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Health & Fitness

Physicians Can Set the Example for Better Nutrition

Dr. Lenny Lesser, a Family Medicine physician and researcher with the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, wants medical pros to set the standard for healthy eating.

Is your doctor fit? Doctors and other medical professionals are just as prone to caloric temptations and being overweight as the rest of us.

The problem of physician eating habits and potential solutions are described in the latest edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, (JAMA) an international peer-reviewed medical journal.

“Most people in the U.S. eat too much food, and physicians are not immune to the obesity epidemic,” says Lenard Lesser, M.D., MSHS, a Family Medicine physician with the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) and research physician at the PAMF Research Institute. “If a doctor is overweight, it may affect their approach to patient care, as overweight physicians are less likely to counsel patients about obesity.”

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In the Viewpoint piece, Dr. Lesser observes that medical organizations could take several initial steps toward better meals for health professionals. Similar to the healthy movement of smoke-free campuses becoming a standard, “certified healthy” meals could be an industry model, Dr. Lesser posits.  He points out that the movement for smoke-free workplaces started in hospitals.  A similar movement could start with healthy meals in medical practices, and spread to surrounding communities.

“Caterers could even alter their nutritional sales pitch to indicate that, ‘These are like the lunches your doctor eats’,” Dr. Lesser says.

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Dr. Lesser also makes several other recommendations to improve the food served to health professionals in the article, including providing calorie labeling and eliminating sugar-sweetened beverages.

Interested to read more? The entire “Viewpoint” piece entitled “Changing Eating Habits for the Medical Profession” is online.

 

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