The Government Makes You Fat
The federal government, which under the Obama administration has undertaken to secure every citizen's health, wants you fat and sick.
Or at least, it looks that way.
The USDA -- that's right, the Department of Agriculture -- years ago published a "food pyramid," suggesting, essentially, that Americans should eat less fat, and a lot more bread and pasta.
Good news for people like me, who see an entire bread basket in a restaurant and think: "Come to papa," but bad news for the over 25 million Americans who have Type 2 diabetes, which is a disease you get from, essentially, bread and sugar. The diabetes epidemic in America is so huge, it's impossible to target a specific cost. Somewhere between $83 billion and $185 billion a year, but it doesn't really matter what the exact cost is -- because we all know it's going up. Way up. There are about 2 million new cases each year.
In other words, the government misinformed Americans -- on a colossal scale. From Steven Malanga's excellent piece in City Journal:
...several top medical scientists have concluded that the government’s carb-heavy guidelines may actually have harmed public health. In 2008, three researchers from the Albert Einstein School of Medicine—including the associate dean of clinical research, Paul Marantz, and a former president of the International Hypertension Society, Michael Alderman—observed in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine that since 1977, Americans have largely followed the government’s advice, doubtless as conveyed by the doctors they consulted.
Men, for instance, cut their fat intake from 37 percent of their daily calories to 32 percent and increased their carbohydrate intake from 42 percent to 49 percent. Yet over the same three decades, the fraction of American men who were overweight or obese increased from 53 percent of the population to about 69 percent.
The doctors wondered whether this correlation was an unintended consequence of telling the entire population to change its eating patterns. “In general,” the doctors wrote, “weak evidentiary support has been accepted as adequate justification for [the U.S. dietary] guidelines. This low standard of evidence is based on several misconceptions, most importantly the belief that such guidelines could not cause harm.”
But, they concluded, “it now seems that the U.S. dietary guidelines recommending fat restriction might have worsened rather than helped the obesity epidemic and, by so doing, possibly laid the groundwork for a future increase in CVD,” cardiovascular disease.
And for as long as I can remember, the government has been worried about salt.
They're wrong about that, too.
For decades, policy makers have tried and failed to get Americans to eat less salt. In April 2010 the Institute of Medicine urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate the amount of salt that food manufacturers put into products; New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has already convinced 16 companies to do so voluntarily. But if the U.S. does conquer salt, what will we gain? Bland french fries, for sure. But a healthy nation? Not necessarily.
This week a meta-analysis of seven studies involving a total of 6,250 subjects in theAmerican Journal of Hypertension found no strong evidence that cutting salt intake reduces the risk for heart attacks, strokes or death in people with normal or high blood pressure. In May European researchers publishing in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the less sodium that study subjects excreted in their urine—an excellent measure of prior consumption—the greatertheir risk was of dying from heart disease. These findings call into question the common wisdom that excess salt is bad for you, but the evidence linking salt to heart disease has always been tenuous.
Why do we insist that there's a role for the federal government in any kind of health care treatment? Why does the USDA even have a food pyramid? Why does a city mayor meddle into how much salt a person can eat?
How a government does one thing is how a government does everything. Wrong about food. Wrong about salt. Wrong, I think, about everything else, too.
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Comments :
Jul '11
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
I've never advised a low sodium diet for anyone without difficult to control hypertension or congestive heart failure.
The government probably does want us fat and sick, under single payer, only to clamp the iron shackles of the food police on us.
Do they make RF chips that monitor metabolism?
Jun '10
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
If we were designed to eat lots of grain and starch, we'd probably have more than one stomach.
Apr '11
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
If I wasn't ill before, I am now
Dec '10
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
The government made me fat! Can I blame them for the lazy too?
Sep '10
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
why do we have a usda?
Jun '10
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
One day I needed a mid-afternoon snack, very unusual for me. I was in a Starbucks awaiting a meeting, so the selection was limited due to a substantial sell off of their inventory. Against my better judgement, I ordered a low-fat brownie. It was awful! A piece of the parking lot would have been more flavourful given there were more edible oils on its surface than in the brownie.
For special occasions I make a very expensive white-chocolate cheesecake that is rich and flavourful. It is often suggested that I substitute "lite" ingredients for dietary reasons. My response to that suggestion on a good day is to laugh it off. On a bad, I've muttered an "F-sharp" under my breath, and dismissed the person as an idiot undeserving of serious attention. Why would anyone even consider making a lite white-chocolate cheesecake, the very idea is oxy-moronic. It's like trying to make ice cream with skim milk. You know the kind of milk all the cream is taken out of.
Jun '10
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
This is one of the ultimate of all ultimates. Modern society has such enormous arrogance. After millennia of people eating, drinking, creating civil society, following morals, and on and on, the way they have always done, governments have had the gall to think they can re-write all of history in 50 years or less. What a joke.
Mar '11
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
Yes, Dr Atkins pointed out the problems with the low-fat diet, and the cause of type-2 diabetes, some years ago. It's, err, too much sugar - who woulda thunk it?
I tried his diet, and it works - unfortunately, I like potatoes and bread, so I only follow it loosely now.
Sep '10
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
Its a good thing the United States doesn't have a Federal Department of Education or I'd accuse the Federal government of trying to make the average voter stupid.
Sep '10
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
You can google a discussion Claire and I had about Vitamin D awhile ago. Suffice it to say I'm quite happy with my high doses of Vitamin D and enjoying the non cold non flu season for 12 consecutive months now.
Jul '10
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
And to think.... all this time I've been blaming My Parents.
Nov '10
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
I found that the following book makes a good case for sugar, not fat, being the obesity culprit, as well as a persuasive case that no decisive evidence yet exists for fat being the obesity culprit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Calories,_Bad_Calories
Economist Steven E. Landsburg (in his wonderfully entitled "More sex is safer sex") reckons that "low-fat" foods are the main reason for rising levels of obesity, as they permit manufacturers to market fattening food under the banner of slimness. Remember, sugar is 100% fat free!
Dec '10
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
Just curious how much you are taking. There have been some recent studies suggesting that adults should take at least 2000 IU of vitamin D daily.
Edited on Jul 22, 2011 at 2:25pmNov '10
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
Here ya go, Rob. If your salt intake isn't raising your blood pressure, this should do the trick:
"The McGovern Report" clip from Fat Head
And hands off the break basket, buckshot: It's aaaaaaaall miiiiiiiine...
Oct '10
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
Does the old term, Bread and Circus come to mind ?
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
The heart of the matter is that what Franklin Delano Roosevelt called "rational administration" is his Commonwealth Club Address is a contradiction in terms. They have the power, and they can instruct us. But only rarely is there anything rational about it.
Think about this the next time you consider the pretense to omniscience evidenced by the Federal Reserve Board.
Jul '11
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
This is what comes of nation-building. When we cede control over the condiments on our table, the salt licks have won.
It's another perfect example of leftish lunacy, in that someone, somewhere, will scream bloody murder about the gov't telling them what to do in their own bedrooms (or the like), but is quite happy, thrilled even, to have the gov't tell us what to do when it's something they have bought completely into. Salt intake. Global warm-cooling changes. Sitting up straight. Going to college. Paying 50% of your income in aggregate taxes. Stop hitting your sister and eat your peas.
The biggest problem of a limitless checkbook (which is essentially what the gov't has, catastrophically dangerous or not) is that it will get used. It will be used to create mandates that will tell us how we should live, what colors to paint our homes with, what part of a food pyramid is good and what part evil, and why we should shut the hell up about NPR. When limitless power is given, what constraint is left, then, on power? Good intentions?
Sep '10
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
jetstream
Just curious how much you are taking. There have been some recent studies suggesting that adults should take at least 2000 IU of vitamin D daily. · Jul 22 at 2:23pm
Edited on Jul 22 at 02:25 pm
I follow the guidelines in Dr John Birardi's (note he's a Phd in Nutritional Biochemistry, not an MD) Precision Nutrition program (and get tested for overdose) of northern latitudes: 6,000 IU in Winter; 3,000 IU in summer. So far, so good. The guidelines differ depending on where you live.
In the news articles I've read, some scientists are self dosing with 10,000 IU and up. Not something I'm going to try, but an interesting experiment if you know what you're doing.
Jul '11
Re: The Government Makes You Fat
5000 IU D3 per day with 5000 every other in the winter is my usual advice. I usually test to make sure its right after a few months on it.
Edited on Jul 22, 2011 at 9:32pm