Health at Every Size video essay

Celebrate Diversity!

I hope you are all doing well! It has been a long time since I've posted. I've been quite busy between work and graduate school. Yes, I'm back in school at my old age! I'm working to get my Masters of Science in Applied Nutrition by next summer. Learn, learn, learn until it is time to retire. 

I'm inspired by Harry, Mom (RIP...), colleagues, and my Rowan graduate students. Students in Cohort 4 are busy learning in their clinical rotations now in their supervised practice. I'm very happy to see them building on their dietetics knowledge base and wish them all the best.

Our beautiful gardens are wrapping up with colorful fall blooming asters and goldenrod. We didn't have very many monarch caterpillars or butterflies this season. Overall less bugs of every kind. There were smells of pesticides at times during the summer. Sigh.... We have lots of native plants for pollinators here too. I hope people don't use as much pesticide sprays next season. 

Anyway, this post is to share my latest video creation on Health at Every Size®. It is only 3-minutes if you have time to take a look.

Health at Every Size® (HAES) is a non-diet approach to health and wellness. It promotes acceptance of all body shapes and sizes. Weight stigma and bias can be harmful to all ages, especially children. HAES promotes intuitive eating instead of weight management.

Over the years, as an outpatient clinical dietitian, I've experienced many adults and children crying in my office over their body weight. Weight shaming by family, friends and/or the public weighs heavy on their hearts and minds and can be hurtful, especially to children. 

HAES is controversial, especially for healthcare professionals. What do you think about this topic? Should society and healthcare professionals try and shift from weight management to health promotion?

Thanks for watching!

Related Links

Association for Size Diversity and Health 

Today's Dietitian article

Blog post and video (C)Copyright Wind. All rights reserved.

 

@PHSgardening Philadelphia Flower Show 2022 and Photography Competition!

 Philadelphia Flower Show

In Full Bloom

We loved the 2022 Philadelphia Flower Show "In Full Bloom"! The show is open to the public from June 11th to Father's Day, June 19th. This was the second time outdoors in the historic FDR Park located in South Philadelphia.

We took public transportation, which wasn't a great experience. Patco was strangely very light in ridership. We were thinking perhaps from so many people working from home. 

We encountered the homeless problem at 13th street station and could not walk underground to connect with the Septa line to get to the show; we went above ground and walked further down. Thankfully, we managed to get ourselves to Septa and on to the NRG station to get to the show. 

There was so much to see once we got there. Of course, we stopped at the Photography exhibit. Harry and I both had photos that made the show! Congrats to Harry for his spectacular photo of sunset taken in the New Jersey Pinelands at Franklin Parker Preserve. My image was a macro shot of an Italian Anemone (shown below). 

Anemone blooms are very interesting and quite beautiful. Out of the 48 accepted photos into the exhibition, of the 6 that got accepted in the category of Macro Blooms, two were Anemones! That is incredible considering there are thousands of varieties of other flowers that could have been photographed. 

 

We really enjoyed visiting the children's exhibit by Fresh Artists. The kid's comments about their artwork was heartwarming. What a wonderful innovative, nonprofit program. See below link for more information. 

There were so many gardens that we ended up missing a lot. As always, it is impossible to see it all in one visit. The pollinator gardens were great. Hopefully more people replace a patch of their lawn grass with a mini meadow with pollinator and native plants.

This year we made it to the Olmstead Pavilion and Wow! what a sight. Valley Forge Flowers created quite an impressive display loaded with cascading orchids.

My pictures don't do it justice. It really was spectacular and was still in great condition by the near end of the show when we saw it. 

I also loved that the flower baskets surrounding the walkways on the show grounds included my favorite coleus, Inky Fingers or a variety similar.

As we were leaving we saw people getting a watering can sprinkle of water to cool off from the 90+ degree heat of the day! All in all it was a terrific show and we can't wait to attend again next year. 

Special thanks to all who worked so hard in organizing the flower show and everyone who participated in the competitions - the creative works are inspiring!

Related Links

Young Fresh Artist and their Art Bloom Big at the Flower Show

Photographs and blog post Copyright (C) Wind. All rights reserved.

Pioneer in NJ history of Natural Foods and Organic Produce #GardenCuizine @SouthJerseyMag @EatRight_NJ

South Jersey Pioneer Woman in history of Organic Produce

The recent news of my sister and nephew taking jobs in a company selling organic produce is heartwarming. Our mother, in heaven must be smiling! The late Junetta S. Mehl and I were leaders in bringing organic produce to South Jersey. 

The demand for Organic produce appears strong. Even with the higher costs and inflation related to the pandemic.

Now, having worked for over 10 years in each career, my journey from business owner to Registered Dietitian Nutritionist feels like it has come full circle! My business Garden of Eden Natural Foods and Country Kitchen, Inc. was among the first places in South Jersey where the community could buy a variety of organically grown produce. 

We sold all kinds of organic fruits and vegetables from organic kale to organic carrots. Organic carrots were a popular feature in fresh squeezed organic carrot juice at our juice bar. Customers in the Garden's 60-seat restaurant loved the 100% pure fruit smoothies!

I remember the days driving to Kennett Square to Albert's Organics to pick up cases and 50 lb bags of organic produce. I would take my dog Aspen on the drive too. Those were the days!

Upon arrival to Albert's, sometimes I'd have a chance to chat with Albert and his wife, Claris. They were from LA. He opened Albert's in 1980. This was back in the day before Whole Foods opened in Marlton, NJ. Albert's Organics grew into the largest wholesale distributor in the US.

In 1987, Garden of Eden was the hub for everything natural and organic. During the 1980's demand for natural and organic foods was rapidly growing. So was the explosion of technology. The Internet was born around 1983!

When Whole Foods did arrive in town, they started out as Fresh Fields. Natural Foods sales became big business. According to Natural Foods Merchandiser (The Evolution of an Industry), natural foods sales in the US grew from 1,900 million in 1980 to 4,640 million in 1991. 

Related Links

Growing Organic Demand

Photographs and blog post Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved. Portrait photo of Diana Wind (C) Harry Wind. All rights reserved.