Weekend Plate: An Ounce to Pound Conversion

‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’ –Unknown

I’m not an R.D., only a dietetics student, but I have a very strong belief that healthcare should be geared toward prevention. If people went to a dietitian as often as they visited their primary care provider, the majority of chronic diseases present today could be significantly reduced. We all learned in basic nutrition curriculum that CVD, heart disease, and other chronic diseases are linked to diet.

Recently, the public has started to take notice of the power of prevention. The First Lady has made her move and is working on projects to target the rise of childhood obesity, encouraging children to have an active lifestyle and a healthy diet.  Schools in Texas are ahead of the game.  In 2009, Texas public schools created the nutrition standard that “schools must eliminate deep-fat frying as a method of on-site preparation for foods served as part of reimbursable school meals, a la carte, snack lines and competitive foods (Texas Department of Agriculture)”.  Why haven’t others followed?  (And rightfully so, as Texas has an obesity rate of 28.3% as of 2008, according to the CDC. - Kate)

To truly see if nutrition education for children is working,  I think we are going to have to check statistics in ten to twenty years, looking at the incidence of obesity in these adults who received nutrition education as children, as well as observing the incidence of obesity in their children, to see if they passed down their nutrition knowledge. Prevention and education will hopefully start a new cycle of healthy lifestyles in our population.

This is part of our practice, our careers, and our passions.  Preventative medicine is a better cure than a band-aid medical culture. Covering symptoms is not the only way to make people feel well again. We just have to convince everyone else now.