Kspitz’s Weblog

Part of our assignment this week is to blog about the topic that we have chosen to write and speak about this semester. Anyone who has spent any time with me knows that I have a passion for nutrition – espeically local food issues, and I also love discussing other aspects of health, exercise, yoga, dance, and gardening (and my three cats). Why do I have such a passion for these issues?  Well, I’ll narrow it down to the issue I will be chatting most about….local food and urban gardening.

My reasons for caring about this issue are many, but two come quickly to mind. The first is that I have been teaching in the fitness/health field for over 20 years now. I started teaching aerobics in 1986 – back when we built our own steps and learned how to do “Step-Aerobics”.  For some unknown reason dancing around in front of a large group of people and shouting out instructions seemed to come naturally to me. I’ve always been an active person – not hyperactive, just active and moving around alot. Teaching Aerobics soon led to other fitness endeavors; Dance, Personal training, Pilates, Yoga, and of course, Nutrition was always a part of this package.

For the most part I have loved this career although it has also been frustrating. I’ve never made much money at it. Our society, in general, seems to think a good fitness instructor doesn’t really “do” anything outside of the actual class time, therefore $25-35 per hour should cover it, right? (Never mind that it costs thousands of dollars to become certified in any one of these chosen specialties).

The other, perhaps more important, thing that has frustrated me over the past 20 years is that despite all the excellent health clubs and opportunities we have for staying healthy, our population has become more sedentary and far less healthy than ever before. Our young people, especially, are in worse shape now than in past generations. This has got to change!

This brings me to the other reason I am passionate about nutrition and health issues – my childhood. I grew up in a small town in Iowa, not on a farm, but I had very strong farm connections. My aunt and uncle owned a small dairy farm seven miles outside of town. This was my mother’s older sister and her family. As a kid, I spend a lot of time on their farm and in many ways I feel like a “farm kid”.  Aunt Pauline had a huge vegetable garden and probably 90% of the food she fed her husband and five kids came from their farm. This little farm (150 acres) also supplied our family of six with some vegetables along with chickens, eggs, ducks, geese, pork and beef.

In town, we also had gardens – not just one, but three! We grew lots of potatoes, green beans, onions, spinach,  and my favorite…strawberries!   

I have many memories of working in the gardens and eating fresh foods  - some are good memories and some are not so good!  Kids, after all, don’t always tend to their chores happily.

Anyway, I’ve gone on too long already!   To be continued… …

 -Gail (k)