Michelle Obama Tackles Childhood Obesity

I had to field a few line drives to the hot corner (third base) yesterday, after I wrote about Michelle Obama’s plan to end childhood obesity, to which she no doubt knows the answer, since she’s an attorney, hospital administrator and spokesperson. And of course, there is that all important Task Force, waiting to be appointed by the President.

Now we all know how much is accomplished by committees, blue ribbon panels, task forces and why they are the perfect political solution to any problem. (They get together, issue a report and disappear�never to be heard from, again.)

Take the blue ribbon panel on 9/11, for example. They met, they issued a report, the media talked about it and neither Bush, nor Obama, implemented anything they recommended.
One guy wrote in saying that it was the �medical community� (ie., doctors), who were responsible for childhood obesity. That’s like saying the guy who invented the wheel is responsible for �road rage.�

During my time as an active surgeon, I had to deal with a lot of overweight people. Being overweight puts a very serious strain on your knees and hips, and it can really screw them up. My advice to 9 out of 10 of these patients was to lose weight and get some exercise, in many cases, specific exercises, to alleviate their problem. I could have operated on all of them, but in a few years, they would have been back again, because the excess weight caused their problem.

Now, some of these people followed my advice and some didn’t. I was never in a position to force them to do anything and neither is the government, unless they start following you around, 24/7. Some patients went to other doctors to have surgery and then I sometimes had to fix that work, later on. The point is, the best doctor in the world cannot force anyone to follow his/her advice.

You can give a patient medicine, but you can’t make them take it. You can design a healthy diet, but it doesn’t mean anyone will follow it. I hate to keep picking on Oprah, but she has a personal trainer, a personal chef, famous doctors on call (excepting Dr. Phil) and she is STILL overweight.

Why? Because she won’t take personal responsibility for the problem. She’ll talk the problem to death, but she won’t own it. She’ll tell you how to do it, but she won’t follow the program herself. And that’s the problem with all this talk by political figures�it’s just for show. They don’t really mean it and they need those fat kids every few years, to score some points.

Here’s my solution.

Take one government agency, perhaps, say�the Department of Education, and institute a mandatory health program. Take all the soda machines out of the building, along with the snack machines, and fast food.

Bring in top flight chefs, and cook the food they claim they are eating. Have mandatory exercise one hour a day, every day. At the end of two years, anyone who fails the physical gets fired. They lose their cushy government job, and all the perks, period, end of story. We might see some results then, but don’t hold your breath, because it’s easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than to fire a government employee.

Here’s what makes a difference.

You look in the mirror�and believe me, that’s all it takes. You decide that you are going to make some changes, and you follow through. If you fall down, you get up. If you get knocked down, you get up. Pretty soon you won’t fall down anymore, because you are in control.

And when you start to feel better, you’ll ratchet up your program. When I hit the 30 pound weight loss, last year, I certainly didn’t stop. I kept going. At minus 60 pounds, I feel twice as good as I did then, which was pretty terrific. And there certainly was no government program involved. (And what are they going to tell us? Americans spent $60 billion dollars last year, on weight loss programs and information. What’s out there that we don’t know about already?)

There is a big difference between knowing and acting. You can know for instance, that taking my formulas is a good thing for you. The benefits of ultra pure fish oil would fill many pages and more benefits are being found all the time. But actually taking the formulas requires committment. It requires acting on your belief that you can be a healthier person.

The Dr. Bill Family is growing every day, as more people discover that taking charge of your own health is the way to go. The only thing required is action.