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BLOG: Nutrition education primer
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The other day I received an email from someone who attended one of my recent lectures on contact lenses and nutrition. This person appreciated the talk and thought it was very informative. He did have one question, however: “How do we get the wealth of information that you know on ocular nutrition and just what is good and not good for our bodies and our eyes?”
While that was a great question, he followed it up with this caveat: “Joining the Ocular Nutrition Society looks like I only get minimal education on this subject.” Ouch!
There are several ways of looking at his concern. First, it’s flattering that he acknowledges my “wealth of information” on nutrition and that he wants to learn more about it. However, the reason I started the Ocular Nutrition Society (ONS) is to offer doctors an opportunity to learn about ocular nutrition. I had to ask myself: “What are we missing here?”
The truth is that we can’t “spoon-feed” doctors on ocular nutrition. It takes years (over 25 for me) of study and discussion. The process involves information gathered from years of reading peer-reviewed journals from various health care disciplines, controversial exchanges among thought leaders about recent clinical studies, collaborating with researchers, attending research seminars and continuing education events, and daily scouring of relevant scientific information on the Internet.
I personally connected with highly educated nutrition experts and “soaked up” everything that they talked about in regard to the latest science. I learned how to read research studies; I read labels on just about every item I bought in the store; I altered my diet to reflect my beliefs and saw what did and did not work for my body; I started eating “real” food (i.e., fresh and unprocessed); I talked to patients about nutrition based on the information I learned from other ONS members; I put together presentations and took a few “beatings” when someone in the audience knew more than I did!
As one of my friends suggested, we could hook that doctor up to the device placed over Dr. McCoy's (Star Trek) head that enabled him to instantly access eons of wisdom and reconnect Spock's disembodied brain… Or maybe a better way is to have him join the ONS and start the long journey with the first step (apologies to Lao-Tzu).
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