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Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), is offering “strategies” for federal employees to have a healthy holiday season.
Oz has been emailing a weekly bulletin, “From the Administrator’s Desk,” to employees and recently offered tips about the holiday season’s snacks in a “Crushing Cubicle Cravings” email, WIRED reported on Monday, Dec. 8.
“We all love a fun cookie swap and potluck this time of year. With several teams across CMS hosting holiday gatherings this month, I am sharing some strategies to help you make healthier choices—while still indulging in festive treats,” Oz wrote, according to the outlet.
He advised the 6,000 employees to “set your intentions,” and “decide in advance how many treats” to have, and “try to stick to that number.”
“You don’t have to try every cookie on the cookie table,” he wrote.
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The former daytime talk show host, 65, also told agency employees to “practice portion control” and “be mindful.” His tips included getting smaller plates and taking “small portions.”
He also advised people to eat more slowly, by placing their forks “down between bites, and pay attention to [their] body’s cues.”
He added that no one should “double fist,” and to keep one hand free in order to “[shake] hands with colleagues and friends during this festive period,” according to WIRED.
Oz apparently offered the tips because he “knows it’s not easy balancing a healthy lifestyle and a demanding job,” CMS spokesperson Christopher Krepich said in a statement to WIRED. Krepich added Oz was offered “encouragement to help the hardworking CMS team stay healthy while they work hard to ensure millions of Americans access quality health care.”
President Donald Trump selected Oz to oversee federal health insurance programs as Administrator of CMS. The federal agency provides health coverage to over 160 million Americans via Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Health Insurance Market. Oz reports to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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Before working in government, Oz promoted unproven weight loss tips. In 2014, he was called to testify before a Senate panel about his promotion of unproven medical claims about weight loss, according to ABC News. At the time, he was promoting a green coffee bean extract as a weight loss drug that was a “miracle in a bottle.”
However, when questioned by senators, he said that although he “believed” in the item, he did “recognize that often times, they don’t have the scientific muster to present as fact.”
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PEOPLE reached out to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for comment.
