Barry Popkin: Why the World Is Fat

I don't know why our government feels it's necessary to have nutritional guidelines in the first place. First off, they are very politically motivated. We know that by lowering dairy intake and red meat we can lower heart disease and diabetes in this country, but the dairy farmers and cattle ranchers and their lobbyists won't hear of that.

No government in this history of the world has had dietary suggestions as detailed as ours. Yes, they have them in France, Spain, China, and other countries, but they followed suit after the U.S. came out with their guidelines. China, in it's thousands of years of history never before recommended Chinese people to drink X numbers of cups of water, eat X servings of fruits and vegetables each day and to eat X number of calories per day.

Third, even if you did come up with a set of guidelines that was not politically motivated a one size fits all approach doesn't work. People are different and we live different lifestyles. Michael Phelps eats way more calories than the average american because he burns way more calories per day than the average american. You expect Michael Phelps to follow the nutitional guidelines and eat 2-3 servings of fruit, 2-3 servings of meat, poultry, fish, and dried beans each day?

Nutrition is very complex. A person may consume what a nutritionist considers way too much cholesterol by eating lots of eggs, cheese, croissants and so forth, but if that person does a lot of exercise and burns those calories off, and eats smaller portions than the average person, it doesn't matter.

In the past there have been tribes that subsisted almost entirely on meat. That's right, no veggies. However, research showed that the meat they ate came from animals that subsisted entirely on eating vegetation. That was how they got their B-vitamins.

White Lotus of CA 12:29PM January 18, 2009

Have we been fooled? We have been taught for decades to avoid fat and eat lots of carbs (fruit, vegetables, whole grain bread). The result: endemic obesity. The problem is that this diet is based on very weak scientific evidence. Could it be that carbs increases the insulin level, which in turn helps the body to store energy as fat? There is enough evidence for this to make the health authorities in Sweden advise diabetics to eat less carbs.

I decided to try out low carb food, which means I didn't have bread, pasta or rice for lunch. To my amazement I didn't get the "post lunch coma", the drowziness at roughly 1.p.m, anymore. Then I tried out this crazy idea to cut the carbs to a minimum and adding large amounts of saturated fat. A couple of days later my pregnant-looking belly was gone. My stomach ailings as well. My weight is slowly decreasing each week. I eat bacon and eggs, whipped or sour cream, meat with fat on, salmon, olive oil and butter. No bread, pasta, rice, potatoes or cereals. The best part: I never get very hungry or craving. I'll check my cholesterol in a month or two. Many people who eat like I do experience lower cholesterol and all in all better health. I feel free, no longer a slave to my appetite. I get to eat lots of great food AND lose weight AND without restraining myself. Reading tip: "Good calories, bad calories" by Gary Taubes, Jimmy Moore's blog "http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/".

Kerstin 9:23AM January 18, 2009

The world has changed a lot since we were the hunters and gatherers our DNA would like us to be. Now we're out and about all the time, rarely near our own pantries. Even if we wanted to stock and prepare only healthy food at home all the time, we're not home most of the time, so we're at the mercy of what's out where we are. While away from home, we very rarely have the option of eating something healthy and low in calories. As a result, we have, and get used to, a high calorie, high fat (and therefore tasty!) diet. Once we're home, it's hard to "downshift" into something with less calories and fat, because it also means less taste.

I'm an overweight man, and I'm not making excuses for myself, but it is what it is. People rarely eat at home anymore, so they're at the mercy of what's available, and what's available to us is making us fat. A small percentage of the restaurants around are healthier than, say, Burger King, but they're also more expensive, and therefore (especially in today's economy!) less likely to be patronized.

Comments like "reduce your meat", "reduce your fat", "increase your vegetables", while correct, aren't really helpful when what's really being said is "do something that is more and more difficult every day because of what's available to to". If we truly want the American Public to be thinner and healther, then we'll figure out a way to get tasty and *healthy* food as readily available as the Big Mac. Maybe we need a Government grant to get McTofu on every corner :-)

Kyle Davis of TX 11:48PM January 16, 2009

I am curious how "overweight" and "obese" are being defined here.

Often, people use the BMI as a one-shoe-fits-all indicator, but that system has a number of flaws. For one, it does not account for the obvious differences between fat distribution in men and women. At my optimum weight, when I had a job that involved constant physical activity and was eating fish and vegetables for most dinners, I still was "overweight" according to the BMI (I am a woman, BTW). The BMI suggested a target weight that I had never seen since the very beginnings of high school... and I was never a fat child. It would have been foolish indeed to use their system without qualification.

Scientific American, among others, have written on some of the errors being made regarding the "fat panic." Of course, none of this is to say that obesity does not exist... but the terms in use need to be better defined before an insightful dialogue can take take place.

Katherine Hobson: Great points. I'm going to blog soon on some suggested methods for determining whether your body fat is problematic or not. Stay tuned! If you want to know when a new blog is up, follow me on Twitter; username is khobson.

anon of DC 11:09AM January 13, 2009