Kevin Klatt, PhD, RD

I've mentioned before that I'm currently in the process of obtaining both my PhD and the Registered Dietitian (RD) credential. In my opinion, both are very complementary degrees that can inform/influence each other in a positive way, to make one both a better scientist and a clinician. However, at times, they clash - scientific idealism doesn't always align with clinical realism, and vice versa. My current internal monologue/debate really heated up these past couple weeks, with the release of these two seemingly contradictory articles: 1 . For the first report, see here . Dr Yoni Freedhoff, whose blog is a really great read, pointed out a number of somewhat troubling tweets from RD's at the F3K conference. The RD's took to the usual mantra of needing to work with the food industry, and tried to absolve the sins of processed foods. To quote one RD's twitter, "Healthy eating requires - balance of foods, right portions, & proper prep. Don't worry a...

If you read this blog regularly, i'm highly against obesity shaming. The whole idea that people simply choose to be obese and lack the will power to change ignores a multitude of educational/psych-social/politcal/cultural factors, as well as physiological and genetic susceptbility. It's extremely reductionist to play the calories-in-calories-out blame game. This isn't too say there isn't some level of personal responsibility, but obesity is a multi-factorial issue - as i've blogged about before. A new study (1) recently came out in the New England Journal of Medicine that looked at the incidence of obesity in the United States using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. Taking data from school children from 1998-2007 (about 21000 children were enrolled in the study), early childhood obesity (the age entering kindergarten) was highly predictive of obese status at age 14. About half of the children who were obese at age 14 had been overweight when they were in kin...