By Aine Cryts
Thirty-seven percent of American adults are obese. Obese adults are more likely to suffer from heart disease, stroke, type-2 diabetes and certain types of cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But eating healthier is a good prescription, even if your patient only has 10 or 15 pounds to lose.
Buying and eating healthy foods can make all the difference. The challenge is most people don't know how to cook using real ingredients, Timothy Harlan, M.D., executive director of Tulane University's Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine, told KQED.
Enter "Shop with your Doc," a program organized by St. Joseph Hoag Health in Orange County, California, that embeds a physician at Ralphs supermarkets throughout the county, reported Kaiser Health News.
Here's how it works: Phil Cecchini, M.D., a family doctor in Orange County, walked through the supermarket aisles with food shopper Lisa Tamura to coach her on the amount of sodium in a loaf of country potato bread and to stay on the periphery of the supermarket for the healthier foods. More a gentle nudge--and education--the journey through the supermarket was about planting seeds in Tamura's mind, rather than a one-time session on eating healthier. Tamura, who suffers from high blood pressure and high cholesterol, ultimately bought spaghetti and garlic bread for her dinner, but she also left with a few apples and pears, reported the news outlet.
But what do you do with that healthy food once you get it home? In New Orleans--where 64 percent of adults are classified as obese or overweight--a program at Tulane School of Medicine is helping to train medical students and members of the public about healthy foods and how to cook them, reported KQED.
"Physicians talk about nutrition and diet all the time, but they don't talk about it in a way that communicates change to their patients," Harlan says, in a Tulane-produced video.
The medical school at Tulane is one of the first in the country to hire a chef to teach its students. Sixteen other medical schools around the country are currently working with the College of Culinary Arts at Johnson & Wales University to develop a similar curriculum for their students.
To learn more:
- read the CDC's stats on obesity
- check out KQED article
- peruse the KHN article
- check out the stats on obesity in New Orleans
- view the Tulane-produced video