MB Civic

To the Editor:

Re “Surgery With a Side of Fries,” by Dr. Andrew Weil (Op-Ed, July 6):

I applaud Dr. Weil’s article. I only hope that people in decision-making positions at hospitals will read it.

I wrote the resolution “Healthy Food in Hospitals” that passed unanimously at the California Medical Association and the American Medical Association in 2005. My resolution is national policy.

I have subsequently started a letter-writing campaign to hospitals asking them to reconsider serving unhealthy foods or at the very least to offer healthy choices.

Surprisingly, my requests have often been met with indifference or criticism.

One exception has been Kaiser Permanente in California. Most Kaiser Permanente hospitals are offering healthy foods, including many that are organic.

In addition, they have started a new “Farmer’s Market” program at some of their facilities, bringing in fresh produce that can be bought by patients and the medical staff.

Hospitals and other medical facilities are sending the wrong message to our patients by serving unhealthy foods. This appears as a tacit endorsement of unsound eating habits. They should be setting better examples by getting out of the fast-food business.

They can start offering healthy alternatives to a fat- and sugar-laden diet and lead the campaign for a healthy America.

Jeffrey Krebs, M.D.
San Diego, July 6, 2006

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To the Editor:

Dr. Andrew Weil’s article reminded me of a dinner tray served to my father and his fellow chemotherapy patients some years ago in the oncology wing of a prestigious Manhattan hospital.

Inexplicably, the dessert was saccharine-sweetened diet gelatin, with the requisite label warning that the product had been linked to cancer in rats.

“We’re the lab rats,” the man in the next bed observed with gallows humor.

I would have loved to meet the hospital menu planners who doled out cups of potential carcinogen to cancer patients.

Dr. Weil’s suggestions are excellent, but the road to reform will be a tough one.

Brenda L. Becker
Brooklyn, July 6, 2006

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To the Editor:

I am continually shocked by how ignorant and passive most people are about what they eat and what they feed their children.

Even among highly educated, enlightened, affluent families, it is extremely rare to find someone who ever reads a label, let alone has any idea of why an ingredient is good or bad.

I’ve seen doctors feeding their kids appallingly unhealthful foods.

What a crime that nutrition education is so disdained in medical school!

Maybe we have to focus instead on children and incorporate a much more serious, extensive, scientifically based nutrition curriculum in elementary, middle and high school.

The current generation of adults and doctors may be beyond hope, but the next generation is still salvageable. Let’s make this a priority along with reading and math literacy. Our country’s health literally depends on it.

Jocelyn Stewart
New York, July 6, 2006