features
SCIENCE
J
anet, who is an assistant professor of health psychology
at UCLA and the director of the DiSH (Dieting, Stress,
and Health) Lab answers our burning questions about
the link between stress and weight gain and how
dieting the wrong way can make us less healthy.
Were there any particular experiences at ASIJ that influenced
your career choice?
ASIJ is a wonderful place, because it exposed me not only to
US and Japanese culture but also to many cultures throughout
the world. This cross-cultural viewpoint was the jumping-off
point for my very first research paper studying cross-cultural
differences in parenting styles. This segued into a research study
looking at the role of parenting/family styles in eating disorder
risk. Until that point, researchers thought that “enmeshed”
families—those that are characterized by extreme closeness—
put individuals at risk for anorexia nervosa. Something about
that didn’t seem right to me, since that seemed to describe
family relationships in Japanese and many other so-called
collectivistic cultures that I had been exposed to, and eating
disorder prevalence was lower in those cultures. I gathered
some data, and found that among these enmeshed families,
individuals from collectivistic cultures seemed to be protected
from the risk of eating disorders.
dish
Dr Janet Tomiyama ’97 on how to
stay healthy in a world full of stress
18
the ambassador FALL 2013
up
A key component of your research is your multidisciplinary approach.
After majoring in social psychology for your undergraduate studies
at Cornell and Masters at UCLA, you began to focus on health
psychology for your PhD research. What initially interested you in
the intersection of health and psychology?
My research interest in eating disorders quickly gave way to
research interests in eating in general. What makes people eat,
and what makes people not eat (i.e., diet)? Why do individuals
diet, and is dieting really that healthy for you? Dieting is a
perfect example of a topic that health psychologists study,
because it ties something psychological (wanting to diet)
with something biological (health). This kind of work is not
easy, because you have to learn and master multiple fields of
study, but it’s absolutely thrilling to break down traditional
disciplinary boundaries to ask new questions.
Why did you decide to go into teaching? Was it more difficult
than you thought to become a professor?
Teaching is one of the joys in my life. And to be honest,
teaching a course in psychology is much easier than teaching
fitness classes—something I did for close to a decade. In a
fitness class, you have to do one move with the class while
calling out the next one, all the while monitoring the room for
correct form and safety…and while you’re out of breath. After
that, sharing exciting theoretical and research findings with
students felt like a breeze. As I reflect on my teaching style, I
realize that I have tried to carry with me the very best qualities
of many of my teachers at ASIJ: the humor of Mr Chambers
and Mr O’Donnell, the passion of Mr Huber and Mr Swanson,
the warmth and openness of Mr Ingebritson and Mrs Roen,
the list goes on and on and on.
What is it like running the DiSH (Dieting, Stress, and Health) Lab?
Hectic—but a whirlwind of fun. The graduate students in my
lab are spilling over with exciting, insightful research ideas, and
at any given time we are simultaneously designing studies,
collecting data in other studies, and writing manuscripts for still
other studies. For a taste of what research has come out of the
lab, check out the publications page of <www.dishlab.org.>
Some of your research challenges popular “fad” diets. How
can the results of such research make it out of the lab and
begin to influence people’s daily lifestyle?
Hopefully it will be easy, because I don’t know a single
person who’s been on a fad diet and enjoyed the experience.
Restrictive diets are no fun, and my research shows that they
actually cause psychological stress and increases in the stress
hormone cortisol (which itself promotes weight gain). My
work has been covered in the popular press, which is one good
way to get research out of the lab (I knew I’d made it when
The Onion covered one of my dieting papers!). It’s interesting
FALL 2013 the ambassador
19
features
clone
SCIENCE
features
SCIENCE
Reed Hutchison/UCLA
ranger
Janet worked with UCLA psychology professor Dr. Traci Mann on a study analyzing 31 long-term studies of dieting
– when I say diets don’t work and that they’re stressful, many
people say, “Duh!” and yet many scientists find that to be
shocking. That just underscores the gap between academia
and the public.
Japan is known for having a healthier population than many
other developed countries and popular media often points to
the Japanese diet as a major factor. Is there any truth in this?
Yes! Japanese women in particular are the most longlived humans on earth. There is so much to praise about
the (traditional) Japanese diet. Lots of vegetables and lean
proteins, huge variety in the kinds of foods people eat, low
fat, small portions, tons of green tea. Beyond this, however,
as a psychologist I think there is something to be said about
Japanese food culture. Food is an art form in Japan, and
it’s something to be celebrated. I think in American culture,
oftentimes food and eating are very stressful or experiences
that are filled with guilt. And research shows that eating food
when your body is in a state of “stress soup” leads to weight
gain – in fact, it leads to the most dangerous kind of fat called
visceral obesity.
You’ve done a lot of groundbreaking research on stress. Have
any of your discoveries changed the way that you deal with
your own stress?
The work that I’ve incorporated most into my daily life is
actually that of my dear friend and colleague Dr Eli Puterman.
He finds that exercise can buffer the negative effects of stress
20
the ambassador FALL 2013
on health. This effect appears to be very powerful—in some
cases, it completely wipes out the negative effects of stress! I
prioritize exercise and work out at least six times a week.
What advice do you have for ASIJ students on how to maintain
a healthy lifestyle?
As my work with dieting and stress shows, feeling like you
have to deprive yourself of something can feel terrible and
that on its own can lead to maladaptive changes in your
biology. I think a better approach is to think of adding things
to your lifestyle. For example, eating more veggies instead of
cutting out sugar. Also, it’s really important to know that you
can be healthy regardless of what you weigh as long as you’re
exercising and eating right and minimizing stress. Weight loss
shouldn’t be the goal; becoming healthy should be.
What topics are you interested in researching in the future?
My new research passion is understanding weight stigma.
This is an issue in both US and Japanese cultures—overweight
individuals are stigmatized and treated like second-class
citizens. Some of my most recent work shows that experiencing
weight stigma, no matter what you actually weigh, is linked
to higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol and accelerated
cellular aging. That’s important, because virtually no research
has linked weight stigma to a biological health outcome.
Cortisol, as I mentioned, promotes weight gain, so our societal
stigma might actually be a vicious cycle that causes even more
weight gain, therefore more stigma, and so on.
Alex Yusha ‘42, a scientist whose
discoveries contributed to cancer
research, on how WWII tore apart
the multicultural harmony that had
blossomed at ASIJ
I
was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1922, and grew up there,
speaking Russian and Japanese as my first languages. My
father was assigned to Tokyo as the Russian attaché. He and
my mother had emigrated from Russia before I was born. I did
not begin to learn English until I entered the first grade at The
American School in Japan. My sister, Natalya, was nine years
ahead of me. She and I both attended and graduated from ASIJ,
though I missed my graduation ceremony in 1942 because of
the war.
Among my classmates, I remember scientists such as Rudy
Pariser ’41 who contributed to the research of avian disease;
David Nicodemus ’33 who worked on the Manhattan Project
with Oppenheimer at Los Alamos; and Albert Kobayashi ‘42
whose ceramic research was used to keep the floor of spaceships
from burning. I have exchanged postcards with Amy Toda ‘40
“talk- talk- talk” who lives in Hawaii. My classmates had several
nicknames for me, including “Lizard,” because I could slither to
the front of the line for the slide on the playground or to get
into the classroom.
My mother called me “Shalun” which was Russian for
prankster. My sister and I were both very shy and neither of us
ever married, but I did find ways to express myself!
From a photo of my school chums in the early grades (see
page 22), I see Bruce Brown ’42 whose dad sold Morinaga
Chocolate and Wrigley’s gum; I see Claude Raymond ‘43, a
Frenchman whose dad was an architect for the Imperial Hotel;
I see Charles Mitchell Jr ‘44, the son of Mr. Charles Mitchell
(FF 1927-33), the principal; Jerry Downs ‘42 is there and also
the pilot, William Yamamoto ‘33; also, Mrs. Persis Gladieux
(FF 1930-34), Marie Louise Alonzo-Romero ’42—an Hispanic
student. In my class there was a student from Ukraine; one was
Jewish, Russian, and Japanese which was really hard during the
war; one was British and Japanese and died in a plane crash
before the war, thank goodness; and one who later jumped out
of a window to his death because he couldn’t handle the chaos
of war. This mix of cultures and races was all fine until the war
broke out; then it was really awful.
During the Occupation, I worked as an interpreter and
translator (Russian, Japanese, English, and German) for what
became the military hospital. As there was not much demand
for my services, I began to help out in the lab. I was fortunate
because I could go home at the end of the day, though it was a
grueling four years for all of us.
After the war, when I was about twenty-four, I traveled
to the United States and immediately pursued citizenship. I
remember meeting two immigration officers on the ship who
would continue to pop up for visits to check up on me, always
as a pair. Also, I didn’t know how to drive as it was not called for
in Tokyo. So I took a driver’s education class and practiced with
a friend named Hays. His wife was named Helen, but this was
not the Helen Hayes—she had an ‘e’ in her name.
Afterwards, with help from my father who was still in Japan,
I enrolled at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. (He and
FALL 2013 the ambassador
21