Health group fights fat with free salads on Moscow metro

by Kristen Blyth,RIA Novosti at 17/10/2013 14:49

The Moscow News

Moscow’s enormous transport system is a never-ending source of strange, entertaining and shocking sights, but that of two women in air stewardess uniforms handing out free salads to unsuspecting passengers is not usually one of them.

The women doing precisely this on Thursday were in fact representatives of a Moscow-based healthy-eating group carrying out a project codenamed “Stewardesses Go Underground,” an initiative to inform people about the dangers of saturated fat and encourage them to eat a healthy breakfast.

These salads were not the traditional Russian kind, full of processed meat and egg and slathered in mayonnaise, but a somewhat healthier vegetable mix dressed with olive oil. The project was organized by The Truth About Food, a non-profit organization that endorses high food product quality and a health-conscious diet. 

Eating breakfast is important, Sergei Raksha – one of the group’s organizers – said, but many Russians are used to chowing down on fatty dishes like traditional pancakes stuffed with meat and cheese for the first meal of the day. Consuming foods high in saturated fat isn’t good for the body, he explained, putting people at greater risk for heart attacks and other health problems.

“We’re showing Muscovites that there’s an alternative,” Raksha said, adding that a healthy breakfast can still taste good.

The group is also asking Russian airlines to switch to serving breakfasts containing less saturated fat, but according to Raksha, the main goal of “Stewardesses Go Underground” is to promote healthy breakfasting awareness.

alad, he said, was chosen as a paradigm of a nutritious first meal not because of its strong track record as popular breakfast fare, but because it was relatively cheap to prepare.

He admitted that public transport was a “strange” environment in which to hand out food, but said that Moscow’s trains and trolleybuses were chosen in order to reach a high number of people as they travel to work and around the capital. 

The group is distributing salads today on inter-city trains from Ramenskoye, in Moscow’s southeast, to the city center, as well as on the metro circle line and on the city’s Bk trolleybus route around the central area of the capital.

The Truth About Food has performed a number of other chow-related stunts around the city recently, performing a “raid” on watermelons to check nitrate levels in September and posting stickers reading, “Danger, trans fats!” on crosswalk signs near fast food restaurants, according to its website.

One of the group’s female members also donned a dress made of pork, Lady Gaga-style, and walked around Moscow in September calling for people to eat less meat.

Don’t be SAD

by Natalia Antonova at 28/09/2012 13:24

The Moscow News

For Yulia Ivanova, the worst thing about seasonal depression was other people’s insistence that it didn’t exist.

“They called me ‘lazy,’ they called me a ‘liar,’ and they said that people like me are a drain on society,” she told The Moscow News.

Ivanova used to write a blog about depression, with a specific focus on seasonal depression – a condition she said she has suffered from in some way or another for as long as she remembers. Following a harassment campaign against her by a group of trolls, Ivanova took her blog down.

“I’m glad I wrote it all under a pseudonym,” she said. “People can get surprisingly vindictive when they get into disagreements on the Internet – especially when these disagreements concern [one’s] health and lifestyle choices.”

Seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, tends to affect some people during the darker, colder months – although instances of SAD cropping up in the spring or summer are not unheard of. And while for some sufferers, keeping SAD under control is relatively easy, others see their work performance and personal relationships suffer.

In the colder months, SAD sufferers experience feelings of lethargy, weight gain, changes in appetite and, above all else, persistent feelings of depression and gloom. And in modern Russia, where awareness of how to cope with psychological problems is quickly gaining ground among the general populace, sufferers have noted that the famously grim Russian winter does play a big role in how they feel.

“When I was studying abroad in warmer countries, it was easier to deal with feelings of sadness and depression in the fall and winter,” Ivanova said. “Of course, there’s still nothing like enjoying the snow on a sunny winter day somewhere in a Moscow park – but the marked lack of sunlight in the European part of Russia does make a difference, I think.”

Ivanova believes that a lack of information about SAD leads to disbelief and denial of symptoms, even among sufferers themselves. “Seasonal depression is not the same as getting occasionally irritated about ice and snow on the roads, or about having to stuff yourself in a warm parka every time you go outside,” she said. “It’s a persistent condition – and I know for a fact that it runs in my family, though my relatives remain in denial.”

Let there be light

According to Robert Auger, a sleep specialist and psychiatrist at the Mayo Clinic in the United States, spending plenty of time outdoors and exercising regularly is crucial for SAD sufferers. “There is no substitute for natural light,” he was quoted as saying by the Mayo Clinic’s official website.

For those who aren’t able to spend much time outdoors, Auger recommends investing in a light therapy box – a popular device for combating SAD in the West.

In Russia, light therapy boxes are still a fairly rare household item. “Most people don’t realize that light therapy can be helpful in combating SAD,” Vera Romanyuk, a psychologist, told The Moscow News. “Light therapy is usually advertised as an in-patient procedure at various clinics – as a means of combating problems with the central nervous system, for example.”

Romanyuk believes that SAD sufferers are better off just ordering a light therapy box online, as outpatient procedures are expensive and most are not technically geared towards easing depression-like symptoms.

“A lot of people paint light therapy as some sort of mystical mumbo jumbo – but it should be pretty straightforward: light therapy boxes are to be switched on in the morning, for about half an hour,” she said. “The key is not trying to overthink what is meant to be a simple procedure.”

Say no to tanning beds

According to SAD sufferer Ivanova, there is a common misconception in Moscow that tanning salons help “cure” the problem. “I even saw one tanning salon advertising itself as a ‘cure for seasonal blues’ – which is silly,” she said. “Tanning beds are only helpful for those who miss having a great tan in the winter time – and aren’t afraid of wrinkles and possible skin cancer.”

Embrace the gloom

Therapist Romanyuk believes that alongside traditional methods of battling SAD, people who are affected by the seasons should also learn to find the positive elements of a gloomy winter or a hot summer.

“Being able to enjoy yourself is key,” she said. “For example, you hate winter! It affects you badly! Fine, great, you can accept that! But you can also discover special winter-time activities that brighten your mood and help you get on with your life.”

Such activities can be as predictable as taking up skiing – or as unusual as indulging in tea ceremonies in basement cafes in Moscow. “The trick is doing something that offsets the cold and dark – or helps you enjoy it,” Romanyuk said. “One of my clients who suffered persistent feelings of depression in the winter got into a habit of preparing elaborate winter-time meals at night: hot soups, spicy entrees, a glass of homemade mulled wine for desert, and so on.

She used to say to me – well, I can’t enjoy mulled wine in the summer now, can I? And it was one of those little habits that gradually helped her cope.”