JOHNS HOPKINS Doctor suggests way to reduce obesity: Try 'Meatless Monday'

The physician's ultimate goal is to establish heart-healthy practices.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
A Johns Hopkins University physician says he has a simple solution to deal with the obesity crisis: cut out meat one day a week.
Dr. Robert Lawrence said it could be any day, but suggested that Monday is a good day to start because it marks the end of weekend excess for many people, and the start of a new week.
Besides, he says he also likes how "Meatless Monday" sounds.
Any day will do
But he said if people have another day that better fits into their schedules, it will do just as well. And Lawrence said there's nothing really radical involved here; just switching to fish or pasta that one day a week, and Americans would cut consumption of saturated fats by 15 percent -- or by one-seventh -- and thus reduce cholesterol, and lower the risk of heart attacks.
Lawrence, a professor of preventive medicine at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, said the Meatless Monday campaign hopes to avoid the problems of most public health campaigns, which fail because they are too ambitious.
"The public health community has learned: inch by inch a cinch, yard by yard hard,' " said Lawrence, who is taking his campaign around the country.
He admits that his goal is more ambitious than just getting people to stop eating meat one day a week, and hopes people who participate will adopt other heart-healthy practices, such as walking 30 minutes a day and using low-fat dairy products.
Criticism from food industry
The Center for Consumer Freedom, an organization funded by the restaurant and food industry, criticized the Meatless Monday campaign as being an anti-agriculture move funded by environmental and anti-meat interests. Lawrence said he's not promoting vegetarianism, just urging Americans to cut back on saturated fats.
The idea of skipping meat one day a week isn't really new. In 1997, Roman Catholic bishops voted to bring back requirements that the faithful eat fish Fridays, which was part of church tradition for centuries until the Second Vatican Council of 1965.
Lawrence, who works in Baltimore's inner city, said fish is too expensive for the diets of most low-income families, and said pregnant women should avoid eating fish with high levels of mercury.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that U.S. per-capita meat consumption (red meat, poultry and fish) hit an all-time high of 222 pounds a year in 2003 -- up from about 155 pounds in 1960. The American Meat Institute estimates that a little more than half of meat consumption involves the red meats -- beef, mutton, pork and veal.
Lacking fruits and vegetables
But while meat consumption has increased, Lawrence noted only 22 percent of Americans ate the recommended five daily servings of fruits and vegetables.
He recommends Americans restrict meat consumption to no more than 3 or 4 ounces a day -- an amount equal to the size of a pack of playing cards. But he acknowledged that would result in such a reduction in serving sizes it's not a practical proposal right now.
Lawrence acknowledged that the idea of Meatless Mondays fights strong economic forces that have swept food production in the last half-century. Modern farming and more efficient production methods have made meat a cheap commodity in supermarkets, and the average American family today spends only 10 percent of its income on food.
"We've become addicted to cheap food," he said.
XON THE NET: www.meatlessmonday.com