Food for Thought

Two, thirty something patients of mine came to see me this past week, both of whom had fallen prey to this world’s onslaught of misinformation, much of which is deliberately contrived to mislead us to the exact, false notions these women had about health and nutrition. Lucky for them they found a doctor with a personal interest in such matters and educated beyond the trite three hours of nutrition courses required for a degree in medicine.

One women suffers depression, anxiety attacks, and complains of fatigue and bouts of insomnia. Testing showed mildly high blood pressure and some nutritional deficiencies, which she found hard to believe, so we obviously discussed what she usually ate which consisted largely of restaurant foods because she dined often with colleagues or clients. While often eating with others in the workplace and time being a constant factor, her meals were always initiated by a clock rather than her appetite, hurried and seldom finished, the latter which she liked because it was her way of controlling calories. This woman didn’t realize that her lifestyle and food choices were starving her body of nutrients, sunlight and exercise. When it was explained that by eating take out and most restaurant foods, she was exposing herself to a steady supply of animal proteins, chemicals and glutamates which are know neurotoxins, and that much she was eating was tasty poison, her eyes widened in disbelief. When asked about any exercise, she dismissed that her career was too demanding to allow her the time for exercise and that she didn’t need to do that anyway because she’s naturally thin, another misconception. Despite her reasoning, an exercise routine was suggested which would alleviate all of these symptoms, but she countered that job related stress is the only cause and that quitting her job wasn’t an option. The details of the beneficial relationship to her ailments and the risks of not exercising, like osteoporosis, heart disease, and loss of muscle tone to name a few, were related, but her eyes glazed over with feigned interest. Ignoring all advice, she then asked me for prescriptions for sleeping and energy saying coffee and her pep drinks weren‘t effective anymore. She was politely refused, exercise and diet change were reiterated with ideas of how to fit both into her busy schedule, and she quietly nodded, thanked me and left.

Another patient is a little more knowledgeable of health matters but only enough to frustrate herself. She has the will to be healthy, but lacks the way. Believing in the merits of exercise, she faithfully walks 45 minutes each day, resting on Sunday. What lead her to me is not being able to attain her ideal weight, which to her credit is not a stick model thin vision and should be attainable. Normal test results prompted a thorough examination of her lifestyle which revealed her practice of rotating fad diets and almost obsessive calorie counting. Outside of those arrive-at-your door packaged delights for the microwave or another diet’s promise-in-a-box, she didn’t eat anything else, except when splurging occasionally to eat at a restaurant. When bored with diet, she’d switch to one of those all protein or all carb routines or eat the all soup diet every now and then for good measure. Any snacks were fat free, and she drank diet drinks, coffee, and Gatorade after her workouts. She was truly stumped as to how she could exercise and diet all the time, yet retain her plumpness. She was genuinely receptive to learn the mistakes she was making. After a brief education on the ills of processed and packaged foods, the myths about fat free products, the immoral deception of diet drinks, the misconception of Gatorade, and the inherent negatives of diets favoring protein over carbs or vice versa, she expressed genuine gratitude of this new found knowledge and left eager to educate herself as thoroughly as the internet and library would allow while promising that I’d see a whole new her in a follow-up visit.

The different reactions of these two women at first astonished me, but upon thinking about it awhile and applying my own experience with weight issues, why their reactions differed so much became clearer to me. In our culture where thin is in and sexy, the first patient had no motivator for change because she was already thin. To her, that defined healthy. Lacking the wisdom to think past her appearance, she was disinterested in the health lecture because her only purpose was to obtain drugs to keep her energy up. She could easily disqualify anything said by attributing her ailments to stress. The second woman had worked hard to achieve the little results that she had, and through working for it, she inevitably obtained some real respect for her body. She had put so much energy and faith in the wrong methods and found out firsthand that they weren’t working which allowed her to suspect there was something she was missing. Having her failed efforts explained scientifically made her feel empowered and hopeful. If only all my patients would gain the same awareness.