On Health Advice

I just finished reading the popular book Skinny Bitch: Bun in the Oven.

Now before you come to your own conclusions and say to yourself "Why is Alicea reading a book about the B word?" or "Is Alicea pregnant?" or "Is Alicea worried about her figure?", let me preface by saying that I just like to read. I read everything. Really, I read everything from the Bible to the classics to contemporary fiction to biographies to foregin books to etc. The topics of my book selection vary from political opinions, shoe shopping, Christian men, Muslim women, Pakistani kids, food history, high-altitude mountaineering, Civil War, etc. to just about anything. Heck, I just finished a book about pseudohermaphrodites. I read everything.

What inspired me to read this particular book is that I frequently hear my patients complain about how difficult it is to be skinny after having a baby. Certainly, that cannot be universally true, as I have two friends, Megan and Jodie, whom I consider "hot mamas." After pushing out their babies, they both still look fabulous. When I met up with them recently with their babies, both of them looked fit and played with their babies in high heels. Kudos to them! I wondered how they were able to maintain their figures. Who are the U.S. women going to for advice about staying fit after a pregnancy? Apparently, the above book is it.

Although humorous, the book contained a lot of advice that made me raise my eyebrows. For example, they spent a whole chapter telling women they need to be vegans, and not just regular vegans, but organic vegans. They claim that "all" those pesticides are "so harmful". I guess they rather have vegetables rotted by bugs than to have a little pesticide during harvest. They also tell women to stop consuming dairy! They claim the calcium can be obtained from so many other sources. The fact that they want all women to stop eating beef is my biggest beef with them (sorry, pun unintended). After quoting from Gail Eisnitz's Slaughterhouse, they claim that the meat industry is inhumane. Maybe it is, but they obviously have never tasted a juicy, crispy steak from San Francisco's Boboquivari's.

The two authors, Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, are best-selling authors from their first book Skinny Bitch that inspired the whole series. Barnouin is a former model, whose looks resemble a "hot mama," or she could just be having a good hair day at her photo shoot that day. She holds a Master of Science in "Holistic Nutrition." What is that, you ask? Apparently, the Holistic Nutrition Credentialing Board will give anyone a degree if any Joe Schmoe writes a letter stating that you have completed an externship with them. Oh, there's got to be more requirements than that, no? Okay, yes, you are also required to do some research, but internet searches count. Are you kidding me??? Visit the Holistic Nutrition Credentialing Board and see for yourself.

Freedman is a former agent for Ford models, and "has been studying nutrition for fifteen years." I noticed that nowhere does it say she obtained an actual degree from all her "studying". What does "been studying nutrition" mean? Did she just read books about nutrition on her own from time to time? Or perhaps she read nutrition magazine articles in between inducing emesis in her model clientele? If that's her credentials for writing a book on nutrition, then I should go and write a book on...Usher.

It annoys me that women in the U.S. today are looking to random people for advice about health. I might as well throw away my M.D. and start working on my book for Usher.