On obesity

We talk about obesity daily.  We conduct studies to learn about how obesity comes about and how to prevent it from spreading across our nation.  It is an epidemic here in the United States.   However, before doctors/nutritionists/pharmacists or any other healthcare professional want to study this population, I would like to ask whether this population wants to be studied. 

I realize over the years that people can only change if they truly want to change.  If people don’t want to change, no matter what you do, they won’t do anything about it.

Maybe, scientists should start learning more about the patient’s population.  They should learn about why they eat the food they eat.  They should learn about why they choose to do certain activity and not others.  If you don’t get to learn about your subjects, how would you be able to recommend something?  If the patient is a single child and his parents think that chubby child is healthy, how would you go about and educate the parents?  How would you explain to the parents chubby might not be healthy.  You need to understand what healthy means to them.  In many cultures, healthy means : kids are chubby and eat well (by this I mean a lot).  So how would you go about and explain something like this?

If you start talking to them about nutrition, you might just end up hitting yourself in the wall because you both come from different perspective.  I am not saying everyone who is obese is not aware of the danger of hidden sugar in their drink or the carbs in their food.  Their perspective is just so different that in order to change it, you need to dig deeper.

With that…I am thinking maybe I should create a small guide chart that has different definition of what carbs, proteins, fat mean.  To me, these are not straightforward things and it is obvious that some people might find it confuse as well.  So … another project will be on the way.