lipid profile and blood pressure increased.
“I stopped putting women on the scale and started measuring their waist,” she said.
Since that time, Rice said that research such as the recent Nurses’ Health Study has shown that people with large waists may be at higher risk for heart disease and other illnesses.
At the start of the Nurses’ Health Study, one of the largest and longest studies to date that has measured abdominal obesity, Rice said that all 44,000 study volunteers were healthy, and all of them measured their waist size and hip size.
After 16 years, women who had reported the highest waist sizes — 35 inches or higher — had nearly double the risk of dying from heart disease, compared to women who had reported the lowest waist sizes of less than 28 inches. Women in the group with the largest waists had a similarly high risk of death from cancer and other disease, compared to women with the smallest waists. The risks increased steadily with every added inch around the waist.
What is it about abdominal fat that makes it a strong marker for disease?
Rice said that fat surrounding the liver and other abdominal organs, called visceral fat, is metabolically active. It releases fatty acids and hormones that ultimately lead to higher cholesterol, blood glucose and blood pressure.
“So you see why this is important,” Rice said. “It really gives women another metric to follow. I say it’s your waist, not your weight.”
