HOPE FOR A CURE

As many as 1 million Americans and up to 10 million people worldwide are currently living with Parkinson’s disease, according to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation. Experts say many thousands of cases go undetected, but every year in America, some 60,000 people are diagnosed with Parkinson’s. In 2007, James “Tim” Walker was one of them. For someone who made a living with his hands, the news was devastating.

A two-time Emmy winner, Walker is a world-renowned animator and animation director, having worked with the Disney studio, Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, Warner Bros. Animation and more. His talents have given us the likes of such characters as Scrooge McDuck, Tom and Jerry, Sylvester and Tweety, The Flintstones, Batman, Superman and all the DC Super Heroes.

“Drawing has been my passion since the first cartoon I saw at my grandparents’ house when I was 5 years old,” says Walker, who grew up in Hollywood not far from the Hanna-Barbera studio. A few years later, he became a “dumpster diver,” searching for every bit of animation art he could find in the studio’s trash so he could practice drawing. It was on one of those occasions that Mr. Barbera himself caught Walker in the dumpster and yelled, “Get out of that dumpster, you knot-head!”

“I was 10 years old, and I didn’t know who he was,” Walker laughs. “I went on to animate for him later and worked with him for years.”

“It was probably in 2006 that I started noticing what I perceived as a weakness in my right arm. I thought it was carpal tunnel syndrome,” recalls Walker, 67, who lives in Southern California. “My general practitioner said I needed to see a neurologist, who diagnosed lateral Parkinson’s on my right side. I was devastated. I left that doctor’s office thinking, how could this have happened to me?”

His first instinct was just to load his vehicle with alcohol, drive to Mexico and drink himself into oblivion, but, as a member of a 12-step program, Walker knew that would be a fatal mistake.

“After the diagnosis, I said, ‘God, I can’t do this. I cannot live life on life’s terms.’ I’m a proud member of a 12-step group; I’ve been clean and sober for 17 years. I went to the bookstore, bought a sketchbook and started teaching myself to draw with my left hand. I believe God and the program showed me what to do. If that day didn’t take me out, I don’t know what would.”

Walker not only learned to draw with his left hand, he wrote a book about his experience, Drawing From the Left.

Then, about two years ago, he started feeling symptoms in his left hand, too.

“I was at the point where I was shuffling along; you’d have thought I’d had a stroke,” he says. “My neurologist told me about surgical deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson’s, and I went down to UCLA to be evaluated for this. The doctors there put me on a different medication, and the second day I was on it I was able to run backward. I went back to UCLA, and they told me the medication is doing what the operation would do and that I might never need the operation. I’m doing well now. The disease has progressed a little bit, but I don’t shake badly. If you didn’t know I had the disease, you wouldn’t know it to see me.

“The day I was diagnosed, I had to come home and tell my girlfriend, Susan, who is now my wife,” says Walker, recalling one of his toughest days. “Her father was dying of Parkinson’s at the time, so I didn’t think she could handle it. I looked into those beautiful blue eyes and told her. She said she loved me no matter what.”

The couple married the following year.

“I don’t get down too often, but when I do, she picks me up,” says a grateful Walker. “People say to me all the time, ‘You act like nothing’s wrong. How are you getting through this?’ There’s only one answer: a power greater than self is carrying me through life. End of story. I believe in my lifetime I’ll see a cure for this disease. I might not get it, but people coming behind me will. I lived my dream career for 50 years. Now I’m living for today, and I’m happy with that.”

Walker plans on attending the film festival, which features an animation exhibit, Journey into Imagimation: 100 Years of Animation Art From Around the World. The exhibit runs at the Appleton Museum of Art, in affiliation with the festival.

Brotherhood Of The Popcorn, a nostalgic documentary featuring Walker, will also have two screenings, and there will be a celebration of Walker and his work at the Appleton on Wednesday, April 6. Copies of his second book, Shaken Not Broken: An Artist’s Journey Through Hell, will also be available for sale.

Have family mealtimes turned into your reality TV version of Food Wars? Then chances are good, very good, that you have at least one picky eater in the house.

No matter how much you plead, cajole or bargain, your picky eater won’t touch that broccoli or fish. Meat? Forget about it. Your child wrinkles up her nose, shakes her head, even gags and turns away with a defiant, “That’s yucky, and I’m not eating it.”

For scores of frustrated parents who often throw up their hands in dismay, take heart—this picky eating phase is considered by child specialists to be a normal part of development. It generally kicks in at about 2 years of age and usually begins to gradually disappear after age 5 for most children. But if that seems like an eternity, it might help to know that genetics, not bad parenting, play a large role in a child’s eating behaviors.

In a recent study conducted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 66 pairs of twins between ages 4 and 7 were studied for their food behaviors. The researchers found that genes explain 72 percent of the variation among children in the tendency to avoid new foods, while the rest was influenced by environment.

“In some respects, food fear or the aversion to trying new foods is similar to child temperament or personality,” says Myles Faith, an associate professor of nutrition at UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. “Some children are more genetically susceptible than others to avoid certain and new foods. However, that doesn’t mean that they can’t change their behaviors and become a little less picky.”

Smell & Supertasters

What food tastes like is influenced by all our senses— but, particularly, our sense of smell. Think about when you have a stuffy nose and can’t taste anything. Olfactory receptor cells in the nasal cavity stimulate a neural response in the brain that allows us to detect food flavors. In fact, our sense of smell accounts for more than 70 percent of our ability to taste. Turns out our sense of smell changes over time, so something we didn’t like when we were picky eaters driving our mothers crazy, we might eat later in life.

Taste buds are sensory organs on the tongue, roof of the mouth and in the esophagus that allow us to perceive taste. The tongue’s taste buds allow us to detect five basic flavors—sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami, the Japanese word for savory.

Then there are the supertasters. The term was coined decades ago by Linda Bartoshuk, a University of Florida taste researcher.

According to her research, about 25 percent of people have been genetically bestowed with an extraordinary number of taste buds. These supertasters experience tastes significantly more intensely than others. They may avoid foods with overpowering strong and bitter flavors.

Mom, The Womb & Breastfeeding

A child’s mother plays a key role in his or her food preferences, beginning in the womb. According to research at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, a fetus begins to perceive flavors in a basic way by the third trimester when taste buds and olfactory receptors begin to send information to the central nervous system. So what the mother-to-be eats may determine the child’s food preferences via the amniotic fluid in the womb.

Another Monell Chemical Senses

Center study also found that infants who were breast-fed and whose mothers repeatedly ate certain foods, such as vegetables, were more likely to accept those foods during and after weaning. But breast-fed babies with vegetable-averse mothers or those who were formula fed didn’t show this acceptance.

“It’s a beautiful system,” says Julie A. Mennella, Ph.D., of the Monell Chemical Senses Center. “Flavors from the mother’s diet are transmitted through amniotic fluid and mother’s milk. So, a baby learns to like a food’s taste when the mother eats that food on a regular basis.”

Identifying Picky Eaters

In a University of Illinois study, parents of 170 2 to 4 year olds observed and recorded their children’s responses to five standardized meals brought into their homes by researchers over the span of two weeks. At the beginning of the study, 83 children were described by their parents as picky eaters; 87 were not. At the study’s conclusion, the differences between the picky and nonpicky eaters were significant across 16 assessed behaviors.

“Not all picky eaters are created equal,” says Sharon Donovan, a professor of nutrition understand the behaviors that parents associate with picky eating, then we can develop specific recommendations targeted at those behaviors.”

The study divided picky eaters into four groups: sensorydependent eaters, who reject a food because it’s mushy, slippery, bitter or lumpy; behavioral responders, who cringe or gag when food’s not prepared in the “right” way or refuse to come to the table at mealtime; preferential eaters, who won’t try new foods that are mixed or perfectionists, who have very specific needs, little variety in their diet and may insist that foods not touch each other.

“A parent’s response to pickiness can determine how bad the behavior will be and how long it will persist,” says Donovan. “Don’t let every meal become a battle. We encourage parents to keep exposing the child to different flavors, textures and food groups. This is linked to gradual and better acceptance.”

When It’s More Than Just A Phase

nearly 18 percent were classified as moderately picky. The remaining children, about three percent, were classified as severely selective. Moderately picky eaters were defined as those who had to have special meals cooked for consumption both in and out of the home. Severely selective eaters were described as so restrictive in their food intake that it limited their ability to eat with others.

The study found that both moderate and severe selective eating were associated with