A DISSERTATION
IN CANDIDACY FOR
THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF
PHILOSOPHY**
BY
AL LOUIS RIPSKIS
Updated April 2008
ABSTRACT
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1
Chapters
I. INTRODUCTION
AND OVERVIEW.........
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II. PROACTORS,
REACTORS, VICTIMS AND PREDATORS.
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III. BRAIN DISCOVERIES AND
CHANGE..............................
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IV. THE PLEASURE DEFICIT
AND BRAINS REWARD PATHWAYS......
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V. THE MODULAR BRAIN
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VI. CORTICAL
INTEGRATION ...............
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VII. THE OVERWEIGHT EPIDEMIC
AND THE FAILURE OF THE MEDICAL MODEL...
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Practical Instructions
for the General Public
VIII. WEIGHT, FUN
& FITNESS
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IX. PLAY &
FITNESS
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X. REPLACING THE
NICOTINE ADDICTION..
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XI. THE DRINKING
CONUNDRUM
A. LIFESTYLE RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE.............
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B. TW0 DOZEN PROACTOR CASE STUDIES
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Notes
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Reducing Premature, Preventable Deaths Through
Effective Lifestyle Changes
By Al Louis Ripskis
According to the World
Health Organization:
o Obesity has reached pandemic
proportions globally, with more than 1 billion adults overweight -- at least 300 million of them clinically obese
resulting in 3 million deaths
annually.
o Physical inactivity is
estimated to cause 2
million deaths worldwide annually.
o The tobacco epidemic is
still expanding
Tobacco use kills 4.9 million each year
o Worldwide,
alcohol causes 1.8
million deaths
The March 9, 2004 JAMA News Release proclaimed that Poor
Diet And Physical Inactivity May Soon Overtake Tobacco As Leading Cause Of
Death In U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the leading causes of
death in 2000 were tobacco (435,000 deaths), poor diet and physical inactivity
(400,000) and alcohol consumption (85,000).
According
to Overweight and Obesity in Australia:
the 19992000 Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study (AusDiab) approximately 60% of the
population was overweight or obese. And further it is estimated that by 2010,
70% of Australians will be above their healthy
weight range.
As these worldwide pandemics
explode, what do the health experts advocate? Use willpower to get more exercise,
restrict calories and fat/cholesterol intake, and quit smoking and abusing
alcohol. These exhortations have been
monumental failures, as every year the above casualty tolls mount.
A
paradigm shift that will abandon the prevailing, antiquated Aristotelian model
about how our minds function and replace it with the modular brain model that
incorporates the breakthrough discoveries in neuroscience and psychology for dealing effectively with lifestyle changes, is long overdue.
Neuroscientists
have discovered that our brains are modular, containing extremely powerful
reward pathways which demand daily quota of pleasure," or more precisely,
stimulation via serotonin, dopamine and other neurotransmitters.
For
the overweight, depressed, alcohol/tobacco-dependent, and others whose reward
pathways dont get sufficient, healthy stimulation -- food, tobacco and liquor
become the major substitutes. Self-deprivation through willpower, diets,
abstinence and no-pain, no-gain exercise regimens not only dont work, but
deplete the reward pathways even further and are counterproductive in the long
run. Enriching lives and finding healthier sources of pleasure outside of food,
tobacco and alcohol are the options of choice.
But
that requires functioning from the existential position of a Proactor.
Operating from the positions of Reactor or Victim deepen the sense of
helplessness, perpetuating overweight, alcohol/tobacco dependencies and
physical inactivity. For more precise overall picture of how this relates to
overweight and obesity, see The Overweight Epidemic, chapter 7.
Discovered early in the
research process that the existential positions people operate from -- Proactor, Reactor, Victim or Predator were
decisive as to what lifestyle changes they sought and whether those attempts
would be successful.
I started the research in
1985 while counselor with the Washington, D.C. Crisis Hotline where we received
three major type of calls.
Category 1: calls from
people who had experienced some acute, traumatic or distressful incidents or
events such as marital infidelities/divorces (troubled/broken relationships),
loss of jobs, rapes or attempted rapes, assaults, accidents, arrests for driving
under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, recipients of eviction notices
Category 2: calls from
individuals who were dissatisfied with themselves (their intelligence,
appearance or habits) or their lifestyles. The intensity of their dissatisfaction
varied from mild to severe, such as suicide ideation, threats and attempts;
unsatisfactory relationships (ranging from boredom, unsatisfactory sex lives to
repeated child and spousal violence and psychological abuse); undesirably
habits/addictions such as overeating, anorexia, bulimia, smoking, alcohol and
other drug abuse; and economic insecurity, job/career dissatisfaction.
Category 3: calls from
lonely, isolated, withdrawn people with limited social skills, who had not
developed their own network of friends and acquaintances and relied on the D.C.
Hotline for social and emotional support.
New counselors to the
Hotline were trained and were prepared to provide callers with empathy;
understanding; help to clarify, defuse and put into perspective hot, emotional
issues; and assistance in anticipating and forestalling future recurrences of
similar distressful situations.
Only the Proactors were
prepared to accept and make use of this broad range of help. Predominantly
these callers were flexible, optimistic and persevering. They tended to
interpret the negative events that prompted them to call the Hotline as
aberrant, isolated incidents rather than their normal life patterns. They
usually wanted to deal promptly with the adverse occurrences and move on with
their lives. Mostly they were Category
1 callers.
On the other side of the
existential spectrum were the callers whom I identified as Victims, who were
primarily Category 2 and 3 callers. Instead of acute events they tended to
repeatedly report chronic situations and histories of incidents they apparently
had never gotten over. These callers preferred to keep recounting the traumatic
event and complaints about their unsatisfactory lifestyles rather than focusing
their energies on resolving the unsatisfactory situations and bringing about
more favorable, future outcomes. For
them victimization was the norm not the exception. Why does this always happen
to me? was more of a Transactional Analysis game they were playing, rather
than a serious question for finding a way out of their predicaments. For the TA
Victim profile see The
Karpman Drama Triangle.
The callers that occupied
the Reactor existential position were, as the term suggest, predominantly
reacting to outside circumstances and events, without any clear goals or
systematic life plans. A couple of them volunteered, almost poetically: Im
like a piece of driftwood in a vast ocean of life. The other: I am being
bounced around by circumstances beyond my control like a billiard ball. They
followed the path of least resistance and did what was socially expected,
rather than acting from personal convictions. In the broader context Reactors
are the other-directed people the social character that David Riesman, et
al described in The Lonely Crowd. Being entertained and finding fun
things to do are what Reactors lives are about. They were predominantly
Category 2 callers.
Criminals and psychopaths made
up the fourth existential position, that of Predators. They were not interested
in changing themselves internally or their lifestyles. They called primarily
because they found themselves in a down position and wanted to regain control
so they could exploit better the people or situations they were in. Finally, the mentally ill, who were Category
3 callers.
Expanded Scope of Research and Methodology
After my research at the
D.C. Hotline pinpointed the critical importance of peoples existential position
for achieving successfully desired lifestyle changes, I widened the universe
and investigated other indispensable elements essential for achieving lifestyle
changes effectively.
I formed Impact Consultants,
a private counseling and consulting practice, which also served as a laboratory
for experimenting, evaluating, testing and refining the most effective ways for
making lifestyle changes.
I designed a comprehensive
Lifestyle Research Questionnaire (Appendix A) which I either mailed or
completed myself in telephone or face-to-face interviews, locally as well my
travels in the U.S. and other parts of the world.
The research revealed that being a Proactor was one of three indispensable factors for bringing about lifestyle changes effectively. Having a basic knowledge of human brain functioning and knowing the most effective combination of factors for changing the particular habit/condition were equally important.
**A PERSONAL NOTE: In view of the millions of lifestyle-related deaths reported each year by the World Health Organization, as author of this dissertation I felt as sense of urgency to get my research findings published as soon as possible, in the interest of saving some of these lives. Unfortunately my dissertation advisor felt that I should delay the release of the dissertation for another semester so I could finish up on couple of course requirements. Thus I had two choices: One, sit on my discoveries for another semester as millions are dying from lifestyle-related causes. Or publish my findings and kiss my Ph D program good-by. I choose the latter course.
Copyright ©
2008 Al Louis Ripskis