This past week I attended a meeting at which Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn (see my post comparing his plant-based diet to other real-food-based diets) was also in attendance. He used a phrase I’d never heard before, and my ears perked up immediately. We were talking about how to inspire people to take better care of themselves and he called it “lifestyle literacy.” Wow! Lifestyle literacy! I like that. Literacy is something you can learn, like reading.  

There are all kinds of literacy and here are just a few: cultural, environmental, geographic, academic, language, financial, music, technical, athletic/kinesthetic, computer, and emotional. Naturally, we tend to gravitate to the ones for which we have an affinity. That makes sense; it feels good to succeed. We say that the best kid on the baseball team is a “natural,” even though he hones his throwing skills by practicing for 30 minutes with his dad every night after dinner. In this way, good gets better, and better becomes best. 

A tiny sign hangs by the piano in my home: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle”

But what about the kinds of literacy that don’t come naturally?  What if your parents discover that the reason you are struggling in school is that you have great difficulty matching sounds to symbols, the way your reading classmates do with ease? What if you could never sing on key, or were always the last kid picked for the team in gym or at recess? 

These are common problems with real solutions. By breaking down the task into smaller, more explicit steps, people can develop tools to learn what might otherwise be an insurmountable task.  Children with dyslexia are making enormous strides with “Wilson-based” programs, a kind of reading instruction that assumes no intuitive leaps and provides concrete instruction for each and every possible vowel sound, consonant, and combination that a student might encounter. 

I have a friend from a musical family who considered himself tone deaf, and sang in a way that convinced me of it. At some point, he became tired of his inability to sing along with the radio. He got a teacher to sing tones into his ear, and learned to match pitches. He learned about musical intervals, and used nursery rhymes to understand. With impressive perseverance, he learned to sing along. This is a true story.

In my case, after many years of being a mediocre dancer at best, a friend convinced me to step out of my comfort zone and sign up for a Jazzercise class. The relative simplicity of the steps, coupled with repetition, repetition, and more repetition, flipped some kind of switch and, after a time, I found myself experimenting with new steps, relaxing, enjoying myself (!), and generally dancing with abandon. I never thought I’d say it, but I can dance now.

Of course my friend will never sing like Whitney Houston, rest her soul. And I will never dance like Alvin Ailey. But that’s not the point. The point is that we developed our skills to a serviceable degree, one that meets our own needs, be they emotional, physical, or both. Not only is dancing good for me, but it makes me happy; and that’s probably the best endorsement anyone could offer.

Lifestyle literacy, then, means that there is hope for all of us, including people who don’t come by it naturally. Remember that perfection is the enemy of progress. The goal, at least initially, is to adjust our choices sufficiently to become healthier than we are today. It’s okay if you don’t train like Jack LaLanne; your goal is to train like YOU.

Most importantly, if it doesn’t come “naturally,” we can LEARN lifestyle literacy. We can get better at it, and there are people out there to help us. I know lots of people who have dedicated their careers to teaching us how to stay out of the aisles at the grocery store, increase our activity levels, relax, sleep better, and quit smoking. You can find those people, too.

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If you’ve never been on “Your Health is on Your Plate” before, and you’re not sure where to start, visit Lets Start at the Very Beginning to get a jumpstart on preventing diabetes and obesity in yourself and the ones you love!!

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Then, scroll down and check out “A Milestone Celebration — Your Favorite Posts” to find a list of great blog entries!

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