Tuesday evening I went to the Local Involvement Network (LINk) AGM at the Greek Cypriot centre in Britannia Road in North Finchley.
There were some fascinating presentations from health professionals. As any of my followers of my twitter account will know, I had a near meltdown as the dietitian spoke, she basically slated my diet. Apparently, waffles and creme brulee are bad for you. Adding banana to a nutella crepe does not "cancel out the calories" as I earnestly believed. And a juicy fruits chewing gum is not one of your five a day. Neither are five banana crepes. I now smpathise with the US Republicans and their science denial on climate change. Why believe science if it tells you things you don't like? The dietitian was young, she couldn't possibly know how healthy a walnut whip really is...
Also good advice prom a podiatrist. Apparently, chiropodists changed their names to podiatrists 20 years ago, without telling anyone, hence the confusion. As someone who gets really sore feet, i found the session useful. And just like the dietitian I will ignore the advice because it seems like a lot of hard work.
Then an optician spoke. I had some questions for her, but was unable to ask due to time pressures. I am thinking of getting laser eye surgery, as I hate my glasses, and wanted o know how you can take care of your eyesight better.
An interesting theme that came out from the optician, and the speaker from MIND and some of the others is how ethnic minorities are far more susceptible to certain health problems. interesting, as there were so few ethnic minorities in the room.
In fact, that was a general issue afterwards. one speaker was concerned that not enough was being done by LINk to go out to estates like Graeme Park to give people free health advice like this, and that this meeting was very middle class. In fact, during a show of hands, I turned out to be the only person there who lived in a housing estate. I don't count though, apparently, as I am a Councillor. thought that was very unfair, I thought people wanted more young people, ethnic minorities and poor people from estates in politics, and when you get one, we don't count. Anyways, it was pointed out to the gentleman that they had done exactly as he had suggested- in Graeme Park!
But a really good session, I'm glad Barry Rawlings and I attended.
