Julie Gianelloni Connor

Kathryn interviews Author Julie Gianelloni Connor.Families that have navigated their way through international adoption know that it’s a complex process that takes time and involves multiple agencies — which can make it difficult to explain to children. Award-winning author Julie Connor adopted her son from Colombia when he was 5 months old, and used her own experiences to inform her new children’s book. Using simple language and colorful illustrations by Saman Chinthaka Weerasinghe she explains the process of international adoption in a child-centric but realistic way. Designed to be read by parents to a child adopted from a foreign country, the story traces the separate emotional journeys of the prospective adoptive parents from the United States and the biological mother from another country who makes the difficult decision to give up her baby for adoption. Connor spent 33 years as a diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service, first with the U.S. Information Agency and later with the U.S. Department of State.Kathryn also interviews Dietician and Nutritionist Suzanne Fisher MS, RD, LD/N. A recent research study published by Oxford University Press, finds that when doctors tell patients living with obesity to lose weight the guidance they give is generally vague and commonly not supported by scientific evidence. Obesity is a chronic and relapsing condition, but physicians often lack the proper tools to effectively help their patients lose weight. Giving such vague advice as “just change up your lifestyle a bit” leaves patients with bad experiences and no real results. Studies show that doctors give patients information on how to carry out their advice in only 20% of their consultations. They mostly offer weight loss guidance without any detail about how to follow it. Dietician and Nutritionist Suzanne Fisher sheds light on this topic and other diet-related current events and headlines. She's been featured in Men's Health, Runner's World, USA Today, Prevention, Readers Digest, Glamour, Self and Boca magazine.