Balance of Food

This week's column refers back to this past week's "The Simpsons," which airs on the FOX television network. Since it's so rare that TV focuses on nutritionists and dietitians, I thought it would be fun to look at one show's look into that world.

I love nutritionists and dietitians, but quite a few of them have this "cheerleader" mentality or the "Miss-Know-it-all" ideal. Yes, they should be excited and knowledgable, but the stereotypes do exist for a reason. And I was curious to see how "The Simpsons" writers would look at this world.

Homer gets put on yet another diet – perhaps he is true to some in that nothing seems to work, but it is a cartoon, after all. Marge gets a nutritionist, Betsy Bidwell, who used to weight 400 pounds.

Bidwell tells Homer in an upbeat, cheery voice that you can go from "fat to all that" with little substitutions. One of Bidwell's substitutions is instead of eating French toast, eat a bell pepper.

That was funny, since a bell pepper reminds you so much of French toast. The bell pepper joke gets carried on through a montage where Homer is eating bell peppers at the ballpark, from a vending machine, and blended into a drink at Moe's.

Yet at the next weigh-in, Homer has gained 7 pounds. We find out throughout the episode that Homer is, of course, cheating on his diet – at a buffet, eating chips and salsa out of a briefcase, consuming lamb in a motel shower. He even goes to "Pudding on the Ritz" with 300 new daily flavors.

Though "The Simpsons" is meant to be parody and over the top, there are truths in there. Nutritionists and dietitians do sometimes live in this ideal world. And people do know what they should do, but don't always do it.

The happy medium lies in the middle, but even that can be difficult to figure out where the two sides should meet. If your nutritionist or dietitian weighed 250 pounds, you might not be inspired no matter what they say. If your nutritionist or dietitian resembled Keira Knightley in shape, you might think they know what they are doing, but also think you can't ever get there.

The Betsy Bidwell example of going from 400 pounds to where she is now isn't typical for nutritionists, or anyone else.

So patients should set realistic goals, and nutritionists should slowly introduce bell peppers. As nutritionists and dietitians will say, you didn't get to your weight overnight and it will take time to get closer to where you need to be.

And for the nutritionists and dietitians, some of whom I consider to be friends, if the portrayal of "The Simpsons" upsets you, or even this essay, understand that we are trying to be helpful in improving the perception of nutritionists and dietitians.