Weight Gain, Smoking, and Mental Illness

“A healthy attitude is contagious but don’t wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier,” Tom Stoppard.

The prevalence of people on psychotropic medications to manage their symptoms has a correlating effect on weight gain and smoking, but there is hope. 

People living with a mental illness can often prevent or reverse the side effects of weight gain and can choose not to smoke by deciding to live a better life and always having a goal of fitness and good health in mind.

Schizophrenic patients tend to be extremely sedentary, and many -- an estimated 70%-90% -- are heavy smokers. The combination of physical inactivity and taking meds that cause weight gain can also take its toll.

It may not be as easy, but with the right supports in place, quitting for good can be done by anyone. Only YOU must make it happen. 

Here are some personal suggestions culled from the mistakes I have learned from: first, seek out medical advice, both from your primary care provider and your mental health provider; second, educate yourself on your illness, its symptoms, and ways to avoid any side effects; third, live a more healthier life by exercising, quitting smoking, and changing your diet.

Your body and your mind will thank you for it.

The Science of Snacking: Controlling your Cravings

How we eat is just as important as what we eat. Snacking is one of the most common ways we eat and is a leading indicator of obesity.

Eating on the go is typical for many Americans. We just live busier and more productive lives in which our meals are sporadically taken in-between taking kids to their soccer games and driving into work.

According to the Institute of Grocery Distribution, Britain’s leading experts in the food and grocery industry, there are many motives behind snacking besides our busy lives, most of them of an emotional nature: hunger, meal substitutes, dieting, rewards and treats, boredom, relaxation, and addressing negative emotions.

Our modern busy lifestyles have a direct impact on our eating behaviors, as nearly one quarter of people snack to replace other meals such as breakfast, lunch, and dinner; our lifestyles also play a role in how we see food when addressing our negative emotions.

A 2006 IGD study found that half of people shopping for snacks do so because they are hungry; 23 percent because they missed a meal; 25 percent because they want a treat; and 22 percent because they are bored.

These are the emotional behaviors, but what is it that produces these behaviors in the first place?

Over a course of years, a gradual shift has been seen in the family that replaced traditional meal times to our snacking behavior due to an increase in single person households, an increase in the number of women in work, and an increasingly busy job schedule.

Obesity is often the result of snacking especially among children. A 2010 U.S. study by researchers of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that high-calorie snacks, including chips and candy, made up 27 percent of the daily caloric intake of children ages two to 18.

Studying federal nutrition reports from more than 31,000 children from 1977 to 2006, researchers concluded that childhood snacking was on the rise moving toward three snacks per day. They found the largest increases in salty snacks and candy, with desserts and sweetened beverages the major sources of calories from snacks.

Today’s child consumes food almost continuously throughout the day, the report suggested, increasing calories from 168 per day in 1977 to a total of 586 calories. This correlates to an increased threat of children developing diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension.

There is a simple solution for preventing obesity in adults and children; start by eating healthy.

Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables and limiting foods high in fat and sugar can substantially reduce the obesity epidemic at home and world-wide.

Above all else, slow down! Preparing healthier foods at family meals is important to your emotional and physical well-being. And grandma’s meals can be relived again if you make that choice. Mmm, now that is really living.

The Fun of Golf

Anyone who has not played golf may say it is too hard, there are too many rules, and I just don't have the time.
To true golfers, however, getting the chance to get out on the green is a chance to make new friends, enjoy the outdoors, and get a little walking exercise. And don't chicken out by using motorized golf carts.
To really play golf and get to play fairly well, a golfer should join a league. Golf leagues play on a regular weekly basis and they can be found on most golf courses.
Tom Sliva, president of the Road to the Ugly Jacket league at Airway Meadows, said all it takes to play in a league is steadiness of purpose, a willingness to have patience, and a whole lot of fun.
He said  most league members are there not necessarily to compete against each other, but rather to join in being just one of the guys, at least for a couple of hours in the week before going back to the jungle.
So, if you are ever thinking about what to do on a Saturday afternoon, why not pick up a golf club and start swinging? You can thank the guys back at the club house later.

Americans – A Revolutionary Idea

Unlike other countries, America cannot say they have a long history.

Nations like China all have written histories that go back thousands of years binding them to a shared tradition and culture. By contrast, here in the U.S.A., we have a history of a few hundred years.

Where do we begin to identify ourselves as Americans? I believe it is in our compacts and agreements, namely the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

The Declaration states we are all entitled to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

And the Bill of Rights protects these freedoms.

This may be different things to different people, but the basic meaning, freedom, is the same and it binds our people from sea to sea unifying us as a nation.

We are at worst a melting pot and at best a stew. A melting pot meaning we come to these shores, shuck off our previous identities, and become Anglo-Americanized.

For example, we change our names from Nüchter to Nichter; or change our fashion of dress to a more Anglo-American fashion.

In our history, it has been noted that we once forced Native Americans to go to our Western schools to learn our history and speak our English language in an attempt at “civilizing” them.

I prefer the more modern way of thinking about our people as a stew containing different ingredients.

Sure we want our stew to be the best on the kitchen table, but without all the ingredients necessary, the stew is just too bland, too tasteless so to speak.

This brings me to our immigration policy. Do we look for ways of containing ourselves within a wall? Protecting our families from outsiders as China once did by building the Great Wall?

Or do we welcome our neighbors?

I say, give them a chance as our grandparents and great grandparents were once given the chance to assimilate and participate in the American Dream of individual liberty, but keeping their traditions as an additional ingredient in the American stew.

This best preserves our identity, our freedom, and our hope for future generations.

Labor Pains

Our current economic crisis is immediate, immense, and irreparable. In response, the United States is going through what can be considered labor pains towards a rebirth of a new economic reality. Idealism is on its way out; reality is what is left us.

What would be ideal is a retirement account fully funded by employers and health insurance payable by taxpayers, not by individual contributors. What would be ideal is a job guaranteed for life.

The reality of our worldwide recession dictates otherwise.

Labor has the most to lose and is fighting the hardest to keep what it has won.

Public employees unions across the nation, from statehouse to statehouse, are nervous and have called strike after strike in the futile attempt to prevent the inevitable – a rollback of hard won rights.

Among those rights are collective bargaining agreements between employees’ representatives and state employers.

That does not mean we should denigrate labor or use labor as a scapegoat for our economic ills. Our power was built upon the backs of Labor.

Labor built our cities, it built our canals and our railroads, and it built our infrastructure. And it saved our nation from tyranny and chaos time and time again.

Case in point, the American Civil War: If it wasn’t for our laboring class who built our northern railroads which transported men and material, and our northern mills and factories which produced our cannons and artillery, the Union may have lost the war and the country would have been split between North and South; Slavery would have flourished longer than it had.

Case in point, World War Two: If it wasn’t for Rosie the Riveter, women who toiled in factories that produced the nation’s warships and weapons, the world just may have succumbed to Japanese and Nazi domination; and women would not have had this experience that motivated them to seek employment rights outside the home years later.

These examples are but a few which have helped give rise to American power and eventual Superpower status.

Labor however was not always seen as a savior in the eyes of government, business, and the American People.

Suspicious of organized labor, the unions were seen as hotbeds of Socialism and Communism which ideology stressed overthrowing the current capitalist democratic system for an egalitarian ideal. This threat, real or imagined, pitted government and Big Business against labor.

Case in point, the Battle of the Overpass: On May 26, 1937, during the Great Depression, labor organizers clashed with Ford Motor Company security guards. Labor demanded fewer hours and more wages; the company, led by Harry Bennett, seeing the strikers as agitators, quashed the revolt, mercilessly beating demonstrators including women, and reporters and photographers gathered to report on the scene, all the while nearby police stood by doing nothing.

After years of struggle and sacrifice, labor won many collective rights including contract negotiations, pay, safety, and benefits.

Today, it appears to union leaders that the government and the American People seem to once again be against labor.

These labor pains may hurt, but once we accept the reality of the current situation, our pain will hopefully recede. We can begin to recover our former luster, but only if we work hand in hand in hand – labor, government, and business working together.

Job Hunting Tips for Veterans

It goes without saying that in order to get ahead you need a little bit of elbow grease, sleeve pulling, and just plain old-fashioned luck. But the first thing I have found out is that before job hunters go on their hunt, they need to establish a firm foundation by constant soul-searching – what is your background? What are your skills? Most importantly, what gets you motivated?


My greatest strength, the one thing that gets me motivated to succeed, is my excellent communication skills and I seek a job that will draw upon these strong communication & organizational skills. - In other words, I talk way too much and like to boss other people around.

And it really doesn’t matter too much about education. The best form of education is found on the job. I myself am a college graduate, proud alum of the University at Albany, class of 1992. I am a great promoter of education, but simply having training alone is not going to improve your chances of finding and keeping work.

It reminds me of a story: A young man, hired by a supermarket, reported for his first day of work. The manager greeted him with a warm handshake and a smile, gave him a broom and said, "Your first job will be to sweep out the store." "But I'm a college graduate," the young man replied indignantly. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know that," said the manager. "Here, give me the broom, I'll show you how."

In fact, my first job out of college was as a cashier with a local supermarket. It wasn’t my first choice and was not a great motivator, and as I mentioned, motivation is the key to long-term employment, growth, and satisfaction. And, I am highly motivated to succeed. It doesn’t mean the minute I find a better job, I'm outta here.

That was my employment history, though skipping from job to job trying to find myself. Once, a hiring manager I was interviewing with asked me in a job interview, “"Young man, do you think you can handle a variety of work?" I replied, “"I ought to be able to. I've had ten different jobs in four months."

Out of my longing for a better opportunity, I started looking around to see where I was needed as a volunteer. Volunteering has many benefits, including learning a new skill, being a part of the community, promoting motivation, and a sense of achievement.

I volunteered at many local non-profit organizations -the New York State Association of Museums, Habitat for Humanity of Schenectady County, and the Mental Health Association, among others. Through volunteerism, I developed the strong communicating, organizing, and writing experience I didn’t originally have in all my time as a student.

When I landed an internship at a local magazine as an editorial intern, I fell in love with my chosen profession – writing, journalism, and government and media relations. From there, I landed my first professional job as a news and features reporter for a small weekly newspaper in Washington County and subsequently a more challenging job with a daily newspaper in Fulton County.

All this would not have been possible without first having volunteered at all these different agencies. This is another reason I wish to speak with you today. Not only is community volunteering motivating and fun, it also boosts your career options.

For example, a survey carried out by Time Bank through Reed Executive, which is in the business of helping thousands of organizations grow and become successful for over fifty years, showed that among 200 of Britain’s leading businesses:

• 73% of employers would recruit a candidate with volunteering experience over one without

• 94% of employers believe that volunteering can add to skills

• 94% of employees who volunteered to learn new skills had benefited either by getting their first job, improving their salary, or being promoted.

I have a feeling that U.S. businesses believe the same way as their British counterparts. Volunteering is just GOOD BUSINESS.

I encourage you to become involved in your community either for the American Red Cross, the American Cancer Society, or another organization that can motivate you. And you could find no better time to get involved. After all, April is National Volunteer Month.

In closing, I would like employers to consider a new job interview technique.

Take the prospective employee and put him in a room with only a table and two chairs. Leave him alone for two hours, without any instruction. At the end of that time, go back and see what he is doing.

If he has taken the table apart, put him in Engineering. If he is counting the butts in the ashtray, assign him to Finance. If he is waving his arms and talking out loud, send him to Consulting. If he is talking to the chairs, Personnel is a good spot for him. If he is sleeping, he is Management material. If he is writing up the experience, send him to the Technical Documentation team. If he doesn't even look up when you enter the room, assign him to Security. If he tries to tell you it's not as bad as it looks, put him into Marketing. If he is wearing green sunglasses and need a haircut, Software is his niche. If he mentions what a good price we got for the table and chairs, send him to Purchasing. And lastly (this is my favorite) if he mentions that hardwood furniture does not come from rainforests, Public Relations will suit him well.

But, seriously. Twenty-five million veterans are living among us today. These men and women selflessly set aside their civilian lives to put on the uniform and serve. Our greatest privilege and responsibility is to provide our veterans with a system that ensures that they have an opportunity to succeed.

 Thank you very much.

The States Must Bail Out the Nation

Southern politicians are right. Historically, they have been proponents of states’ rights against the encroachments of national power. Today, we need a Jefferson rather than a Lincoln.

Virginia-born Thomas Jefferson believed in states’ rights fearing an overly centralized federal government. In fact, he believed that a revolution against government was a good thing from time to time, something that was natural in the writer of the Declaration of Independence.

Illinois politician Abraham Lincoln, on the other hand, was the Civil War president that upheld national authority in the north’s mission of preserving the Union. At that time in our history, federal authority was a necessary evil – Congress abolished slavery, promoted and built our transportation network of rails and roads, and sold cheap Western land to farmers in order to populate the frontier.

Today, we must insist upon going backwards in order to move forward, allowing the individual states to develop internally what we depended upon the nation to resolve. Northern states are beginning to realize the necessity of this Southern strategy.

New York State under the leadership of Gov. Andrew Cuomo is seeking ways to do just that, restructuring state government to make it more responsive to the needs of its own citizens. It is not looking to Washington to solve its problems, but to New Yorkers themselves. Gov. Cuomo’s initiatives are looking for new ways to solve age-old problems.

It is crucial to count on ourselves more than ever especially considering the state of our global and national economies. I am not promoting the fragmentation of the nation, but rather the strengthening of it from the grassroots, to the states, all the way to the White House.

It is time to stop asking the nation to bail out the states; the states must bail out the nation.