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THERESA: A professor at Harvard Medical School is urging doctors to be more pushy with their patients about exercise and nutrition. "It may be the most important prescription the clinician writes that day,'' says Dr. JoAnn Manson. "Clinicians spend so much time managing hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and all of these are related to obesity, but more time should be spent on prevention so patients wouldn't have these health risks.''
Girlfriends, do you think it's your doctor's job to coach you about fitness and nutrition? Do you get good advice from your doctor about exercise and eating right? And do you make time to see your doctor when you need to, to get the usual tests we all need, to check in about any problems you might have?
(And we welcome comments from any doctors who might be checking in today!)
ELLEN: I would love to have health benefits that covered sessions with a nutritionist and a personal trainer!
JENICE: I'm not sure that some doctors know that much about exercise and nutrition themselves. So much of their training is focused on curing disease, not disease prevention.
YVONNE: I do think doctors should speak up when a patient is overweight. Docotors tend to be detached emotionally from us more so than family and friends and will therefore speak more frankly. My doctor is always blunt with me and after I get over the initial hurt I am appreciative.
THERESA: The doctors I've had have been pretty encouraging. I like it when they're very matter of fact. "You want to lose weight? You gotta exercise!"
I love Ellen's idea about health benefits. You'd think employers and insurers would see a huge financial benefit from preventive care. They'd be smart to cover all kinds of programs to get workers into shape!
Because I have a specific medical problem (high colesterol) I try to get blood tests every three months. I also keep up with age appropriate test because I've had several medical conditions that without early diagnosis would have become very serious problems.
I don't look to my doctor for nutritional advice, although I probably should.
I tend to be with Ellen on seeing more benefits that would cover things like a nutritionist. I think it's too easy to say that Drs need to handle this area, when the reality is that they just don't have the time to get invovled enough to give us more then the line "You need to eat better, and you need to exercise" While I think the gentle (Or strong, depending on the Dr)reminders about the importance of this stuff, I think most people are very aware of this, just not sure how to make it happen. It's one thing to tell someone they need to exercise, it's a whole other thing to actually sit down to get to understand their lives and schedules and come up with a plan that is easy to stick to, offers progression, variety, and accounts for any physical and even finicial restrictions that may be a factor.
Posted by: midlife on February 11, 2004 05:16 PMMy Dr. talks about nutrition all the time.
She looks great and its obvious that she doesn't
just talk a good game, but lives it!
My problem is I lose motivation. I do well with
my diet and exercise but after a week or 2 I "fall
off the wagon."
I'm a type 2 diabetic with high cholesterol and a weight of 260. I know what I should be doing,
but after a bit I just go back to my old habits.
I've been on a zillion diets. I just gain it all
back + some.