SURGERY WITH A SIDE OF FRIES

[Guest guest]

Surgery With A Side of Fries

By Andrew Weil

the New York Times, July 6, 2006

http://www.commondreams.org

Four years ago, a group of researchers at the University of Michigan

conducted a survey of hospitals and found that 4 out of 10 had fast

food restaurants on their premises. Today, I'm afraid, that number

can only have gone up - judging by how often I and my colleagues

cringe at the sight of new burger and pizza places in medical centers.

 

With the obesity epidemic in America getting more attention every

day, nutrition experts tell us we exercise too little, eat too much

and eat too much of the wrong kinds of food. What are the wrong kinds

of food? We are constantly told to cut back on fat and sugar, but to

my mind the greater problem is the processed food that, over the past

50 years, has increasingly displaced whole, natural food in the

American diet. The proliferation of fast food is a glaring example of

that change.

 

Modern food technology has transformed slow-digesting grains into

snack foods made of pulverized, refined starches that, once eaten,

quickly raise blood sugar, promoting insulin resistance and weight

gain in genetically susceptible individuals - most of us,

unfortunately. We have invented high-fructose corn syrup, a cheap

sweetener that is ubiquitous in soft drinks and most of the sweetened

products in supermarkets and convenience stores. And we have

processed oil-rich seeds into chemically altered fats that can

promote inflammation, heart disease and cancer.

 

All three of these products abound in fast food, one of America's

worst contributions to world culture and cuisine. As the movie " Super

Size Me " pointed out, the increasing availability and popularity of

fast food is a major cause of obesity and declining health. How

remarkable, then, that our hospitals would house fast food

restaurants. Hospital administrators apparently like them as a source

of revenue and a draw for employees, visitors and even patients. A

year and a half ago, when the head of the Cleveland Clinic bravely

tried to get rid of the McDonald's at that hospital, staff members

and visitors made it clear they liked having the franchise close by.

(McDonald's pointed to the 10 years left on its lease and refused to

budge.)

 

Expelling fast food from hospitals is an obvious step to better

health, but suggest it and you run into the same tangle of inertia

and apathy that has kept hospitals from serving patients appetizing

and wholesome food ‹ and has instead allowed large food service

corporations to put profit ahead of quality. I hold my profession

responsible for much of the apathy. Nutrition is slighted in medical

education. It is considered a " soft " subject akin to home economics,

not worthy of the time and attention commanded by important fields

like biochemistry and pharmacology.

 

 

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We must have nutritionally literate doctors, but getting fast food

out of hospitals will also require the kind of grassroots activism

that has removed sugary sodas and candy from vending machines in many

schools. Doctors should model healthy lifestyles for their patients,

and hospitals should be places of inspiration and education as well

as centers for the treatment of disease. Fast food has no place in

them.

 

Andrew Weil, the director of the integrative medicine program at the

University of Arizona College of Medicine, is the author, most

recently, of " Healthy Aging. "

 

© 2006 The New York Times Company