Jessica

Vozel

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January 12, 2009

Sanjay Gupta for Surgeon General? Better Than Dr. Phil, But Still . . .

When I first heard President-elect Barack Obama had chosen Dr. Sanjay Gupta, of CNN fame, for his surgeon general, I laughed out loud. It seemed a joke that a television personality – albeit a television personality with an M.D. – would be offered the coveted position. David Letterman saw the laugh-potential, joking on his late-night show, “It was hard for Obama to make the choice.  It was between Dr. Gupta, Dr. Phil, and a guy on Scrubs.”

It’s difficult to trust a doctor whose primary – or at least most recognizable – job title is “chief medical correspondent.” Not as convincing as “chief neurosurgeon,” right? Rep. John Conyers of Michigan agrees. The Democrat recently penned a letter pleading against the choice, calling Gupta unqualified. 

However, Dr. Gupta is not a Lamborghini-driving straight-talker with a Texas drawl and flimsy credentials. Unlike Dr. Phil McGraw, Gupta actually does practice medicine off-screen – weekly, even! – as the associate chief of neurosurgery at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. Gupta also lectures at the Emory School of Medicine, as an assistant professor, and he was an advisor to Hillary Clinton when she sought to reform America’s health care system during her husband’s White House tenure. But, like Dr. Phil, Gupta has published a bestseller (Chasing Life) and has his own television show (House Call with Sanjay Gupta). 

Also like Dr. Phil, Gupta takes an authoritative stance on issues of public health – tackling teen drug use and obesity with programs and interventions like “Fit Nation,” a nationwide tour decrying the dangers of obesity in children. People like, and seem to listen to, Gupta. As surgeon general, he will serve in part as advocate for public health and will be in the position to institute changes in the ways Americans view health and wellness. It helps if he’s someone the public is willing to listen to. 

The anti-obesity stuff, however, doesn’t sit well with me. America, more than any other nation, has all but memorized the dangers of obesity, as well as its solutions. Heart disease, diabetes, joint pain, premature death, exercise more, eat less, look great, get off the couch, become the person you never thought you could be – all familiar words and phrases in our national discourse.  And yet we’re not losing any weight. 

Hammering the point that “fat is unhealthy” piles additional, unneeded guilt onto overweight (and well aware) Americans who then diet themselves to a higher, more dangerous weight. Medical studies are now showing that the more we diet, the more overweight we become. Diets – and not just fad diets like Atkins or South Beach, but any diet where caloric intake is restricted – can wreck metabolism to the point that, when the diet fails (as they often do), our bodies have entered into “survival mode” and latch desperately onto the fat we eat, inevitably causing weight gain.  

On this subject, I think Gupta most reveals his made-for-TV shtick. For many reasons, we are a weight-and-diet-obsessed culture, and we eat up (no pun intended) any book, television show and inspirational seminar on the subject. CNN and Gupta’s televised anti-obesity initiatives get ratings. Dr. Phil’s energy bars and diet books sell. These “initiatives” get branded as public service, when they’re actually hurting people by shaming them unnecessarily – the below-the-neck shots of unsuspecting, overweight people walking down the street, the admonitions that if you’re fat, you’ve done something to make yourself that way and are obligated to change.

The surgeon general we need, and a surgeon general I would trust, is one who explores the impact of economic disparity on access to nutritious foods. One who investigates, and regulates, the multi-billion-dollar diet industry – an industry that needs Americans to be overweight to stay in business. A surgeon general who actually admits that one can be overweight and healthy or thin and woefully unhealthy. 

While not a quack, it is unlikely that Gupta would have been offered the surgeon general position if not for his public face. No doubt, Obama’s choice is distinctly unfair to more credentialed, experienced physicians who are better prepared to be surgeon general – a position whose duties include leading the 6,000 health professionals that make up the United States Public Health Service (USPHS).

It’s not so much that Gupta is a television personality, but that, when it comes to America’s health, he takes the same stance as television personalities without M.D.s – Americans are overweight and too stupid to realize it, and so I must bestow my sage-yet-cliché advice and then reap the benefits of high ratings and increased book sales.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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