Health Journal Online

Tag: Diversity

  • Dietary Diversity and Overeating 

    Dietary Diversity and Overeating 

    Big Food uses our hard-wired drive for dietary diversity against us.

    How did we evolve to solve the daunting task of selecting a diet that supplies all the essential nutrients? Dietary diversity. By eating a variety of foods, we increase our chances of hitting all the bases. If we only ate for pleasure, we might just stick with our favorite food to the exclusion of all others, but we have an innate tendency to switch things up.

    Researchers found that study participants ended up eating more calories when provided with three different yogurt flavors than just one, even if that one is the chosen favorite. So, variation can trump sensation. They don’t call it the spice of life for nothing.

    It appears to be something we’re born with. Studies on newly weaned infants dating back nearly a century show that babies naturally choose a variety of foods even over their preferred food. This tendency seems to be driven by a phenomenon known as sensory-specific satiety.

    Researchers found that, “within 2 minutes after eating the test meal, the pleasantness of the taste, smell, texture, and appearance of the eaten food decreased significantly more than for the uneaten foods.” Think about how the first bite of chocolate tastes better than the last bite. Our body tires of the same sensations and seeks out novelty by rekindling our appetite every time we’re presented with new foods. This helps explain the “dessert effect,” where we can be stuffed to the gills but gain a second wind when dessert arrives. What was adaptive for our ancient ancestors to maintain nutritional adequacy may be maladaptive in the age of obesity.

    When study participants ate a “varied four-course meal,” they consumed 60 percent more calories than those given the same food for each course. It’s not only that we get bored; our body has a different physiological reaction.

    As you can see below and at 2:13 in my video How Variation Can Trump Sensation and Lead to Overeating, researchers gave people a squirt of lemon juice, and their salivary glands responded with a squirt of saliva. But when they were given lemon juice ten times in a row, they salivated less and less each time. When they got the same amount of lime juice, though, their salivation jumped right back up. We’re hard-wired to respond differently to new foods. 
    Whether foods are on the same plate, are at the same meal, or are even eaten on subsequent days, the greater the variety, the more we tend to eat. When kids had the same mac and cheese dinner five days in a row, they ended up eating hundreds fewer calories by the fifth day, compared to kids who got a variety of different meals, as you can see below and at 2:35 in my video.

    Even just switching the shape of food can lead to overeating. When kids had a second bowl of mac and cheese, they ate significantly more when the noodles were changed from elbow macaroni to spirals. People allegedly eat up to 77 percent more M&Ms if they’re presented with ten different colors instead of seven, even though all the colors taste the same. “Thus, it is clear that the greater the differences between foods, the greater the enhancement of intake,” the greater the effect. Alternating between sweet and savory foods can have a particularly appetite-stimulating effect. Do you see how, in this way, adding a diet soda, for instance, to a fast-food meal can lead to overconsumption?

    The staggering array of modern food choices may be one of the factors conspiring to undermine our appetite control. There are now tens of thousands of different foods being sold.

    The so-called supermarket diet is one of the most successful ways to make rats fat. Researchers tried high-calorie food pellets, but the rats just ate less to compensate. So, they “therefore used a more extreme diet…[and] fed rats an assortment of palatable foods purchased at a nearby supermarket,” including such fare as cookies, candy, bacon, and cheese, and the animals ballooned. The human equivalent to maximize experimental weight gain has been dubbed the cafeteria diet.

    It’s kind of the opposite of the original food dispensing device I’ve talked about before. Instead of all-you-can-eat bland liquid, researchers offered free all-you-can-eat access to elaborate vending machines stocked with 40 trays with a dizzying array of foods, like pastries and French fries. Participants found it impossible to maintain energy balance, consistently consuming more than 120 percent of their calorie requirements.

    Our understanding of sensory-specific satiety can be used to help people gain weight, but how can we use it to our advantage? For example, would limiting the variety of unhealthy snacks help people lose weight? Two randomized controlled trials made the attempt and failed to show significantly more weight loss in the reduced variety diet, but they also failed to get people to make much of a dent in their diets. Just cutting down on one or two snack types seems insufficient to make much of a difference, as seen below and at 4:44 in my video. A more drastic change may be needed, which we’ll cover next.



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  • Mindfulness and Autism: Learning to Celebrate Neurodiversity

    Mindfulness and Autism: Learning to Celebrate Neurodiversity

    Summary:

    • Researchers who study mindfulness and autism have found that, for neurodiverse communities, mindfulness may have unexpected and adverse effects that are different from neurotypical people.
    • While mindfulness teachings are slowly becoming more inclusive, people with autism and other kinds of neurodiversity are often left behind.
    • We can learn to teach mindful practices in an accessible, inclusive way that considers each person’s unique brain wiring.

    “When I’m told to focus on sensations of my breath, I feel like there is a noose wrapped around my neck, getting tighter and tighter as I keep paying attention.”

    This comment comes from a brilliant young autistic woman who was told by her doctor that mindfulness would be good for her anxiety. She said it did the opposite: Mindfulness worsened her anxiety. In fact, it was a very negative experience that left her feeling like a failure.

    It’s never anyone’s fault when mindfulness doesn’t work for them. They were just not taught mindfulness in an accessible, inclusive way that considers any unique needs.

    Unfortunately, I hear things like this often. I am part of a mindfulness research program at the Azrieli Adult Neurodevelopmental Centre at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, where in the course of the research, a large number of neurodiverse people have told me they are mindfulness “drop-outs.” In neurodiverse communities, people report having a range of sensory experiences that can produce different, and often adverse responses to common mindfulness techniques such as the body scan, breath practices, and loving-kindness. People with neurodevelopmental disabilities such as autism, ADHD, or cerebral palsy confide that they’ve tried it and “failed” at it. Similarly, in the education system, some teachers have told me that they can’t use the term mindfulness with students because, from prior experiences, some students already feel like they have failed at it.

    It’s never anyone’s fault when mindfulness doesn’t work for them. They were just not taught mindfulness in an accessible, inclusive way that considers any unique needs. Accessibility and neurodiversity are rarely discussed in the mindfulness world, but this discussion holds huge potential for both neurodiverse communities and mindfulness. As a mindfulness teacher, I want to ensure that all people can access mindfulness teachings in a way that works for them.

    What is Neurodiversity?

    As author Jenna Nuremberg shares in her 2020 book Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You, neurodiversity means “recognizing and celebrating the diversity of brain makeups instead of pathologizing some as normal and others as abnormal.” Similarly, the Autism Awareness Centre defines it as “the concept that humans don’t come in a one-size-fits-all neurologically ‘normal’ package,” and that all variations of human neurological function are worthy of respect. Not so differently, mindfulness encourages us to recognize what is going on inside of us—observing our inner world and experience with nonjudgment and acceptance.

    As mindfulness teachers, if we are not accepting and celebrating ALL brain makeups in our teaching, then we are not making mindfulness accessible. The story above—with the experience of the noose tightening—is one example of the mindfulness experience of an autistic person (autism being just one example of a neurodiverse mind).

    Autism occurs in all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups, and 1 in 42 males, and 1 in 165 females were diagnosed with autism in 2018. Autism is not the only kind of neurodiverse brain that is often invisibly present in mindfulness groups. Dyslexia, ADHD, mild cerebral palsy, and mild intellectual disability may be unseen. All of these neurodevelopmental disabilities are often undiagnosed, and many people who come to mindfulness for the first time may not realize there is a reason why they are not connecting with the practices in the way they are being taught. This makes it really important for teachers to be aware of how inclusive their teaching practices are.

    What Makes Mindfulness Inaccessible

    Why is it so challenging for mindfulness teachers to adopt truly accessible practices?  One important reason is that the way of teaching most of us are taught to deliver was designed for the neurotypical population.

    Developed in the 1970s at the Centre for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, with Jon Kabat-Zinn at the helm, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) introduced mindfulness to much of the healthcare community. However, the program was designed primarily without modifications for neurodiverse folks. This has significant consequences today: Many mindfulness teachers, though they may be highly trained and capable in MBSR and other mindfulness-based therapies, have usually not been trained to recognize neurodiversity among their students.

    Fortunately, mindfulness research and teaching is beginning to evolve—one instance is the embrace of trauma-sensitive practices, aided by David Treleaven’s work. Yet we still fall short when it comes to inclusive practices that truly provide accessible forms of mindfulness.

    Mindfulness research is beginning to evolve, yet we still fall short when it comes to inclusive practices that truly provide accessible forms of mindfulness.

    For example: The concept of interoception—an area of science that is being written about in literature related to neurodiversity—is the act of really feeling the physical sensations in the body. Knowing that feeling of when you are hungry, or need to go to the bathroom, are examples of interoceptive processing; being able to discriminate between different feelings in the body connected with emotions is another. Mindfulness can play a key role in developing interoceptive skills—for example, when we practice noticing the movement of our inhale and exhale at our nostrils or in the belly. However, interoception is not a universal ability. Some brains are wired to feel physical sensations, while some are wired to visualize easily.

    Still others don’t really visualize: Aphantasia (phantasia being Greek for fantasy) refers to the inability to picture those images in one’s mind. Research conducted at the University of Exeter Medical School found that 2% of the population are non-visual thinkers. That doesn’t mean you are doing something wrong if you can’t picture your loved one in front of you when practicing loving-kindness, it just means you need a modified technique. These different ways that the brain is wired are key when it comes to understanding our experience of mindfulness practice.

    In the last ten years, the Azrieli Adult Neurodevelopmental Centre at CAMH has been studying how mindfulness can better serve the autism community. I’ve been involved as a lead mindfulness facilitator in this research, both leading the groups with advisors and developing modifications to MBSR practices to make them accessible. Importantly, autistic people hold advisory roles in this work as a central part of the research. Mindfulness for the caregivers of neurodiverse people is also being studied by Azrieli’s neurodevelopmental disability community.

    Dr. Yona Lunsky, Director of the Azrieli Adult Neurodevelopmental Centre and a professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, has been leading teams to research mindfulness in this community for almost a decade. “The best way for us to adapt our approach when it comes to mindfulness is to work in partnership, and use our mindfulness skills when we do: Approach how we teach with presence to what is happening, with curiosity, without judgment, and with loving-kindness,” Dr. Lunsky says. “Being open to changing our approach is fundamental to developing something meaningful. It takes time and it evolves. And that is what makes it so exciting.” 

    Mindfulness teachers use a lot of metaphors and abstract language that some autistic people struggle with. Some of the sensory exercises pose huge problems for autistic people.

    Bringing mindfulness to neurodiverse communities inspires me to dig deep into my mindfulness training and get creative, so that I can offer traditional mindfulness teachings in ways that are helpful for a wide diversity of brains. As a teacher, it’s my job to teach in a way that is going to help the person in front of me. If I’m stuck to a script, or clinging to delivering mindfulness in a certain way, I risk not being accessible to the unique person’s mind. I need to be rooted enough in the teachings to be able to share them in a customized way.

    Daniel Share-Strom, an autistic man and champion of mindfulness meditation, is an advisor in our mindfulness research program at CAMH. Daniel’s popular TED Talk “Dear Society…Signed, Autism” shares Daniel’s humorous style of sharing his experience living as an autistic man on communication, learning, and interaction with the environment. Here are some thoughts Daniel has shared with me on mindfulness:

    • “In my own mental health journey I discovered mindfulness, and it was one of the first things that ever really helped me with anxiety. …I think it’s so important to adapt mindfulness from its original ways of being taught for neurodiverse groups. There are certain things autistic people bring to the table that aren’t compatible with the ways mindfulness is being presented. Mindfulness teachers use a lot of metaphors and abstract language that some autistic people struggle with. Some of the sensory exercises pose huge problems for autistic people.
    • Autistic people experience high rates of mental health challenges–from feeling anxiousness to having an adult suicide rate up to nine times the rate of the typical population. That is simply a result of growing up in a world that wasn’t designed for us—in a lot of ways. From the sensory world, to social protocols that neurotypical people developed that we didn’t really get much say in. That can all cause a lot of challenges. Mindfulness is an amazing tool to help autistic people cope with all of that. People just need to understand how to adapt it so it’s effective.”

    The work and feedback of Daniel and others makes it clear that we need to explore new ways of teaching mindfulness that honor neurodiversity, and that truly individualize mindfulness for each person.

    Lessons for Teaching Mindfulness Inclusively

    When people ask me how mindfulness can help autistic adults, I say we need to invert the question to “How can autism help mindfulness?” In my experience, it took many, many neurodiverse people patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) giving feedback on how I was teaching mindfulness before I started landing at more inclusive and accessible methods. Getting to know how autistic people connect best with mindfulness has helped me completely re-examine how I teach. It’s taught me to remain open to the vast differences of those in front of us, and explore with them ways for mindfulness to be useful. When we individualize the practice, the path truly belongs to each person.

    Mindfulness has something to offer the world. Neurodiversity has something to offer mindfulness. Let’s imagine together how a more inclusive mindfulness culture can contribute to a more inclusive world, one that can be truly accessible and beneficial to all.



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  • Q&A: Mindfulness and Racial Healing with Tovi Scruggs-Hussein

    Q&A: Mindfulness and Racial Healing with Tovi Scruggs-Hussein

    How mindfulness can support us all in racial healing and coming together with compassion, learning, and unlearning.

    Welcome! This article is a follow-up to our series on Mindfulness for Racial Healing by healer, leader, and one of the 2021 Powerful Women of the Mindfulness Movement, Tovi Scruggs-Hussein. Explore the rest of the series here.

    1. Can you say more about the role of meditation in racial healing? Meditation feels like an individual well-being practice. What is its role in this context?

    Our society has branded meditation to be an individual well-being practice, but we also have the option to engage in meditation as an act of service. Initially, yes, mediation can create a sense of individual well-being, yet it is also a tool for liberation and empowerment. We’ve continued to see in the research that meditation supports empathy and compassion; these are both qualities and ways of being that go beyond personal well-being and truly support the way we engage with others and ourselves, not so much because we feel good, but because we have the capacity and competence to engage from a more heartfelt place. Racial healing is dependent upon empathy and compassion. In order to heal, we must learn to connect to the emotions of racialized experiences and take action based on those emotions to create a more just and liberated society. Meditation supports racial healing and racial healing supports justice, each building on the other. 

    In order to heal, we must learn to connect to the emotions of racialized experiences and take action based on those emotions to create a more just and liberated society.

    2. In your “Mindfulness for Racial Healing” article, you write about the importance of honoring our connection to ourselves in order to honor our connection to each other. What does that mean? Why does honoring our connection to ourselves come first?

    Racism is a sign of disconnection to ourselves and to others. In fact, all of the “isms” are a sign of deep disconnection from our compassion and of the inability to see our shared humanity. When we are disconnected from that sense of humanity, it’s easier for us to dehumanize others. Racism is dehumanization. The atrocities of slavery and genocides stem from this sense of disconnection. Once we are connected to ourselves, we can deepen our connection to others, but it doesn’t happen unless we connect to ourselves more deeply first. Your embodiment of compassion and mindfulness first gets engrained in yourself and then it is felt outward. 

    Meditation and its importance in racial healing also connects to nonjudgment—and by definition, part of meditation is the practice of nonjudgment. When we are in a state of practicing nonjudgment, we can be more equanimous and not put things or people, including ourselves, into categories of “right or wrong” or “good or bad.” When you deepen your connection to your own worth without judgment, you can begin to do the same for others. Neuroscience supports this growth as a competency that is built over time as you deepen your meditation practice—and we must always begin with self, starting within. Consider the wonderful quote by Gandhi, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” You must embody it first. 

    3. You talk about the importance of understanding. Can a White person ever really understand the experience of a Black, Indigenous, or Person Of Color (BIPOC)? For allies, does that matter? 

    I love this question!  And I love that I did not have to grapple with responding to this one alone—I have dedicated, racially-conscious White allies in the work who took the lead on responding:  

    Sally Albright-Green, a leader in Racial Healing Allies offers this:

    White people can and should be about the business of actively listening to the voices of BIPOC, centering those voices in any conversations about systemic racism and anti-racism and working hard to understand. In the end, it’s important to shift the focus from words like “ever” and understand the nature of lived experience. Can anyone ever truly understand the experiences of another?

    We are all still unlearning the things we were socialized to believe about racism and learning the truths we were never taught.

    We are all still unlearning the things we were socialized to believe about racism and learning the truths we were never taught. Becoming a White ally really involves asking different sorts of questions based on years of working hard to learn about the world through the lens of someone who is not White. Understanding what it means at a deep level to be White—and the impact white dominance and oppression have had on BIPOC—is the understanding that White allies work towards. When that deep level of cultural humility is reached, then one can say a White person has become anti-racist and works to understand the history of racism so they can interrupt it in our systems and practices. When one can truly work beside BIPOC to interrupt racist practices, and demonstrate that they are motivated to work hard for the good of humanity, recognizing the depth and breadth of BIPOC struggles beyond a standpoint of white saviorism, then they will be close. It’s about recognizing that the work is more about learning the facts and working hard to repair the damage than it is about understanding what it is like to be a BIPOC.

    Grace Helms-Kotre, a leader in Racial Healing Allies, offers this:

    A White person will never fully understand what it means to be a Person of Color. That is not the goal. It’s not like a box we can check or a competency we can achieve. We’ll never have the lived experience of being targeted by systemic racism, so we cannot know fully. But we can engage in the lifelong practice of deepening our understanding by bringing presence and empathy to our interactions with BIPOC and with other white folks. To bring awareness to our racial experiences and systemic racism as it functions in every area of our lives.

    For allies, what matters is that we are showing up with curiosity and humility again and again.

    For allies, what matters is that we are showing up with curiosity and humility again and again. We are not going away. We are staying in the discomfort of racial awareness in order to challenge White supremacy culture in all its manifestations, through us and around us.

    4. What does cultural-responsiveness mean? Where does mindfulness come into play here?

    Cultural-responsiveness means: practicing learning from, valuing, and relating to people from different cultures with respect. To take it a step further, I view it as having an awareness and ability that allows us to engage with and honor the backgrounds, values, customs, and norms of groups different than our own. Again, this can be applied beyond race. Meditation and mindfulness support us in growing our awareness of ourselves, others, and our impact. Meditation and mindfulness invite us to practice pausing before responding so that our response can be skillful rather than habituated. The practice is not allowing our triggers to take hold of us, and connecting to others from a place that honors who they are. My heart swells with gratitude for a practice that can be done in both isolation and community to provide deep individual well-being as well as deep connection so that the future of humanity is held in love.



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