Chopping with Docs

Food and health are inextricably linked, and yet doctors know surprisingly little about food. We’re trying to change that.

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Carlye Burd explains the importance of fiber in tempering the glycemic load of foods, an important consideration for diabetic patients. //Photo: Amber Hsiao

Whew. I’ve just stepped off a red-eye flight from San Diego, where I spent the last two days attending the Clinton Global Initiative (CGIU) conference.  I’m sipping a coffee, trying to fight off the exhaustion and gather my thoughts on what was an incredibly energizing, inspiring, and challenging event.  The CGIU conference is meant to foster social entrepreneurship among passionate young people who make commitments to address some kind of problem — large or small — in their community or around the world.  Students then gather together to share experiences and resources dedicated to replicating or expanding their projects.

I attended the conference with my friend and co-conspirator Carlye Burd, who is also the co-founder and vice president of my student group at Columbia, Students for Food Policy and Obesity Prevention (FPOP).  For our commitment, we wanted to work with the Columbia community to address a huge unmet need in the healthcare world: despite the fact that food-related disease is rapidly becoming the biggest public health issue in our country, doctors are still being taught next to nothing about food and nutrition.

Another dirty secret: many of the medical students and doctors who are treating the results of poor dietary habits aren’t the best eaters themselves.  I can attest to that — I once dated a surgery resident who proudly told me he was subsisting on protein shakes.

In order to address this deficit, we decided to go to young future doctors and give them some basic information and cooking tips, so that they could walk the talk and feel comfortable discussing food with their patients.  In order for the doctors to preach, we wanted to show them that they really could create delicious, healthy dishes that were very affordable.  We held the first workshop last Thursday and I’m proud to say it was a resounding success.  The doctors were incredibly engaged in the material and were truly interested in learning about the benefits of foods.

Importantly, we insisted on focusing not just on nutrients (beta-carotene, for example), but on foods (carrots!).   We also created dishes based on culturally-appropriate foods their patients already use.  In this case, working with doctors who practice family medicine in Washington Heights, we chose ingredients and flavors that would be familiar to the Dominican population: corn, beans, yucca, sweet potatoes, lime, cilantro.

The direct aim of this program is to get doctors to feel comfortable talking to their patients about food — even using cooking practices as a “vital sign,” for example, since it’s very difficult to eat healthily on a low-income budget if you don’t cook.

The larger, indirect aim is to cultivate a sense of responsibility in the medical community for helping shape the food environment.  Doctors have a notoriously large voice in shaping public opinion and public policy.  If they become advocates for changes in our food system, we are much more likely to achieve the large-scale environmental change we need to ensure that the default choice is not the unhealthiest choice.

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Department of Family Medicine residents receive an overview of the spread of obesity in the United States during the last 25 years. // Photo: Amber Hsiao

 

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A medical resident receives a tutorial on how to chop an onion from Carlye Burd. //Photo: Amber Hsiao

 

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Medical residents enjoy one of the dishes from the demonstration: a corn and bean salad, using canned vegetables to show how to cook with convenient, low-cost foods. //Photo: Amber Hsiao

 

Special thanks to FPOP executive board members Carlye Burd, Elena Blebea, and Amber Hsiao for pulling together the workshop, and to Ben Maring for his inspiration and advice.