Perhaps we'll look back at the deterioration of the American diet as the greatest self-inflicted error of the past 50 years. But it wasn't an accident. The dietary guidelines have been heavily influenced by agribusiness. This been catastrophic for health outcomes and quality of life.
There's way more to the story than dietary guidelines, and there isn't complete consensus on what caused the onset of the obesity epidemic, but the dietary guidelines are at the very least an embarrassing artifact of the problem.
Whether the correlated problems are the dietary guidelines, microplastic tainted junk food, the terrible healthcare system, or communities designed to rely entirely on cars for transportation the root cause is the way the economic and governmental systems in the US are set up to allow for-profit enterprises to control our lives.
The only real fix is to take back control from the companies and remake society into one where health and wellbeing are prioritized over profit.
Dietary guidelines are a red herring. Notwithstanding that the "Americanized" diet has shifted well beyond those, average people don't typically consult it. Rates of obesity have been shooting up for a century so I see no reason to believe guidelines play a substantial role. Guidelines have also recently changed (at least in my country) yet there is no sign of improvement in obesity rates.
There was a key turning point that is weirdly understated: women joined the workforce. New conveniences in the form of appliances and fast-food, canned food, ready-made food freed up more time for them to pursue careers (at least, part-time) and still raise kids. The US enthusiastically embraced these modernities and many families effectively threw away their knowledge of cooking over time.
After this the institutions that feed us garbage became entrenched, began to both lobby to protect their interests and increase their adoption rate as much as possible. It's not unlike the story of Tobacco companies.
The greatest self-inflicted error was the use of fossil fuels to warm the climate, not a horrible diet. Although, I suppose both come from a similar point of view: the manipulation of our instincts and a lack of a natural philosophy to respect life. In one case, it is indiviudual life, and in another, it is all life put together.
Zooming out more, it an example of how the regressive nature of the US Senate fuels a variety of ills, both benign/passive and evil.
It’s a mockery of “one man, one vote” principles that improved state governance. We spend billions and create unaccountable misery and suffering because a few states with more sheep than people benefit to the tune of probably less than a billion dollars annually.
In the mid 20th century the typical Japanese person got 6.9% of their calories from fat and 12.4% from protein, which means 80.7% from carbohydrates. Since then both fat and protein have gone up (due to Western influence?). It was 26.5% from fat and 15.9% from protein by 2000 [1], which means 57.6% from carbohydrates.
I'm skeptical of any article that tries to pin American health problems on carbohydrates that does not at least mention Japan and try to explain why Japan was fine with a much higher percentage of carbohydrates than Americans eat.
Clearly humans can in fact do fine on a very high carbohydrate diet, so if carbohydrates are a problem in America it has to be something about the particular kinds of carbohydrates we use or how we process or prepare them, not the mere fact that we use a lot of them.
I am similarly skeptical. I think everyone focuses too much on the what when we should be focusing more on the why. I think people are emotionally eating, and that is the cause of obesity.
> Chronic high carbohydrate consumption — especially of refined grains and added sugars — drives obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other metabolic disorders
Also, the article mentions saturated fats are over vilified.
> Today, over 70 percent of American adults and one-fifth of the children are overweight or obese,
Today I learned that 70% of Americans are obese. Never been to america but I'm truly baffled how people and the government could let this happen.
I know that in America the government is supposed not to interfere with people choice but here it's not just some people being lazy and camping at McDonald's.
Sure, it's _somewhat_ lower than the US, but not to the degree that you can claim a big disparity in my opinion. As such, we could even rewrite your statement to the following:
> Today I learned that 59% of Finns are obese. Never been to Finland but I'm truly baffled how people and the government could let this happen.
Also, as other commenters have pointed out, "overweight" does not mean "obese".
Same in Europe. The obesity itself is just part of the problem. Negative effects on cognition, willpower, stress hormone levels, "fatigue" and so on.
It gets people into moods, the blood sugar levels and the stress hormone levels. Makes it easier to sell your product and your story. More stress at work, at school and then at home. Less peace equals striving for compensation and submitting yourself to something that gives you that compensation. It's a brutal story.
A tiny deviation from baseline levels is enough and that's exactly what the dietary guidelines resulted in. It was an "unintended" side effect for some time. Then there were patterns.
> Since the first guidelines were published in 1980, we’ve been told to fear fat and instead consume about half of all calories as carbohydrates. The current guidelines recommend up to 10 percent of calories as added sugar and six servings of grains daily, including three as refined grains.
The guidelines don’t say you should eat sugar and refined grains. They say, if you eat them, you should really limit them to 10% of calories and half your grains at most.
They also don’t say to “fear fat”; that’s just completely made up. They do say to limit saturated fat but this is evidence-based, as are benefits of whole grains.
I also think it’s telling that the guidelines for added sugar and saturated fats are exactly the same: limit them to no more than 10% of your calories. But the authors frame this completely differently when it’s about sat fat (“unfounded hostility”) than when it’s about added sugars (“guidelines recommend up to 10 percent“)
No, guidelines say that at least 50% of energy should come from carbohydrates. This ratio is exactly what the article is criticizing. And of course, carbs are converted to sugar in the end.
A concrete manifestation of this my family runs into all the time is when trying to buy Greek yogurt.
There are fat-free versions galore, all either loaded with sugar or artificial sweeteners. Full-fat Greek yogurt is plenty sweet without any additives, and my understanding of the science is that it's much healthier for you, but it's sometimes tricky to find it because there's little demand.
Greek yogurt is bought by people who nominally care about nutrition—its main selling point is higher protein—but because of these guidelines the demand is for the high-protein high-sugar versions and not the naturally sweet full-fat.
I remember seeing a brief documentary on Youtube, detailing how school lunches were made in Japan. They just followed the lunch production for a single day, but it was enlightening. The menu that day was teriyaki yellowtail tuna, with roasted burdock root, apple slices, tonjiru miso soup with pork, tofu, wok-fried vegetables and dashi, with Koshikihari rice from the Nagano province.
Everything was prepared fresh in the morning, placed into bento boxes, and delivered by lunch for consumption. The per-student cost of all of this was ~$35 American -- edit -- $35 for the entire month. Roughly $1.70 a day to feed a student an amazing meal.
I was frankly dumbfounded at how delicious everything looked, and especially for how cheaply everything had been prepared. I would have been delighted to pay $15 or more for this meal.
For guidelines that came out in 2020, the people involved had financial and career history ties to the food industry. The chair had ties to the dairy industry. I mean industry (business) rather than the topic area.
On a technical note, I'd love to see more data-driven approaches to nutritional science. Maybe we could leverage machine learning and big data to better understand the long-term effects of different diets?
> Americans have increased grain calories by 28 percent since 1970, while reducing red meat intake equally. Butter and egg consumption dropped as vegetable oil use surged 87 percent. We’ve engineered a dietary disaster, swapping wholesome, satiating foods for processed carbohydrates that leave us hungry and sick.
In one sentence the author says total caloric intake has significantly increased. In the next she says vegetable oil consumption significantly increased, somehow displacing eggs. And finally, she concludes carbohydrates are to blame for obesity. What?
I don't see anything in what you quoted that says total caloric intake has increased. The first sentence says grain calories increased and red meat decreases equally, which would be no net change in the total of grain plus red meat calories. The second sentence says butter and eggs dropped and vegetable oil went way up but doesn't say whether or not one of those changes was bigger than the other.
It's hard not to be fat in the US when 90% of the time people are sitting down doing nothing. Car centric culture and infrastructure, along with unregulated highly addictive packaged food. What could possibly go wrong?
Good thing the medical care is affordable and excellent /s
Where is personal responsibility in this conversation? Most suburbs have side walks. What prevents people from going for walks? Most WFO people could easily buy a used Total Gym from FB marketplace and work out during the business day. People can buy walking pads for the cube in the office for around $160. People could buy healthier foods and cook at home.
All of this takes time but we’re taking about people with cars. They are probably in an economic class where they can afford better food.
And the US dietary guidelines are seen by many countries as the golden standard and replicated to their own countries.
Consumption of animals have been steeply falling for the last 70 years, while seed oils consumption have grown. If you search for the graph you'll be amazed, it is so clear what is causing this.
- I never got the impression that other countries around the world see the US food standard as the gold standard.
- Consumption of meat has been going up.
- Seed oils is a huge red flag of folks perpetuating self-researched knowledge which is worse than any US dietary guideline.
- This one is off topic but the website for the product you are building is filled with very poor english. This is not a knock but rather you might want to work on your copy more since you are advertising it as a the best.
[+] [-] acjohnson55|1 year ago|reply
There's way more to the story than dietary guidelines, and there isn't complete consensus on what caused the onset of the obesity epidemic, but the dietary guidelines are at the very least an embarrassing artifact of the problem.
[+] [-] dopylitty|1 year ago|reply
The only real fix is to take back control from the companies and remake society into one where health and wellbeing are prioritized over profit.
[+] [-] slothtrop|1 year ago|reply
There was a key turning point that is weirdly understated: women joined the workforce. New conveniences in the form of appliances and fast-food, canned food, ready-made food freed up more time for them to pursue careers (at least, part-time) and still raise kids. The US enthusiastically embraced these modernities and many families effectively threw away their knowledge of cooking over time.
After this the institutions that feed us garbage became entrenched, began to both lobby to protect their interests and increase their adoption rate as much as possible. It's not unlike the story of Tobacco companies.
[+] [-] vouaobrasil|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|1 year ago|reply
It’s a mockery of “one man, one vote” principles that improved state governance. We spend billions and create unaccountable misery and suffering because a few states with more sheep than people benefit to the tune of probably less than a billion dollars annually.
[+] [-] tzs|1 year ago|reply
I'm skeptical of any article that tries to pin American health problems on carbohydrates that does not at least mention Japan and try to explain why Japan was fine with a much higher percentage of carbohydrates than Americans eat.
Clearly humans can in fact do fine on a very high carbohydrate diet, so if carbohydrates are a problem in America it has to be something about the particular kinds of carbohydrates we use or how we process or prepare them, not the mere fact that we use a lot of them.
[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-n...
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] deepfriedchokes|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ldoughty|1 year ago|reply
> Chronic high carbohydrate consumption — especially of refined grains and added sugars — drives obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other metabolic disorders
Also, the article mentions saturated fats are over vilified.
[+] [-] aucisson_masque|1 year ago|reply
Today I learned that 70% of Americans are obese. Never been to america but I'm truly baffled how people and the government could let this happen.
I know that in America the government is supposed not to interfere with people choice but here it's not just some people being lazy and camping at McDonald's.
[+] [-] pierrebeaucamp|1 year ago|reply
Sure, it's _somewhat_ lower than the US, but not to the degree that you can claim a big disparity in my opinion. As such, we could even rewrite your statement to the following:
> Today I learned that 59% of Finns are obese. Never been to Finland but I'm truly baffled how people and the government could let this happen.
Also, as other commenters have pointed out, "overweight" does not mean "obese".
[+] [-] ldoughty|1 year ago|reply
70% of Americans are overweight. But not all of those are obese.
[+] [-] idoubtit|1 year ago|reply
- 9 % of adults are severely obese,
- 42 % of adults are obese (it was 30 % some 20 years before),
- 74 % of adults are overweight.
[+] [-] sabbaticaldev|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] skirge|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] SteveSmith16384|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ziggyzecat|1 year ago|reply
It gets people into moods, the blood sugar levels and the stress hormone levels. Makes it easier to sell your product and your story. More stress at work, at school and then at home. Less peace equals striving for compensation and submitting yourself to something that gives you that compensation. It's a brutal story.
A tiny deviation from baseline levels is enough and that's exactly what the dietary guidelines resulted in. It was an "unintended" side effect for some time. Then there were patterns.
[+] [-] lukas099|1 year ago|reply
The guidelines don’t say you should eat sugar and refined grains. They say, if you eat them, you should really limit them to 10% of calories and half your grains at most.
They also don’t say to “fear fat”; that’s just completely made up. They do say to limit saturated fat but this is evidence-based, as are benefits of whole grains.
[+] [-] lukas099|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] xenonite|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] SteveSmith16384|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] lukas099|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tmnvix|1 year ago|reply
I might be wrong, but I suspect that US diets include a greater percentage of simple carbohydrates than most.
[+] [-] lolinder|1 year ago|reply
There are fat-free versions galore, all either loaded with sugar or artificial sweeteners. Full-fat Greek yogurt is plenty sweet without any additives, and my understanding of the science is that it's much healthier for you, but it's sometimes tricky to find it because there's little demand.
Greek yogurt is bought by people who nominally care about nutrition—its main selling point is higher protein—but because of these guidelines the demand is for the high-protein high-sugar versions and not the naturally sweet full-fat.
[+] [-] lukas099|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] bmelton|1 year ago|reply
Everything was prepared fresh in the morning, placed into bento boxes, and delivered by lunch for consumption. The per-student cost of all of this was ~$35 American -- edit -- $35 for the entire month. Roughly $1.70 a day to feed a student an amazing meal.
I was frankly dumbfounded at how delicious everything looked, and especially for how cheaply everything had been prepared. I would have been delighted to pay $15 or more for this meal.
[+] [-] cmptrnerd6|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] from-nibly|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] koolba|1 year ago|reply
That’s 10x what most schools charge in the USA.
[+] [-] mfer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Stem0037|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] streptomycin|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] eimrine|1 year ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
[+] [-] GrantMoyer|1 year ago|reply
> Americans have increased grain calories by 28 percent since 1970, while reducing red meat intake equally. Butter and egg consumption dropped as vegetable oil use surged 87 percent. We’ve engineered a dietary disaster, swapping wholesome, satiating foods for processed carbohydrates that leave us hungry and sick.
In one sentence the author says total caloric intake has significantly increased. In the next she says vegetable oil consumption significantly increased, somehow displacing eggs. And finally, she concludes carbohydrates are to blame for obesity. What?
[+] [-] tzs|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] bfrog|1 year ago|reply
Good thing the medical care is affordable and excellent /s
[+] [-] gadflyinyoureye|1 year ago|reply
All of this takes time but we’re taking about people with cars. They are probably in an economic class where they can afford better food.
[+] [-] eimrine|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] martinbaun|1 year ago|reply
Consumption of animals have been steeply falling for the last 70 years, while seed oils consumption have grown. If you search for the graph you'll be amazed, it is so clear what is causing this.
[+] [-] mfer|1 year ago|reply
In the North American and Europe it looks to have stabilized and maybe declined a little [2]. That's not a steep decline.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production
[2] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/chart-of-the-day-this...
[+] [-] infecto|1 year ago|reply
- Consumption of meat has been going up.
- Seed oils is a huge red flag of folks perpetuating self-researched knowledge which is worse than any US dietary guideline.
- This one is off topic but the website for the product you are building is filled with very poor english. This is not a knock but rather you might want to work on your copy more since you are advertising it as a the best.
[+] [-] piva00|1 year ago|reply
Can you provide peer reviewed studies showing this as a causative effect?
[+] [-] diventando|1 year ago|reply