Years ago, while caring for adults in a suburban internal medicine practice, I began to observe an interesting phenomenon. At the time, it was not unusual for my patients to bring along their children or grandchildren, fresh from a prior pediatric appointment just across the hall. Beautiful, bright-faced, chubby, usually well-behaved children. Their pediatricians’ well-intended recommendations on reducing rates of weight gain consisted of the standard, usually unsuccessful, content. My patients’ expressions told me that the advice was tiresome and frustrating. If they knew how to fix this problem, they told me, they already would have. Continue reading
Tag Archives: weight
A New Patient Gets a New Perspective
A few months ago I saw a new patient and she had a good deal in common with many other new patients I see. Even though she knew that her excess weight was doing her no good, and that it raised her risk of many chronic diseases, like breast cancer, for example, and diabetes and high blood pressure and colon cancer, she was unable to do anything about it. She was also really tired of doctors telling her that she should lose weight. Really, really tired. “Tell me something I don’t know,” she said to me. So I did. Continue reading
Gains and Losses
There is a clear connection to be made between stripped carbs, insulin release, and weight gain. High insulin levels cause us to gain weight and store fat. How does that happen? Little by little we are figuring it out. The fact that the obesity and diabetes epidemic continues to worsen day by day underscores that we are operating under a fundamental misconception: If things continue to get worse no matter how hard you try, it’s time to reexamine the fundamentals. The information we get from advertisements and cereal boxes is frankly inaccurate. I have a special name for the nutritional claims on food products: advertising. Continue reading