San Francisco Village and Institute on Aging Team Up to Bring You:

In Conversation with Belva Davis

FREE event on Thursday, May 25th in the Weinberg Auditorium at the IOA Senior Campus, 3575 Geary Boulevard at Arguello from 3:30-5:00PM

Well-known San Francisco journalist and celebrity, Belva Davis, will be in conversation with SF Village Acting Executive Director, Janis Brewer, to discuss her new memoir "Never In My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman's Life in Journalism". This free event for IOA and SF Village members, their friends and guests is sure to be informative and exciting.

Come hear about the lessons learned by Belva from her many years reporting the news in the Bay Area as well as hear the inside stories of some of the most dramatic events in our history. Belva was in the thick of much of it at the time. She has interviewed everyone from Martin Luther King Jr. and Fidel Castro to Harvey Milk and George Moscone. Belva's honest, open account of her life and experiences will be a refreshing and informative opportunity for all of us.

A brief Reception and book signing follows the interview and Q&A session. Ms. Davis’ highly acclaimed book will be available for purchase on site through Books, Inc.

Reservations required, call 415-387-1375, ext. 0 or email to info@sfvillage.org.
We urge you to sign up quickly as space is limited and reserved.

Longevity and the Importance of a Strong Social Network

What personality characteristics are associated with long life?  Katherine Bouton, New York Times columnist,  looks for the answer in her review of the book, The Longevity Project: Startling Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study, by Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin.   "The findings clearly revealed that the best childhood personality predictor of longevity was conscientiousness, the qualities of a prudent, persistent, well-organized person."  

While the report looks at the pros and cons of many other factors such as genetics, optimism, exercise, stress and family, the most important social predictor of long life is a strong social network, a social support system.  And this is where the Village movement, and San Francisco Village specifically, play such an important role as we age.  The Village movement gives us an innovative way to create new social connections and build a support system to help us in this exciting phase of our lives.

Surprisingly, the study reports that genes represent only one-third of the factors contributing to long life; the other two-thirds are based on "lifestyles and chance."  And optimism can backfire on us:  "If you're cheerful, very optimistic, especially in the face of illness and recovery, if you don't consider the possibility that you might have setbacks, then those setbacks are harder to deal with."

Katherin Bouton recommends reading this book, and I recommend reading her review as it is chock full of fascinating insights from the 80 years of research reported in the book.. 

To read the complete article, click here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/science/19longevity.html?_r=1&ref=science

SPOTLIGHT on Mary Ann Faris

For Mary Ann Faris, a name tag is an enormous asset when groups of friends or strangers gather for meetings and events. And Mary Ann should know - she's been actively involved with dozens of professional, academic and social networks for as long as she can remember. "There's something about seeing a name that makes a difference to me," she says, "And that's how good conversations can begin."

Joining SF Village in January of 2009, Mary Ann and her husband Phil can count themselves among the earliest responders. Friends of Mary Moore Gaines and members of St. James Episcopal Church, they were among a core of neighbors from the Inner Richmond who responded to the idea that seniors should have the opportunity to age and function successfully in their own homes.

Mary Ann was raised in a small Iowa town, graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree that met her interest in speech and hearing, and moved to Washington D.C. where she began work as a speech and hearing specialist in the Federal Department of Education. A few years later, she met Phil, who worked for IBM. After the two married, he was transferred to San Francisco, and they settled into a beautiful 1920s home at the edge of Mountain Lake Park.-- where they have lived for more than 35 years. Phil had three children from a previous marriage who joined them for summers, and together, they raised a daughter, Elizabeth. She is now a counselor of college-bound students at University High School. Mary Ann and Phil have 3 grandchildren.

Returning to work about six months after the birth of her daughter, Mary Ann admits that pursuing a fulltime career was less common for women in the 1970s, and she is still grateful for an excellent pre-school and childcare that helped make it all work. Employed in various capacities for the Federal government for the next 30 years, she visited college campuses and monitored their federal grants before making a successful segue to UC Berkeley's Financial Aid office for many years. Mary Ann retired from Cal in 2004 but didn't exactly leave campus life behind. Instead, she has become an enthusiastic student at San Francisco's Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning at USF, and continues to extol its virtues. In addition to forging new friendships in the classroom, Mary Ann is quick to point out that many local arts organizations provide appealing ticket discounts to Fromm students on a regular basis.

Today, Mary Ann and Phil are busier than ever and it's safe to say that the SF Village office couldn't get along without Phil. They depend upon him to help other members troubleshoot problems with their rebellious computers.

Introduce yourself to The Farises at the next SF Village social function...and wear your name tag!

REMINDER! Join Us for the MAY SF Village Lunch Bunch

The next lunch bunch will take place on Monday, May 9th at the Presidio Social Club, 563 Ruger Street, through the Lombard St. gate of the Presidio, 1st left turn.

It is being hosted by member, Vera Fields and starts at 12 noon; the restaurant opens at 11:30.

With the leisure dining and friendly conversations during these lunches it will probably last till 2PM.
SF Village members welcome as well as guests.

RSVP to SF Village at 415-387-1375 or info@sfvillage.org.

B's Beef: Losing It

Other than anorexics (a sad story) or hunger plagued people (a tragic story) there isn't a man, woman, or, increasingly, child that doesn't want or need to lose a few pounds.

There's the sensible way to go about it: eat less, move more. Then there is everything else: diets of one sort or another, various pills and, increasingly, surgery.

Given this nation's humming bird attention span combined with our optimistic belief in science the search for "the quick fix" triumphs over "slow and steady". There has to be a pill, a patch or a tuck that will make the problem go away NOW. That's why the good but somewhat vague advice to make "life style changes" ends up at the bottom of most pound shedders' to do list. Instead we're suckers for anything new that promises quick results.

Every generation seems to sprout a new selection of fad diets. There used to be the Banana and Milk Diet, the Drinking Man's Diet (Atkins with booze), various liquid diets, and even ingesting a capsule containing a tapeworm -- although I've always suspected this to be an urban legend.

One of the latest fad diets is "The Cleanse". Appealing to our inner martyr, it asks us to forgo all nourishment except 6 to 12 glasses of water mixed with lemon juice, cayenne pepper and maple syrup -- and to keep this up for 10 days. Friends of mine who have undergone this draconian regime do shed an impressive amount of poundage and walk around with a messianic glow...for a few weeks. Then things gradually inch back to the old normal.

If you really want to know how Americans are attacking their girth these days go check out "Fad Diets of 2011" on the Internet and weep -- or laugh.

Basically what most of these dining philosophies have in common is that they demonize one or the other nutrient. Fat is of the devil. Bacon and egg yolks are sure to do you in, or salt, or carbs or, of late, gluten. Oddly, one of the biggest elephants in the nutrition room doesn't get half the bad press it deserves: sugar. High fructose corn syrup, the most pervasive sweetener, as well as a slew of other additives ending in "...ose", a sweetening agent give-away, are tucked into practically every prepared food on supermarket shelves from the more obvious like breakfast cereals to sausage, ketchup and -- horror of horrors! -- even dog biscuits and cat treats! Not surprisingly you will now find an array of products on supermarket pet food shelves for overweight dogs and cats. What we should all do is stand up to the corn lobby and treat sugar like the folks did in "Little House on the Prairie", as a very rare, exquisite delight.

For the pill poppers among us there is a large and more often than not unregulated offering of weight loss products. Many are laxative and/or diuretic based: you poop and pee your way to a thinner you. Some suppress appetite but may turn you into a svelte insomniac or, worse, have serious, even life threatening side effects.

Lastly there's the "scalpel solution". With a whack whack here and a tuck tuck there, here a nip, there a suck, everywhere a cut or staple, protruding busts, butts, hips, tummies, double chins and bat wing arms get pared down to a more pleasing size. But again, at what cost? The risk of infection lurks, surgical mistakes happen: "Nurse, are you telling me this isn't Mabel Jones?!"

So what's a body to do?

Forget fads, toss the meds and follow Michael Pollan's advice: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." And don't forget to enjoy it all. As Julia Child, the happy nonagenarian used to say as she lifted her glass of good wine: "Bon appetit!"

Highly recommended reading:

Michael Pollan:

• The Omnivore's Dilemma
• In Defense of Food
• Food Rules: An Eater's Manual

Marion Nestle:

• What to Eat
• Food Politics

Gary Taubes:

• Why We Get Fat