Dr. Mehmet Oz has taken a break from figuring out how to distribute Medicare and Medicaid benefits—and instead given thousands of federal employees tips on how to eat less holiday treats.
“You don’t have to try every cookie,” the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) chief and former daytime TV personality urged his employees in an email obtained by Wired.
The festive dietary advice was in a weekly newsletter Oz was revealed to be sending to CMS employees, called “From the Administrator’s Desk.” The newsletter includes a section titled “Crushing Cubicle Cravings,” which offers employees tips on how to not snack at work. It was not sent to other members of the executive branch, including Donald Trump, who keeps a Diet Coke button on his desk.
Other Christmas tips shared by Oz, 65, include “practice portion control,” “be mindful,” and “don’t double fist,” meaning don’t hold food in both hands. Oz says CMS employees should only keep food in one hand and use “the other for shaking hands with colleagues and friends during this festive period.” The phrase also means holding two alcoholic drinks at once, which Oz did not address.
CMS spokesperson Christopher Krepich claimed to Wired that employees welcome the tips. The Daily Beast has reached out for comment.
“Dr. Oz knows it’s not easy balancing a healthy lifestyle and a demanding job,” he said. “That’s why he offers and welcomes tips and encouragement to help the hardworking CMS team stay healthy while they work hard to ensure millions of Americans access quality health care, which is entirely appropriate.”
“So far, the feedback has been positive,” he added.
Oz has engaged in a crusade against snacks during his time as CMS chief. In August, he told Medicaid recipients to stop eating cake.
In November, he appeared on Fox News and raged about the quality of the snacks in the channel’s green room.
“I’m calling Secretary Kennedy from the green room and telling on you,” Oz told Peter Doocy, calling a bag of chips “non-MAHA.”
As an Oprah guest and host of The Dr. Oz Show, Oz shared unproven weight-loss tips, including one instance in which he promoted green coffee extract, which he described as a “magic bean.”
In 2014, Oz was scolded by the Senate for overpromising “miracle” weight loss supplements. Oz admitted in a hearing titled “Protecting Consumers from False and Deceptive Advertising of Weight-Loss Products” that he may have used “flowery language” to promote weight loss products, but maintained his words were taken advantage of by “fraudsters.”
During his failed 2022 Senate campaign in Pennsylvania, he committed an embarrassing blunder in a social media video, bemoaning that a Pennsylvania grocery store didn’t have enough vegetables so his wife could make “crudité.” He said he was at “Wegner’s,” a grocery store chain that doesn’t exist. He likely intended to say he was either at Wegman’s, a regional grocery chain largely in New York, or Redner’s, which is largely in eastern PA.
Oz also promoted unproven, alternative forms of COVID-19 prevention during the pandemic, including chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.
While his open-mindedness to unproven medical treatments helped land him a role in the Trump administration reporting to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Oz split fro Trummp’s claim that women taking Tylenol during pregnancy causes autism in their child.
“If you have a high fever….the doctor’s almost certainly going to prescribe you something, Tylenol might be one of the things they give,” he said in September.
“Take it when it’s appropriate,” he said. “Acetaminophen’s probably your best option, but take it when you really need it.”
*He did not lecture the president.
