Sunday, November 11, 2012

Giving Free Lecture in Edmonton this Wednesday at Noon

Really looking forward to this one. Thanks to my friend, fancy law professor, and author of The Cure for Everything Tim Caulfield for inviting me.

You'll understand why I'm looking forward to it when you read the subject and my description. Here's the U of A's email circular with the description and title included.  If you're around - I promise I'll do my best to both entertain and inform:

The University of Alberta's Health Law Institute and Health Law and Science Policy Group are pleased to announce as part of their seminar series the following presentation:

Hear No Evidence. See No Evidence. Speak No Evidence.
How Omission, Commission and Downright Stupidity Shaped Canada’s Food Guide
(and why you should care)
Yoni Freedhoff, University of Ottawa

Wednesday, November 14th, 2012
12:00-1:00 PM
Room 231/237, Law Centre, University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta

Did you know that Canadians don’t eat French fries or potato chips? That as a nation we’ve sworn off chocolate, wine and ketchup? That the average Canadian’s diet is something we should strive to replicate? That we really don’t need to avoid trans-fat? That 50lbs of liquid calories a year will improve your health? That databases over a decade old are useful to scientific modeling? That the newest agricultural rage are juice trees? While the creation of a Food Guide should involve the straightforward translation of our best available evidence regarding the impact of diet on chronic disease, the creation of the 2007 Food Guide, an over 2 year long affair, was anything but. Come out and learn why the second most requested government document behind tax returns may be bad for our nation’s health by means of a raucous romp through some of its most egregious and mind-boggling shortcomings and methodological boondoggles.

Yoni Freedhoff, MD, is an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa, where he's the founder and medical director of the Bariatric Medical Institute—dedicated to non-surgical weight management since 2004. Deemed a “nutritional watchdog” by the CMAJ, Dr. Freedhoff sounds off daily on his award-winning blog, Weighty Matters, and is also easily reachable on Twitter. Dr. Freedhoff's latest book Why Diets Fail and How to Make Yours Work will be published by Simon & Schuster's Free Press in April 2013.

THIS IS A FREE AND PUBLIC LECTURE
WHILE AN RSVP IS NOT NECESSARY, IT WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED AS
IT ASSISTS WITH PLANNING
PLEASE RSVP TO: hlimail@ualberta.ca