Dr. Katz and Emotional Eating
I'm writing a blog entry for every speaker in the Meet the Author's Webinar Series. This week's guest is David L. Katz, M.D. I first met Dr. Katz when we worked together on a five part video series on Stress Management several years ago.
The day we filmed him was the same day that CNN health commentator, Sanjay Gupta, M.D. announced that he was withdrawing his name from consideration for the post of the US Surgeon General. That opened the door to a short list of people who were also being considered including Dr. Katz. Every time there was more than a five minute break between takes, Dr. Katz was on the phone talking with someone in Washington.
It was an exciting day for both of us. I had given Dr. Katz ten single-spaced pages of copy to read off a teleprompter. Dr. Katz had set aside four hours (which I was afraid would not be enough) in his incredibly busy schedule to do the videotaping. Most professional newscasters (who read off teleprompters all the time) would have needed about double that amount of time. He did take after take flawlessly. I think he made a total of three flubs the entire day. I've never seen anyone do that much material so well in so little time.
Dr. Katz is an incredibly knowledgeable guy. He knows about stress, he knows about emotional eating, he knows about diet, he knows about supplements, he knows about exercise and of course he knows about medicine. And he supports what he knows with the latest research in the field of wellness, some of which he's done in his own lab. You can't stump him with any question.
In addition to this personal database of knowledge he maintains, he's busy running the Integrated Medicine Clinic at Griffin Hospital, the Prevention Center at Yale Medical School, writing a monthly health column for Oprah Magazine, running around the world speaking at health conferences and traveling to Washington to speak on the subject of public health before government subcommittees.
And somehow, he still makes time to see patients at his home base in Derby, CT. So he understands health issues from the point of view of the patients he treats. I think this, more than anything, is what sets Dr. Katz apart from so many other health experts and most other doctors. He gets what it's like to be a patient. He never gives advice, without first considering the ramifications of that advice in terms of clarity and the potential for adherence.
As a result, he is really a superb communicator on health and medical issues. At the end of our 4 hour video-taping session we still had about 30 minutes left to kill, so I had some extra questions prepared for him just in case. I remember asking , "do you want to read the questions before we start rolling?"
"No," he said, "just turn on the camera and ask me whatever you like." And that's exactly what we did. He churned out concise, thoughtful, and interesting answers to all sorts of questions about the health benefits of coffee, wine, chocolate and taking supplements and much more.
And while you're here, don't forget to check out the five training films we did with Dr. Katz as well. You can preview them all right here on our website. The titles include Recognizing Stress, (which teaches you how to recognize stress at its beginning stages while you can still easily deal with it) Managing Stress, (which gives you five simple steps for overcoming stress and challenge) Mastering Stress (which teaches you how to become more resilient so that stress will roll right off your back) and Emotional Eating (which shows you how to allow hunger to determine your food choices rather than stress ). There is also a program called Yoga@Work. It's a follow along video that Dr. Katz, introduces that teaches yoga postures you can do in a chair at work.
And of course be sure to listen to our interview. If you're curious about diet, nutrition, emotional eating and stress, you don't want to miss this program.
James Porter
Author