Best of 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
As 2009 is rapidly coming to a close, here are a selection of what may have been my most memorable posts of 2009:
January: Do High-Glycemic Foods Promote Food Addictions?
February: Weight Loss Miracles
March: Have Diabetes? Find a Surgeon!
April: Going to BAT for Obesity Solutions?
May: Like Father, Like Daughter
June: Does Weight Bias Promote Obesity?
July: Saying “I Do” Promotes Obesity
August: Is Weight-Loss Advice Unethical?
September: Why Weight Loss and Obesity Management Are Not the Same
October: Real Stories From Real People
November: Etiological Assessment of Obesity
December: Does White Hat Bias Confound Obesity Research?
Obviously, this is just a selection, admittedly a personally biased one.
Appreciate any comments on what you liked best or enjoyed the most.
AMS
Edmonton, Alberta
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Dr Sharma, I like your blog. I have been doing obesity research for 7 years and have been a graduate stydent for 2.5 years. I’ve been thinking that we need more blogs and websites out there that are written by professional researchers in their fields that can really inform the public about current research. Keep up the good work. Sarah
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Thanks for this blog, I learn a lot. Happy New Year!
How about more on prevention?
My teenage daughter is obese.
When my daughter was 2 she was very high on the weight to height ratios on the chart my doctor gave me, way outside normal. I said I was worried because I am overweight and there is a history of obesity in my mothers family.
My doctor and public health nurses SPECIFICALLY told me NOT to try to control her food intake because that would create eating disorders like anorexia.
I was supposed to provide healthy food, and let her choose. She would eat dinner, but then snack on several.bowls of cereal (unsweetened whole grain with part-skim milk) I should have said “enough”, but following doctors orders, I let her “choose”.
She was not a couch potato.She was an active child, who walked to dance class almost every day after school. Although she was quite “chubby” compared to the other girls, she loved to dance.
I have another child who started out at a normal weight-height ratio, ate in the same household, chose from the same selection of food, and is now lean and muscular and athletic, like his Dad. My household was not obeso-genic for him.
The advice I got from the doctor was absolutely wrong.
Why did the doctor ignore the very chart she gave me which raised the warning flag that my daughter was overweight even as a young child?
Why did the doctor tell me to follow a food plan appropriate for a totally different child?
Why did the doctor show more concern for preventing a problem which my child showed no evidence of having-ie preventing undereating disorder, when she had overeating disorder? Is it more fashionale in medical circles to treat anorexics, after all they’re more sympathetic?
Why did the doctor say “she’ll grow out of her childhood chubbiness” when in fact puberty was waiting like a time bomb to give her the body of a stout middle-aged woman almost overnight? No more dancing.
I regret every day that I listened to my doctor. I should have recognized that my daughter needed a controlled aproach to eating, not a laisser-faire approach.
The “children will naturally eat what they need ” approach was a damaging medical fad. I hope it’s over.
Every person needing bariatric surgery is a failure of prevention.