Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/704061
BY NOW THE OBESIT Y EPIDEMIC AND THE ACCOMPANYING INCRE ASES IN THE OCCURRENCE OF T YPE 2 DIABE TES, CARDIOVASCUL AR DISE ASE AND COMMON CANCERS HAVE BECOME OLD NE WS. SO THE QUESTION MANY HE ALTHCARE PROVIDERS ARE ASKING IS, "HOW IS THE HE ALTHCARE SYSTEM RESPONDING TO THIS CRISIS?" " W E DON'T H AV E a hea lt hca re sys- tem," says Mona Siga l, MD, Founder of Nourish Hea lth With Food for Life (NH W FFL). " We have a sick ca re sys- tem of the f irst order." D r. Si ga l ou g ht t o k now; s he h a s been in medicine for over 26 yea rs. A s a board-certif ied emergency physician, she ha s seen f irst ha nd what chronic disease in crisis mode looks like. " Ver y ea rly on in my ca reer, I beca me ex tremely interested in the connection between disease and lifestyle," she says. " I bega n to rea l i ze t hat much of t he patholog y I lea rned about in medica l school a nd residency, a nd later saw in practice was ver y much either lifestyle- induced or lifest yle-exacerbated." As an emergency physician, she came to the realization that, at best, she was putting out fires, but she wasn't really making a di˜erence in anyone's life. "If patients survived to go home, they just returned to their old ways of eating and living," she says. "And they kept coming back to the ED, worse with each visit." T h e m o r e D r . S i g a l r e a d a n d r e s e a r c he d t he m a t t er, t he c le a r er it beca me: Of a l l lifest yle mea sures, nutrition seemed to be the key. A nd so bega n a journey into medica l nutrition education a nd the science behind it. " Two facts beca me strikingly obvi- ous," she reca lls. "I needed to cha nge c o u r s e , a n d I n e e d e d t o b e c o m e a n educator." But the world around her a lso began to cha nge. In 2004, the A merica n College of Lifest yle Medicine wa s founded a s a n offshoot of the A merica n College of Preventive Medicine. " The more I wa s educating myself t h roug h readi ng a nd at tendi ng con- ferences, t he clea rer it beca me t hat if I wa nted to dedicate my work to a dif ferent way of practicing medicine, I needed to cha nge ca reers." With Food For Life Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine Center Founded by Boston Area Physician NOURISH HEALTH Mona Sigal, MD, conducts a cooking demonstration during one of the nutrition classes at NHWFFL. M D N E W S .C O M /// M D N E W S S O U T H O F B O S T O N ■ 2 016 1 3