Doctor’s Orders: Eat Well to Be Well

Mindful_Trent

This is a great article about a doctor who is actually doing everything he can to promote healthy nutrition (REAL nutrition, not fake diet food nutrition) and combat obesity. He sets an excellent example!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/dining/22doctors.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

A few select paragraphs from the article (though I encourage you to read the whole thing! It's not too long...):

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Dr. Maring, 64, a gynecologist and obstetrician with three decades as a surgeon, is well known as a former physician in chief at the hospital, the man who spearheaded the creation of its new pediatric neurosurgery unit.

But increasingly, his reputation and perpetual motion revolve around his conviction that in the health professions, the kitchen must become as crucial as the clinic. Food is at the center of health and illness, he argues, and so doctors must make all aspects of it — growing, buying, cooking, eating — a mainstay of their medical educations, their personal lives and their practices.

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“I like to put doctors on the spot,” he said, referring to his penchant for hauling a senior clinician up to the front of the room to chop vegetables with him. “We tend to be exalted, and I want to show the staffs that many of us don’t know how to mince garlic.”

If there was ever a time when doctors need to be as handy with a peeling knife as they are with a scalpel, this may be it. The draft version of the federal government’s 2010 Dietary Guidelines, which will be formally released in December, identifies obesity as the nation’s greatest public-health threat. It also notes the relationship of fast food (and physical inactivity) to unhealthy weight gain and emphasizes the importance of plant-based foods in the diet.

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Dr. Willett cited surveys showing that during examinations of obese patients, doctors often don’t remark on overweight as a health issue. “Many of them just avoid it,” he said, either because they doubt their counsel will be heeded or because they don’t know the issues well enough themselves, leading the patient to underestimate the gravity of the situation.

For many doctors, an uneasy relationship with nutrition starts as early as medical school. Long hours and ready access to fast food, often on the hospital grounds, tends to undermine students’ best dietary intentions, said Dr. Robert F. Kushner, a professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, where he directs the Center for Lifestyle Medicine. “Even the ones who come in excited about eating well and exercise find that good habits are harder and harder to maintain as time goes on,” Dr. Kushner said.

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PJilly

Dr. Willett cited surveys showing that during examinations of obese patients, doctors often don’t remark on overweight as a health issue. “Many of them just avoid it,” he said, either because they doubt their counsel will be heeded or because they don’t know the issues well enough themselves, leading the patient to underestimate the gravity of the situation.

This really concerns me about my mother. She is 100+ pounds overweight and has a list of ailments a mile long that require frequent doctor visits, not to mention prescriptions. I don't think her doctor one time has suggested losing weight. Now my mom is smart, and I know she knows deep down that she would be better off if she would lose weight, but I think it's easier for her to pretend that's not true when her doctor doesn't even suggest it to her. I think even doctors are uncomfortable pointing out the obvious to patients. It's like it's the elephant in the room, so to speak.

Fancy_Nancy2

My brother little girl is very over weight (she 6 years old and wears a size 10/12 kids and all her bottom need to be taken up) when she broke her foot she had to go see a diffrent dr and he really got down on my sister- in- law about her weight and basically told her she is a bad mom for letting Amy getting this overweight. But the even bigger problem is Deb doesn't see anything wrong with it and thinks nutrition is down right stupid and if your fat that just the way it is. I just shake my head at her. And when she wants to feed my kid crap food I just tell her no way.