Everything is bigger in Texas, as the saying goes, but increasingly that mantra includes the people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area specifically.
In fact, a study published earlier this year found that DFW ranks as the 19th most obese and overweight metro in the United States.
The Dallas Express recently spoke with local dietitian Isabella Ferrari of Doherty Nutrition to get her thoughts on what’s causing the issue and what we can do about it.
Ferrari believes that one of the biggest factors contributing to this problem is that DFW is “not suitable” for outdoor physical activity.
“One of the main things is that [DFW] is not very walkable,” she said. “We have a very sedentary lifestyle … Texas overall doesn’t have a lot of walkable cities.”
“We just sit down and work all day. We don’t live in a city where we walk around,” she said. “We go from sitting down eight hours at our desk to sitting down in our car to commute. So, it’s just a lot of sitting, not a lot of walking.”
Ferrari believes another big problem is the lack of nutritional education. “Not a lot of people get educated on what it means to be healthy.”
With 12 dietitians across four locations in the metroplex, Doherty Nutrition provides one-on-one nutrition counseling to 45 clients per day.
While most of her clients are striving to lose weight, Ferrari added that she consults many people who are simply trying to “fix their relationship with food.”
The unhealthiest habit Ferrari sees is eating out. Most people are just looking for convenience— “something that’s quick that they can just grab and eat,” she told The Dallas Express.
The most common obstacle her clients face when trying to adopt a healthy lifestyle is time.
“A lot of people, for example, have super long commutes,” she said. “They don’t get home until six, and the last thing they want to do is work out or meal prep or go to the store and spend two hours cooking and cleaning.”
While many people believe eating healthy has to be expensive, Ferrari believes convenience is a larger factor than price.
Many people prefer to spend money on food that comes ready to eat rather than “spend that same money on some fruit and some vegetables that you might be able to eat for two or three meals.” But doing so “involves the effort of cooking,” and most people would rather “just do the convenient thing.”
“If you add it up,” she said, “buying fruits and vegetables that are in season does not have to be that expensive. Things like chicken [are also] not really expensive.”
“Probably the best thing is just buying canned and frozen foods or canned and frozen fruits and vegetables,” she continued, “It’s as healthy as fresh [food], and just having them in your fridge is going to guarantee that you always have something there.”
“I just think that we have to be really careful with the convenience part,” she warned.
Ferrari’s best advice to those aiming to lose weight is to understand that it is a “slow” journey, “which is usually the hardest [part] because people just want to see results really quick,” she said. “They get discouraged when they don’t lose weight.”
Another important thing is for people to focus on having a healthy life, rather than simply looking a certain way, according to Ferrari.
She also believes that employers can play a role in helping people maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Doherty Nutrition offers corporate wellness classes to help employers better facilitate the health of their workers. “Allowing people to prioritize their health instead of their work is going to keep them happier,” she said, adding that it will also help employees remain in the workforce longer as well.
Ferrari stressed, however, that everyone’s relationship with food is different.
“People usually feel like we should all be doing the same thing,” she said, “but I’ve seen from this practice that the more individualized your nutrition is, the better you’re gonna feel.”