So it's being
reported that the American Beverage Association is suing New York's Health Department for running ads that link drinking soda to obesity. Really? Really, ABA? Because, guess what.
DRINKING SODA CAN LEAD TO OBESITY. When we get overweight patients in our office, we always encourage them to lose weight. They ask us, "How? I really don't eat that much." We ask them what they drink. When told that the t
ypical can of soft drink contains at least 140 calories, they are flabbergasted. Some of our patients take a Big Gulp to work and drink it throughout the day. Guess how many calories? 800! Guess what happens when they stop drinking soda, and switch to diet, or even, better, water? THEY LOSE WEIGHT!!!!
I'll ask it again. Why can't these companies realize that they are contributing to the illness, and sometimes, death, of millions of people and either offer smaller sizes of their product, or simply offer healthier products? And/Or, why don't we tax these unhealthy products so we can use the taxes to support these people when they develop diabetes, or have heart attacks? Oh. Your blogger is so angry right now! All I can think is that they really don't care. All they want to do is pump your body full of junk so they can pump their bank accounts full of money.
But you know what? People have to start caring about themselves, too, enough to tell Coke and Pepsi that they don't want to die of foot infections caused by diabetes, or have to buy two seats on the airplane because one isn't big enough. They have to tell Pepsi and Coke that they don't want to take medications every day for an illness that is totally preventable, that they want to spend their money on their grandkids that they will live long enough to entertain.
In the meantime, American Beverage Association, I guess you'd better just come on over to Hancock and sue Hahn and Nelson Family Medicine. Because we, too, believe that your products lead to obesity. And we're not going to stop telling our patients the truth!
It's been a stressful week. Today is Friday and I've had my nose to thecomputer for about 24 hours off and on, or at least it feels like that. It's billing statement time, and this always gives me a headache. Each time I generate a bill, I feel the story of the bill almost haunting me. If it's an unpaid co-pay, I wonder: Did we just forget to collect it at visit time? Or was the person at the end of their paycheck and couldn't afford the $25? If it's a balance that's been carried over for several billing cycles, I feel the muscles in the back of my neck tensing up and I find myself wondering if the non-payer is a deadbeat, or just can't afford to pay. Regardless, all those little scenarios that I play to myself end up in the muscles of my neck and my back. I had to get out for awhile.
I took my phone, which has a camera. I realized as I walked, that I wasn't thinking about all the week's problems, or all the small ones I had perhaps imagined hiding in the billing statements. I was looking at things. I started taking some pictures. I'm not a photographer, but that didn't stop me from seeing wonder in everything around me. The simple majesty of a giant tree... the juicy wild raspberries waiting along the road for me to pick...the yard of the neighbor who makes "stone people" and has enchanting wooden sculptures hidden in her forest....the loneliness of a tractor, abandoned for the weekend even made me feel a bit melancholy. The cascade of maple tree seed pinwheels, and the lazy descent of one unlucky enough to get blown away... it all became a lovely collage of images that slowly calmed me as I walked along. I realized as much as the stress points in my life became a physical part of me, the beautiful things also do. I don't know why I never thought of it that way before. But now that I know, I vow to consciously seek out the ordinary beauty that lives all around us and allow it to become a living part of me.
