ODA Public Policy Day

I will be the first to admit that public policy is not of any interest to me. Yes, I know that we are the voice and we need to get out there and do something but, sometimes all the politics talk is way to boring. If all we ever do is argue about who's right and who's wrong and never come to any compromise, then honestly what difference can I make? This week we took a field trip to the Ohio state capital: Columbus. The 6:00am two hour drive went quickly as I snoozed in the back seat. Once we arrived there were bagels, pumpkin bread, coffee, and orange juice calling my name. I cream cheesed a bagel and loaded up on coffee and before I even walked to my seat I dropped my bagel and soon after spilled my coffee all over the floor. Was this an indication of how public policy day was going to go?


The 7 hour conference started out not too rough with politicians talking about different health/nutrition bills that were trying to be passed and, how we should vote for them or in one case vote against it. The health freedom bill is an attempt to allow unlicensed practitioners to engage in the health professions of dietetics, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, psychology, chiropractic, dentistry, optometry, athletic training, orthotics, prosthetics, and pedorthics. This is NOT GOOD. I don't know about you but I don't want to go to a dietitian who may know what they are talking about. We are licensed for a reason. We are the experts in food and nutrition. The other bill that is worth talking about is the school breakfast bill. This bill allows schools that are currently in academic emergency to provide breakfast for all students. This bill will not mess with any of our tax dollars because there is already money from the federal government to fund it. All the school needs to do is agree to the program. It has been shown that students work and learn better after eating breakfast so why not give them what they need to succeed. 


Perk of being a dietetic intern: lunch did not consist of pizza and pop but, delicious healthy Mediterranean wraps. yummmm


After more politicians talked about what their job was and how we should vote for them we went into the capital building. Unfortunately they cancelled the hearing that we were supposed to sit in on so, all we could do was marvel at the buildings beauty. 

Where they hold committee hearings

Courtney (a fellow intern) and I outside the capital building