Dr. Snyderman's Unhealthy Prediction

The Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released on July 1 the “F as in Fat Report [1],” which studied obesity rates in America While it is certainly worth reporting the facts of the study, NBC managed to take its report to another level. On the July 2 “Today,” host Meredith Vieira interviewed NBC News Chief Medical Editor, Dr. Nancy Snyderman. Snyderman, used the report to give her over-the-top personal opinions about America’s role in the world and drive through pharmacies.

Vieira cited study findings, saying that obesity has tripled since 1980 in children and not a single state has decreased its obesity rate in the past year. Snyderman chimed in, “And we know that now almost forty percent of these heavy kids- teenagers- have diabetes, they already have plaque in their arteries, they grow up to be bullies. These are kids who already start to have problems sort of fitting in.”

Snyderman then made this observation in relation to exercise: “I was in Florida this last winter. I came to an intersection. On each corner, a different pharmacy all with a drive up window. What that told me was in America, when you are unhealthy, don’t worry about getting out of your car and walking up and getting your medicine. Drive up, get your medicine.” She didn’t explain exactly how making Florida septuagenarians walk through hot parking lots to get their meds will solve America’s “obesity epidemic.”

To Snyderman, the report wasn’t just discouraging, it was apocalyptic. “I wonder if America hasn’t peaked and we’re really going to have to figure a way to turn this all upside down or I don’t think we’re can be a world power if we’re this unhealthy,” she said. Again, she didn’t explain this intriguing connection between calorie consumption and geopolitics.

More should be expected of Snyderman. She started hosting her own shown a MSNBC on June 29. Howard Kurtz, of The Washington Post” reported that when Snyderman asked her producer, Shannon High, about “how they might deal with a renewed panic over swine flu,” High replied, “You will be the voice of reason. You will be the calm, cool, collected surgeon who says what's real and what's not real.” Too bad she didn’t try on that “voice of reason” about obesity.

But talking up a national health care problem serves the purposes of the liberal Snyderman, since she’s already started using her new show to promote President Obama’s health care policies. She stated, “The White House, their health care agenda continues to be our agenda.” [2]