See Jane Run (and Do Likewise)

By Anastasia Toufexis.

When health writers were asked to a private lunch with Jane Fonda last summer, one of the journalists panicked. "I have to be thin to meet Jane Fonda," thought the columnist, who then proceeded to binge compulsively on bagels. "Instead of eating one, I ate three." An understandable lapse for mere mortals summoned into the presence of the U.S. Goddess of Fitness. But the nervous nosher was a no less exalted figure: Jane Brody, the nation's High Priestess of Health. At the meeting of the two unrestrained Janes, though, it all worked out true to form. Brody, after politely complimenting Fonda on her latest exercise tape ("It's not boring"), quickly got down to business. "How come you always put such gorgeous women in your videotapes?" she asked. "Can't you find any that ordinary people could identify with? I tried the stretches in your first tape and couldn't do them; I'd break in half. You should take a look at underwear. I can't find a leotard to run in with a good built-in bra . . ."

Nervy attacks, not attacks of nerves, are the usual hallmark of the brassy dynamo who has been successfully lecturing and hectoring the American public for the past decade. Her weekly "Personal Health" column for the New York Times is syndicated by more than 100 papers across the country. Two of her books have been best sellers, including the recent, recipe-laden Jane Brody's Good Food Book, which goes into paperback next spring. She speaks throughout the country, making about 50 appearances a year. Last week the writer took to television as the host of a PBS series of ten half hours called Good Health from Jane Brody's Kitchen.

All that activity has been good to her. A millionaire at 45, Brody is a testament to her own blend of scientific findings and personal experiences. Her taut 5-ft., 105-lb. frame radiates energy. Her loud voice spews words at a rat-a-tat pace. Even the salt-and-pepper curls around her face seem to crackle with vitality. A few years ago in New York City, the pint-size journalist fearlessly ran down a 6-ft., 13-year-old mugger who had snatched a watch from her neck. The kid must not have been following her exercise regimen.

Brody was not always in such good shape. Her weight seesawed through high school in Brooklyn, N.Y., and the New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell, where she majored in biochemistry. But when she went for a master's degree in science writing at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and did a two-year stint at the Minneapolis Tribune, the move proved personally disastrous. "I wasn't used to Midwestern reticence," says the voluble Brody. "I felt very isolated and different. So I turned to food." Eventually she ballooned to 140 lbs., and there she floated until a kind of epiphany. "I just woke up in the middle of the night and said, 'I'm killing myself.' I decided that if I was going to be fat, at least I was going to be healthy. From that day on, I started eating regular meals and always carried a healthy snack with me." To her surprise, she began shedding pounds; she has never regained them.

In 1965 she moved back to New York and to the Times. Eleven years later, she was tapped, despite her initial reluctance, to do the column. Brody has examined everything from the sensitive (impotence and frigidity) to the humdrum (how to pack a child's lunch). She often draws ideas from readers' letters, which she answers herself. "I see what they are and are not understanding," she says. One woman complained that her cholesterol level was not going down even though she had stopped eating red meat; it turned out all she had done was cook the same amount of meat until it was brown. Brody brings her lessons home. In print she promotes a diet high in carbohydrates and low in fats, sugar and salt. The pantry of the comfortable Brooklyn brownstone she shares with Husband Richard Engquist, 53, and their twin 17-year-old sons Erik and Lorin is stocked with grains, flour, beans, seeds, rice, potatoes and pasta. The family eats only 2 oz. of red meat three times a week. Salami, bologna, hot dogs, potato chips, cookies and soda never cross the threshold.

Even her family sometimes finds the rigors trying. Acknowledges Engquist, who stayed home to be the "nurturing parent": "Jane expects people to keep up with her, but her husband and children have different drummers. We don't." The boys balk at substituting cottage or farmer cheese for cream cheese. Engquist smokes, a habit Brody unceasingly rails against, and he limits his exercise to walking. His wife, in contrast, is ferociously athletic. Five times a week, though less in winter, she plays singles tennis. Every morning she rises at 5 a.m. and makes the family breakfast. After posting the menu matter-of-factly on the inside of the toilet lid, she heads out for a 3 1/2-mile run or ten-mile bike ride; in the evening she takes a half-mile swim. She cherishes those hours as "private time." Still, she interrupts her running when she sees people stretching incorrectly, bellowing "Don't bounce!"

Critics carp that Brody can be a joyless nudge. More seriously, they complain that she tends to make oracular pronouncements when scientists are still debating an issue. "If I don't sound positive," responds Brody, "people can readily discount what I say. But I'm ready for change." She used to warn against eating fatty fish. "Now I tell them they can. The evidence has changed. Same goes for olive oil." But most of her colleagues and even doctors heap on only praise. "She has done more than any other journalist to bring accurate information about nutrition and health to the public," declares Robert Barnett, an editor of American Health. Says Dr. Ernst Wynder, president of the American Health Foundation: "When it comes to preventive advice, she is more on target that most doctors."

Brody's next goal is "to be a spokesperson for the normal body. I won't try to project an image of ultraslimness. If you have a little bit of a belly or a tush, it's O.K." Moderation, she says intensely, is really the point. "Part of the problem of selling good health is that people think it's all or nothing. I try to let them know that it can be a little bad as long as it is mostly healthy." And she does not hesitate to admit her own frailties. Especially when it comes to ice cream. "I eat it until it's not there anymore," she confesses. "I wouldn't die if I were told I couldn't have ice cream, but I might think life isn't worth living."

With reporting by Georgia Harbison/New York