The Kokomo Tribune from Kokomo, Indiana • Page 11

Women don't need husbands' 'help' when dieting By Dr. Richard Stuart Wives would rather go It alone than have their husband's help in losing weight. This is the conclusion of a recent survey I conducted of attitudes toward weight-control programs. More than three-fourths of the women who reached their goal weights through participation in a' weight-control group said their dieting was simplified by their husbands not being Involved. Moreover, the women ranked the desire to please their hubands sixth in a list of seven reasons for wishing to lose weight.

The list was headed by desires to improve personal appearance and Health and to prove to themselves that they could do it. While ohly one-third of the wives who succeeded in losing weight said they would have wanted their husbands to attend weight control classes with them, slightly more than half said their husbands had been helpful during their dieting. One-third of the women said they had also received help from their children. These findings suggest that, while constructive interest from family members may help some women to lose weight, others succeed despite a lack of this support. Indeed, many of the women in the survey indicated that their husbands actually interfered with their weight-loss efforts.

The survey, summarized in my book "Act Thin-Stay Thin" (Norton), offers some insight into how and why many husbands were not helpful. More than three-fourths of the women who reached their goal weights found dieting was simplified by their husbands' lack of involvement. KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE 11 Tuesday, July 18, 1978 Family news Husbands arc fur more likely to comment on their wives' dieting failures than to praise their dieting successes. They are also unlikely to curb their own overeating aid tliclr wives' food-management efforts. Few husbands deliberately try to sabotage their wives' efforts.

Rather, they are often unaware of what they are doing and of the impact of their behavior upon their wives. Some husbands simply enjoy ovcraleing with their mates and do not wish to lose that companionship. Other husbands feel that excess weight prevents their wives from widening their social and work opportunities. They fear the stability of their marriages will be threatened if their spouses lose weight. Still other husbands have entered into unspoken contracts with their wives.

The husband is permitted his personal excess, such as heavy social drinking, in exchange for granting his wife permission to overeat. When the wife curbs her excessive eating, the husband often fears he will be expected to forego his self-indulgent pleasure. Finally, some husbands seem to enter into undercover battles to subvert their wives' self-improvement efforts. The husbands arc attempting to insure that they will not be surpassed by their spouses in personal success. Whatever the husbands' motivations whether they are fully supportive of their wives or struggling to wreck their spouses' efforts two tactics can help wives attempting to win the weight-loss battle: First, wives should redirect their husbands' efforts along these three lines: 1.

Husbands should be encouraged to set a good example by eating the proper amounts of carefully chosen foods. 2. Husbands should offer their wives gentle reminders of their new eating program. Helping their wives remember to plan for constructive eating can greatly aid long-range success. Husbands should be ever ready to compliment their wives' successful efforts and to ignore their eating lapses.

This third step is contrary to most people's normal interaction style. It can be taken only with considerable effort. Sadly, we are all far more likely to take positive actions for granted, letting them pass without comment, while coming down hard on even the smallest mistake. But remember that any time we pay attention to another's behavior even to it we strengthen that behavior. That makes it more likely to recur.

Thus, even negative attention can bring on problem behavior and retard progress toward behavioral objectives. When wives understand these principles, they can often help their husbands interact with them in a new way. As an added advantage, the new style of interaction can also carry over into relations with their children. When husbands become constructively involved in their wives' weight- loss efforts, they can often become their spouses' best allies. Changing a long-standing pattern of interaction is not easy, as we all know.

Therefore, it is important to build outside social support for attempts to change both problem eating and stressful marital interaction concerning management of food. That's the second lactic for wives seeking to lose weight. Choosing a friend who will lend a word of encouragement and a sympathetic ear or joining a weight-management group are two ways to gel this constructive support. Both friend and group provide opportunities to practice redirecting husbands' actions. These sympathetic outsiders can also offer a lift when progress seems particularly difficult.

Indeed, whether husbands help or hinder, this kind of added positive force can often mean the difference between success or failure in reaching goal weight. In ratification deadline ERA backers are predicting a delay Five experienced judges to select festival queen Winner of the first Miss Haynes- Apperson Beauty Pageant for this year's Haynes-Apperson Festival Aug. 11-19 will know she has been selected by five qualified judges. All five judges announced today by the sponsoring Kokomo Women's Council of Realtors previously have judged Miss America preliminary competition. Single 'females between ages of 16 and 21 arc eligible for the competition which will include a personal interview with the judges; a swimsuit competition; 'costume competition, and an essay pertaining to Kokomo as the "City of Firsts." Persons interested may contact Sue Rust at Re-Max Realty.

Entries will be accepted through July 24 and sponsors will be obtained for girls without sponsors. Contest sponsors will provide a $500 scholarship for the queen and there will be scholarships for each runner- up. Each entrant will receive a gift. Judges for the beauty pageant, which will be at 7:30 p.m. Aug.

11 in the Kokomo High School Auditorium, will be Ted Tuschinsky, Ruthann Sumptcr, Tudy Smith, Clifford Brugger, and Bob Sherman. Tuschinsky is vice-president of Hillsdale Co. a garden center and nursery located in Castleton. He has judged queen pageants on all national, state, county and has judged preliminaries of each of the "big three" in pageantry, Miss America, Miss Universe, and Miss World. He has been elected as one of three directors for the Central Indiana Area to the Board of Directors of the Indiana Festivals Association.

Sumpter has served as a judge for several Miss America preliminaries, Junior Miss Pageants, and other beauty and personality pageants. She has been director-producer of Miss Marion Pageant for seven years. She is a marketing and promotion representative for the Marion Regional Office of the Better Business Bureau of Northeastern Indiana. Tudy Smith is field director for the Miss America Scholarship pageant and an accredited judge for the Miss America contest. She is director of Miss Elwood Glass Pageant and a preliminary judge for Miss Indiana, Miss World, and Miss USA.

She lectures and conducts charm classes and seminars throughout the Midwest and presently is choreographer of the Marching Elwood Community Panther Bands. Brugger is a regular judge for the Indiana Music Educators Association and is starling his 12th year as judge for Miss America preliminary and other scholarship pageants. For many years, he was head of the music department and band director of the Elwood City Schools. Sherman presently is field director for this area of the Miss Indiana Pageant, the official photographer for the state pageant, and affiliated with the Miss Anderson pageant. He has judged many Miss America preliminary pageants, 4-II County Fair Queen contests, talent shows, and Junior Miss pageants at local and state levels.

WASHINGTON (AP) Backers of the Equal Rights Amendment, awaiting a crucial House committee vote, are cautiously predicting they will win a delay in the deadline for ratification of the proposal. Unless the extension is approved by Congress, the original seven-year period for the states lo ratify lite amendment will expire next March 22. The F.RA is three slates short of ratification. The new deadline under a compromise extension would be June 22. MW2.

Approval by the House Judiciary Committee, in a vote expected late io- dav, would clear the measure for action by the full House. "If we get it through the committee we ought lo be able to get it through the House," said Hep. F.li/.abeth A spokesman said the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution would await the outcome of today's vote before making plans for Senate action. Thirty-five stale legislatures have approved the ERA, which would outlaw discrimination based on sex. Thirty-eight, or three-fourths of the states, must approve the measure for ratification.

KIIA backers originally sought a seven-year extension but agreed to a shorter period after they could muster only Hi supporters on the House Judiciary Committee of men and two women (wo short of a majority. Three members who were opposed or uncommitted lo the seven-year ox- tension told The Associated Press they would favor a shorter period. The three were Reps. William ,1. Hughes, Hamilton Fish and William S.

Cohen, R-Maine. Several members remained uncommitted. Rep. Don Edwards, chairman of the House subcommittee on civil and conslilulional riglHs, joined Ms. Holtzman in predicting approval of the compromise extension.

They also said they thought the committee would beat back two preliminary moves by opponents of a straight-out extension. One of these would require a two- thirds majority for approval of the extension once it reaches the floor. Rep. Harold Volkmer, the sponsor, said it "might very well be" that the measure would be defeated. The oilier expected amendment called for allowing state legislatures that already have ratified the ERA to withdraw their approval during any extension.

Four states Kentucky, Tennessee, Idaho and Nebraska have already done so, but Congress has not said whether that action is legally effective. The Kentucky move was vetoed. Meanwhile Rep. Thomas N. Kindness, R-Ohio, a committee member who is a declared opponent of the extension, announced he was introducing a new ERA proposal because prospects for ralificalion of the original were "at best remote." Kindness said his new version would protect "the right of a slate government to formulate its own laws in areas like marriage, divorce or probate without interference from Congress." and Collector shares home with alligators alligator on her shoulder, holding it as you would to burp a baby.

"Don't mind Eddie hissing," she says. "Dogs bark at strangers, don't they?" "Tea," a IM-pound alligator. She cuddled him against her shoulder. Tea did not hiss. He even looked a.s if he was smiling.

"Tea has been held by K.OOO children and taken by leash to shopping centers and other places for charity appearances." said Mrs. Lewis, who hosts school groups, conducting educational programs in herpetology and conchology. In addition to the reptiles, she collects sea shells from the world over and has a half million of them on dazzling display in special moms. "When Tea was only (i inches long, some smart alec tossed him into a public swimming pool at Fort Myers, and he started scaring people," she related. "We got him out and he's been with us 2(1 years now.

lie's trained to go to the toilet in a plastic tub and can climb up an incline lo a bed, push away the spread, open the sheets, get between them and rest his head on a pillow. He's been on TV, you know. "I learned to handle alligators from Seminole Indians in Florida," said Mrs. Lewis, who frequently entertains at parties in her home and has family reunions with 13 grandchildren. "Alligators love to cat rats.

Tea has five once a week. In fact, I use up -10 lo 50 rals and mice every week. A woman raises them just for me. The only time my husband ever put his foot down was refusing to let me raise my own rats and mice in the house." tier husband, John, is senior scientist in the department of drugs at the American Medical Association in Chicago, 25 miles from Lisle. Mrs.

Lewis peels a banana and feeds it to Dottle the iguana. "Dotlie also loves peas, green beans and carrots right out of the can," she said. Mrs. Lewis said she had no favorites, but considered her rarest reptile lo be "Black Beauty" a black boa constrictor. "When we go on vacations, members of our herpetological society baby-sit for us," she said.

"And I baby- sit for their pets. Right now my guest list includes a Burmese python, an Asian green rat snake, a red rat snake and its baby, a sand boa and two crocodiles." Has Mrs. Lewis ever been bitten by her "Of course," she said. "An alligator occasionally snaps. So does Lassie." Highlights from It's here that the petile Mrs.

Lewis, a former model and a founder of the Chicago Herpetological Society, pampers her turtles, snakes. North American alligators, tarantulas and a iguana named Dottle. Mrs. Lewis has reached into a glas.s case and has come out with a tarantula with a body the size of a silver dollar. It crawls on her blouse.

"Give me a hand with Gorgeous George," she said later, trying to lift a tongue-flicking python from its case. Out and out it came, all I-I feet, as Mrs. Lewis and a visitor pulled and held. With Gorgeous George put back, Mrs. Lewis turned her attention to Around town Yankee doodle CHILMARK, Mass.

Film star James Cagney is presented a Postal Service lobby poster, showing the George M. Cohan commemorative stamp, by Northeast Regional Postmaster General Frank M. 3ommerkamp. The presentation was made on Cagney's 79th birthday near his home on Martha's Vineyard. (AP wirophoto) Reunion calendar July Park, Sections and II, p.m.

ECKI.EY—Highland Park, Area 12 noon. August II American Legion Field, 12 noon. Air Park, 1 p.m. STOVF.K—Highland Park, Area A- Kt, 12 noon. Park, Area and ID, 12 noon.

COTTINC; II Park, Area A-l-1, 12 noon. Park, Area 3-C, I p.m. August Kl Highland Park, Area C'-(i, 12 noon. Park, Area B-H, 12 noon. Park, Old Ben area, 12 noon.

Park, Area C-5, 12:30 p.m. ORIGINAL GRAVES Park, shelter house. JAMES AND ELLEN Highland Park, Area 5, dinner, 12:110 p.m. Reservations are due by July 25 for the 15-year reunion of the Kokomo High School class of 19BS, to be held Aug. 10.

They may be mailed lo Julia (Carler) Kessler, Covey Lane, Kokomo. The cosl is $18 per couple or a person. A KHS guided lour will begin al 2 p.m. on Aug. conducted by Frank Moore.

The entire family Is invited. A social hour will begin at p.m. in Hani a (I a Inn followed by dinner al 7 p.m. A disc jockey will be spinning "Oldies but Goodies" as well as current songs. Carolyn (Watson) Rankin is general chairman for the reunion assisted by Julia (Kessler) Carter, co-chairman.

Oilier committee chairmen are: Larry arrangements; Diane Waggaman, decorations; Lillian (Hannah) Bailey; Jan (Fleenor) Smith, pro- gram; Cheryl (Fenn) Genovese and Judy (Dwyer) Sholte, tour. Kokomo Council -194 Six officers and delegates of Kokomo Council United Commercial Travelers of America, recently attended the (list International convention of the order at New Orleans. Atlending were Harold L. Weaver, Robert Oilar, Donald Krieg, Ernesl Cooper, Robert Buckley and Roger Weaver. Among goals endorsed by the convention were a more independent way of life for retarded citizens, new emphasis on aid for mental retardation, and increased opportunities for youngsters in the Uniled States and Canada to participate in the sport of soccer.

Aid to retarded was chosen as the organization's top priority civic projecl in Iflliil. Since that time, UCT has awarded scholarships totaling $811,000 to students preparing for careers in special education of the mentally retarded. Local councils were urged to disseminate information regarding the prevention of mental retardation, and it was noted the National Association for Retarded reports one of every 33 newborns is destined to be re- larded. UCT is sponsoring the North American Youth Soccer Championship, which brings together eight regional champions lo compete for North American "l(i and under" title. The third annual tournament will be hold in August in Reglna, Sask.

Letters addressed to 'Dear Abby' DEAR ABBY: I hope Carl in Murrysville doesn't claim that his doggerel about Belly Jones hits, no runs, no is original. I hoard a version of II in 11125 al the Old Howard, a renowned burlesque theatre in Boston. It went like this: "Here lies the bones Of Mary McGinnity For twelve long years She kept her virginity And thal's the record In Ibis vicinity." BEN IN VIRGINIA DEAR ABBY: 1 hope you will select this letter Tor publication because it contains an important safety message. Yesterday 1 was the first to arrive al the scene of an accident after a boy had been hit by a car. No one knew where the child had come from.

A few minutes later, several people walked across the highway from a picnic area to see what all the excitemenl was about. A man collapsed and a young woman became hysterical when they recognized the child. He was (heir son, who only moments before had been left "sleeping" on the back seal of their car. I had to tell these grief-stricken parents dial il was loo lale for a doctor. Many people left the scene muttering, "I have learned a good lesson." As the father of two young children, I learned one, too: Don't ever leave children unattended (sleeping or awake) in an automobile.

STILL IN SHOCK DKAU STILL: Thanks for a very important "lesson." CONFIDENTIAL TO BUBBA IN CHICAGO: You may be able lo dodge your responsibilities, but you ean'l dodge the consequences of dodging your responsibilities. Think about it. If you put off writing letters because you don't know what to say, gel Abby's booklet, "How lo Write Letters For All Occasions." Send $1 and a long, stamped (28 cents) envelope to Abby: 1.12 Lasky Drive, Beverly Hills, Calif. 90212..