Karla Lester is a pediatrician, certified life and weight coach, and diplomate, American Board of Obesity Medicine. She is founder, IME Community, and can be reached on Twitter @DrKarlaA, TikTok, Instagram @ime_community, Facebook, and YouTube.
Dr. Karla is a child health advocate who has worked to address the childhood obesity epidemic for two decades on local, state, and national levels. Her vision is “creating community with compassionate connection.” She is a poet, an author of a children’s book, The Magical Everywhere, the poem, “Miracle of Will,” in JAMA, and is the grateful mom of three amazing young people.
Find Dr. Karla on TikTok, where she is disrupting the status quo in health care.
Karla Lester is a pediatrician, certified life and weight coach, and diplomate, American Board of Obesity Medicine. She is founder, IME Community, and can be reached on Twitter @DrKarlaA, TikTok, Instagram @ime_community, Facebook, and YouTube.
Dr. Karla is a child health advocate who has worked to address the childhood obesity epidemic for two decades on local, state, and national levels. Her vision is "creating community with compassionate connection." She is a poet, an author of a children's book, The Magical Everywhere, the poem, "Miracle of Will," in JAMA, and is the grateful mom of three amazing young people.
Find Dr. Karla on TikTok, where she is disrupting the status quo in health care.
Lizzie is a 13-year-old with a great sense of humor.
She tells it like it is, especially to her Mom, Jackie, who admits to being a bit of an Almond Mom (the parent who is stuck in a weight-focused diet culture). Jackie leads a very healthy lifestyle and has never had to deal with being overweight. Jackie is different from other Moms I work with because she isn’t telling me that …
I didn’t go through that to go through this.
“She doesn’t know how to work within a system,” said Snakeskin Shoes.
Narcissists grow and thrive in children’s hospitals. Their strategy is to inflict moral injury upon physicians by gaslighting and silencing those who speak up for patient safety or for themselves, while also controlling a false narrative about them.
Snakeskin Shoes, the former VP of marketing and communications, is a poster boy narcissist. …
The last time I met with “The King,” I wasn’t planning on meeting with him alone. I never would. It was July 2019, and my family was flying to Europe the next day.
“The King” is the former hospital president/CEO, hired by the board in 2015. He was the former chief of pediatric surgery at a well-known children’s hospital who came along with a demand that his wife, who he often …
I remember feeling like I was on an island, and any time I separated from her and put her down, I frantically looked around for her, daydreaming she was lost at sea.
When I was pregnant, everything was contained and controlled. Her womb gymnastics, even at night, were welcome interruptions to my sleep.
It was my first time breastfeeding, and even though I was a pediatrician, getting her to get a good …
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of spouting the same old worsening childhood obesity statistics, applying the same dilute and sometimes broken strategy, not getting anywhere, judging myself as a doctor, then shifting the blame to my patient and their parents, then feeling powerless and defeated.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
It’s a cycle we’re stuck in, and it’s not serving anyone, especially our patients.
I’m not going to go over the impact …
I’m standing outside the exam room, reviewing Marcus, my 16-year-old patient’s growth chart, specifically his BMI. It’s up again, and my heart sinks. I feel that all too common rush of frustration and disappointment and, “Why am I here and what is the point?”
“Am I just here to document weight gain in my patients?”
Marcus has been coming to my pediatric weight management clinic for over two years and has high …
What they want is power, control, and to take all the credit. In short, they want what you have.
Vision. Even more so, the ability to manifest a vison. Even more so, they want your energy. Your passion.
“Candy Everybody Wants” by 10,000 Maniacs is an epic song. I know every word.
Hey hey give ‘em what they want
If lust and hate is the candy
If blood and love taste so sweet
Then we give …
The recent article by Danielle Crittenden, “The Danger of Fat Acceptance: The Average American Woman Is Now a Size 18” is more of the same perpetuation of our society’s deeply internalized diet culture, weight blaming, and shaming of the individual and collective pursuit of thin privilege.
The article was sent to me by a friend, but I didn’t need to read it because I’m so familiar with the …
Every year, I celebrate and mourn when I officially left my primary care pediatric practice full of patients and parents that I loved to launch my non-profit, Teach a Kid to Fish.
May 31, 2008, was the last day of my practice. Had I known what I was in for, my future self may have stopped me. But I’m so delighted that possibility didn’t exist.
I’m a vision-oriented person and wanted to …
If I were writing a book about what it’s like to be a visionary pediatrician speaking up for children’s health, I would title it, The Hate We Get.
A few months ago, I received a death threat comment on a TikTok video I posted advocating for COVID vaccines.
My college-aged daughter called me, “Mom, I saw your TikTok video. That’s so scary. I’m so sorry.”
“I expected it. I’ve had worse.”
I did a …
There is a lot of confusion and outright falsehoods about fasting. You can search the internet for clarity and end up more confused than when you started.
The fact is, fasting can be a very effective tool to improve your metabolic health, increase insulin sensitivity and help you lose weight. But, who should and shouldn’t use fasting for weight loss and how long to fast for effective weight loss are questions …
“We need to stop weight shaming people & not make them fearful of seeing a Dr., but we also need to find a supportive way to talk about obesity.”
– TikTok commenter
“You’ve got to get on TikTok,” everyone kept saying. Launching a web-based life and weight coaching platform for teens, I begrudgingly decided it was time to jump in. I felt like I was putting on an ill-fitting scuba mask and snorkel …
The divisive reaction to the recent New York Times’ opinion piece by Aubrey Gordon titled, “Leave Fat Kids Alone: The ‘war on childhood obesity’ has only caused shame,” highlights the two extremes in our society’s current approach to addressing the childhood obesity epidemic. While I applaud Aubrey Gordon and her courage to speak her truth, which surely resonates with generations of Americans who have endured the …
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