There is, of course, stuff we can chew and swallow that isn’t food. Play-Doh comes to mind. As does Silly Putty.
My thoughts turned to those substances, among others, when my friends at Time magazine asked me recently to opine on the suggestion that junk foods should carry warning labels. My first inclination was: No, that’s too much. But then it dawned on me: Is anything that …
Should junk foods carry warning labels?
A column entitled “The Questionable Link Between Saturated Fat and Heart Disease” appeared in the Wall Street Journal recently. To spare you any guessing about where this is headed, I’ll tell you right away: The column itself was pretty darn questionable.
The article starts off very dubiously when the author, Nina Teicholz, tells us that a now somewhat infamous study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine concluded, that “saturated fat …
Don’t take dietary advice from non-experts
I’ve long been a skeptic when it comes to disclosing information about how doctors practice medicine, how hospitals treat patients and what both doctors and hospitals charge for their services. While I am all for transparency, it’s still an open question how patients or consumers of medical care can actually use that stuff to find “the one that’s right for you” or “the best” as marketers like to say.
I’m dropping …
Disclosing calories in food: An unsung legacy of Obamacare
With the Mediterranean diet all the rage, not only because consumers like its tasty composition but because of research touting its health benefits, experts have had to become more specific about recommendations for fats.
There’s a steady drumbeat these days — from everyone from chefs to food writers to health gurus — criticizing nutritionists and the “diet police,” who, they claim, …
A dose of reality on the dietary fat issue
Stephanie wrote in about a very common problem:
My daughter is 4 years old. She isn’t the tallest cat in town (she is about the 15th-25th percentile for height), and her BMI always ends up being in the high range (like over 85%). I worry about it. I am very health conscious for myself and my family. We live by all of the “rules.” And yet.
The family doctor doesn’t worry — …
Should BMI be used to measure obesity in children?
The recent concentration of misleading media hooey about health has been excruciating, but the problem is perennial. I trust I needn’t make the case that you are under constant assault by distorted, contorted, titillating, and insipid headlines. This is certainly true in my domain of health and medicine; it may well be true more generally, but I tend to limit my commentary to the realm of my actual expertise. But to …
The deadly consequences of media distortion in health and medicine
Obesity and obesity related illness accounts for an enormous health care expenditure in the US today: approaching 150 billion dollars annually. In an era of health care reform and cost containment, preventative medicine is essential to success. Rather than rearranging networks, separating doctors from patients and limiting choice, our government may be more effective in reducing health care costs by focusing on slimming waistlines throughout the US.
According to a recent …
Reduce health costs by preventing childhood obesity
Michelle Obama refers to childhood obesity as the tobacco of the 21st century. I agree. Obesity is quickly overtaking smoking as the nation’s No. 1 killer.
As a pediatrician who sees firsthand the impact of overweight and obese children, we need to have conversations with our patient families that focus on obesity as a clinical issue.
Right now, this isn’t happening. The rate of missed diagnosis for childhood obesity is over 95 percent, …
Clinical obesity, not morbid: A plea to change the diagnosis
Lying in a hospital bed, my seriously obese patient can barely see her swollen and odorous right foot over her abdominal fat. The foot is soon to be amputated, the result of an untreatable infection exacerbated by diabetes and kidney failure, which developed in part because of obesity.
Her two children, ages 6 and 12, hover from the hospital bed to the couch. In between, the bedside table is strewed with …
Doctors struggle to treat childhood obesity
As a life-long dedicated health care provider, caring about those in physical and mental need is always a presumed requirement of the field. You’re ill, I act. You’re hurt, I act. I care enough to help educate about prevention of injury and disease. I’ve sacrificed a great deal of comfort, sleep, and mental energy to care enough to help those in need — even for those who …
The boundaries of caring and empathy are moving targets
Most humans have spent most of human history nearly starving to death. So it’s no surprise that we spend a lot of time thinking about food. And it’s no surprise that food has acquired cultural, social, and religious significance in almost every society. Because food is so important, and because it’s nearly impossible for us not to ascribe powerful effects to anything important to us, every society imbues special health …
Is what we know about dietary fats wrong?
Weight is not a behavior, and weight is not a choice. Nobody wakes up and decides what to weigh today. In an age when healthy and unhealthy behaviors are increasingly subject to incentives and disincentives, respectively, this is all too easily forgotten.
Of course, weight is largely the byproduct of behaviors and choices, namely what and how much we eat, and what and how much we do: calories in and calories …
Weight loss resistance is real
Among the more contentious issues regarding health and weight control — perhaps surprisingly, contentious among professionals and the general public alike — is the role of personal responsibility. Unfortunately, this readily devolves into discord, because the cultural tendency of our time is denigrate those with whom we disagree, and hunker down in our distal, opposing corner. Just take a look at Congress to see how well this is working …
Obesity: It’s time to compromise and meet in the middle
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In the first recent piece of good news about the child obesity epidemic, the latest statistics on preschoolers — those 2- to 5-year-old bundles of joy whom we worry about so much — suggest that they’re less obese than they used to be.
Between 2003/2004 and 2011/2012, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there was a huge drop in the …
A reduction in child obesity should be interpreted with caution
Having now lost more than 30 pounds, I am very close to declaring victory (maybe a few more pounds over the next few months). A colleague has asked me to write my tips as a handout for patients. This is a daunting task, but that has never stopped me!
The weight loss formula is simple and well known. Achieving lasting weight loss remains challenging. The mathematical formula is simple. Weight loss …
One physician’s story of weight loss
The media headlines attached to the major medical news story of the past week might have been: “Shocking but true: Nearly 1 in 10 US children under the age of 5 is obese!” Had that been the headline, it would indeed have been every bit as true as it is shocking. And the really shocking part is: that’s the good news! Hold that thought, please.
Some years ago, at the prompting …
Has the tide really turned against childhood obesity?
A paper published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the American Dietetic Association) highlights the importance of nutrient fortification to the diets of our children. The researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to determine the sources of micronutrients in the diets of over 7,000 kids ages 2 to 18, and assessed overall dietary intake in this cohort assembled …
Fortification masks our deplorable dietary circumstances
Applications for mobile devices are commonplace. These small but often sophisticated programs are quite varied and allow for anything from vehicle GPS navigation, taxicab or car pickups in New York City or rating wines and restaurants. As with most new gadgets and technologies, medicine and healthcare provide many opportunities for expansion and use. When we examine the available applications found at Apple’s App Store, it is evident that medical mobile …
Mobile applications can revolutionize preventative care
Eating takes a lot of work. That “food coma” many lapse into after the big Thanksgiving meal is largely due not to the turkey, but to overeating. The caloric onslaught unleashes a cascade that sends a rush of blood to the gastrointestinal tract to help us digest, leaving less blood circulating elsewhere.
It’s estimated that up to 10 percent of our calories go …
We’ve known for quite some time that weight loss can reduce the risk of developing insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. However, a healthy diet alone (without weight loss) may also help to reduce risk. In a recent Spanish study (published in the Annals of Internal Medicine), 3,541 men and women ages 55-80 at risk for diabetes were followed for …
Should we follow a Mediterranean diet?
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