Recently, I went to a seminar called, "Food Addiction, Obesity, and Diabetes," provided by INR. I was super excited! It was going to cover overeating, binge eating disorders, managing food addiction, managing Diabetes, sleep, stress, and so much more. It would also be my first seminar and it was $81 for 6 credits, which isn't too bad at all! Anyways, I made the 45 minute drive and attended with another Dietitian friend of mine. Let me just say, thank goodness for the free coffee and company or I would not have made it through the lecture. What a disappointment!
First of all, the lecturer (we will call her Dr. X) started late. Big pet peeve of mine! So, Dr. X does the introductions and starts off with the food addiction. She used a ton of medical terminology and definitely seemed liked she was very knowledgable. May I just say that "seemed" is the key word here. We get into food addiction, all very interesting; however, we are not following along in the 41 page (front and back) booklet I have, which apparently was due to someone different writing the slides. Anyways, Dr. X quotes a ton of research articles, which is great, except it takes an extra couple minutes for her to locate each one. This might sound great to you because she is using evidenced based research; however, for each claim she had 1 article and only read a few lines in the summary (not mentioning those involved in the study and other information you would want to know). Still not a big deal until we get to the first break and we are already very behind, aka we were supposed to had moved on to obesity and were still on the first section of the first topic!
As we get back from the first break, me with more coffee, I start to notice that when anyone asks a question, she gives a politician answer. By that I mean, she does not actually answer the question. Dr. X gave this round about answer quoting another 1-2 studies (spending the time to again find them) and leaving many people frustrated. We again continue to trudge along and make it to the lunch break. At this point, I notice that we are still not through part 1 (supposed to be on part 2 of 4) and that we spent so much time on the super science part (aka names of specific hormones and transporters) that I didn't feel like I learned anything useful/practical yet.
So, my RD friend and I head to the in-hotel dining area, where lunch is not provided (my mistake for thinking my $81 also extended to lunch). Here we have another depressing scene: $7.95 for cold salad bar and soup or $12-something for the hot bar. Now, I am starving and want to check out the menu for the hot bar. We have vegetables (nothing fancy), bratwurst and cabbage (oh yum), chicken schnitzel, and potatoes with bacon. Glad I looked because chicken schnitzel means breaded chicken patties that you would expect to find in a school lunch program. I went with the soup and salad bar, which actually had a lot of options, and a lovely dessert of fresh fruit and a cookie (very good). It seems lunch was looking like the highlight; however, I go in open-minded to our second half of the day.
In talking about diets, Dr. X mentions the diet fads; one of which is the Paleo diet. Her take on this is that we shouldn't tell people to cut out food groups because it does not work long-term. I generally don't tell people to start cutting things out in counseling either. Dr. X goes on to say that Paleo dieters cut out grains/carbohydrates, using those terms interchangeably. I have a few issues with this. One of which is that not all carbohydrates are grains (aka fruits). Also, many Paleo diet followers (many RDs I follow online) are more-so cutting back on the breads and pastas and aiming for majority of carbohydrates from fruits and veggies. Nothing wrong with that!
Right after saying not to cut foods out, Dr. X answers a question regarding red meat. Here Dr. X states to not eat the red meat because of it having saturated fat. My issue is meat quality. Grass-fed beef is way better than conventional fed meat (fed grains). To quote Mayo Clinic: Grass-fed beef has," less total fat, more heart healthy omega-3 fatty acids, more conjugated linoleic acid (thought to reduce heart disease and cancer risks), and more antioxidant vitamins, such as vitamin E."
My last remaining hope died with Dr. X's statement towards Diabetic meal plans. She quotes this (apparently from the American Diabetes Association) in terms of macronutrient distribution, "50-60% carbohydrates, 30% protein, and 10% fat." What?! The AMDR for fat is 20-35% so 10% is way too low. What Dr. X might have meant to say was the American Diabetes Association recommends less than 10% from saturated fats. What frustrated me the most is that people in the lecture were taking notes and writing down things she said. This misinformation turns into what health professionals are then spreading!
Quick note: I am 6 cups of coffee in for the day (one of the best parts of the lecture was the unlimited coffee). We are getting to the last hour of the seminar and we have 3 parts still to go over! Dr. X decides it is a good idea to have no more questions from the group and to blow through about 25 pages (front and back) of information in an hour. Well, that didn't turn out well. The seminar contained a lot of good information; however, I have to read through and learn it on my own. Part of attending a seminar is so you don't have to spend extra time teaching yourself!
Besides my unlimited coffee for the day, one other benefit was that they had discounted self-study courses. I was able to buy 2 at $10 each (3 credits each) and one at $25 (5 credits). Great deals on interesting CPEs that I can use. Just as a disclaimer, I spoke to another Dietitian who attended the same seminar in another location and she had a much better experience than I did. I apparently just got the bad apple of the lecturers. Looks like I will be sticking to my self-study courses and webinars from now on :)
To end on a positive note, I went to my Dietitian meeting today and got a King Trumpet mushroom!
My Top Webinars/Self-Study Courses
http://www.todaysdietitian.com
http://www.dietitiancentral.com/ceu/continuing_ed.cfm
http://www.pbhfoundation.org
http://www.nutrition411.com
