It’s easy; evaluate based on the results. Since the 1970s the US government and other public health organizations has attempted tell Americans what to eat more of, and what to eat less of. Nearly 50 years later we can take a step back and realize that Americans are fatter, sicker, and weaker than they were before then.
There have been some successes, we are now very good at catching CVD early, and should you have a heart attack you are now much more likely to survive than before. But on the food front, what we’re talking about here, it has been a complete and unmitigated disaster.
Because of that, I don’t trust public health officials one iota when it comes to food and diet. That doesn’t mean I’m right, but I know that they have a track record of failure and unintended consequences.
I don't know that you can attribute bad eating habits to the recommendations of public health organisations. Perhaps the public is just not following those recommendations? My understanding is that processed foods and sugary drinks are consumed in great numbers, but that is certainly not in accordance with the recommendation of any public health organisations that I know of.
Also, as far as I know, public vaccination programmes have greatly reduced, and almost eliminated many diseases like measles, tetanus and typhoid, not just in the US but the world over, although of course measles is making a comeback.
Are you perhaps drawing a conclusion about public health bodies in western countries in general, from an experience with health services in the US? The US seems to be very peculiar in how it treats public health. I live in the UK and I wouldn't say that the national health service (the NHS) has collapsed. It has its problems and it's being attacked constantly but for the time being, it's working fine. The same is true for most central European countries.
> I don't know that you can attribute bad eating habits to the recommendations of public health organisations.
Americans have actually followed the recommendations of the USDA for years. They replaced saturated fat with “heart healthy” seed oils, and they diligently consumed low fat diets.
Keep in mind that official recommendations will affect what foods are available for sale too.
> My understanding is that processed foods and sugary drinks are consumed in great numbers, but that is certainly not in accordance with the recommendation of any public health organisations that I know of.
In the United States nutrition labels have a maximum daily amount of most nutrients, except sugar. The official line has been that saturated fat causes heart disease, and that replacing fat in packaged goods with sugar was ok. This is why we have candy in the United States proudly labeling itself as a “fat free food”, and we used to have marketing campaigns touting the weight loss benefit of sugar.
This is finally starting to turn around, but the public health agencies have been laggards when it comes to the realization of how bad sugar is, not at the forefront.
And that’s not even getting into the whole bailiwick about how they process foods, which has changed in accordance with public health recommendations. They used to at least use natural fats in the few processed foods we used to eat, such as lard, but all of those were changed years ago to seed oils that were nominally less bad.
> Also, as far as I know, public vaccination programmes have greatly reduced, and almost eliminated many diseases like measles, tetanus and typhoid, not just in the US but the world over, although of course measles is making a comeback.
As I clearly stated, all public health programs should be judged by their outcomes, and the results of public vaccination have been an unqualified success.
But just because the official recommendations on vaccinations have worked, it doesn’t follow that the official recommendations on diet will too.
> Are you perhaps drawing a conclusion about public health bodies in western countries in general, from an experience with health services in the US?
Yes, that’s a fair criticism.
> I live in the UK and I wouldn't say that the national health service (the NHS) has collapsed.
That’s not what I said. I said that our health has collapsed, i.e. we’re fat and sick.
>> The official line has been that saturated fat causes heart disease, and that replacing fat in packaged goods with sugar was ok. This is why we have candy in the United States proudly labeling itself as a “fat free food”, and we used to have marketing campaigns touting the weight loss benefit of sugar.
Did US public health organisations actually recommend replacing fat with sugars? I find this very surprising, if it is the case. I wouldn't be surprised if that was instead a practice adopted by industry, despite and against official recommendations.
For example, Wikipedia tells me that diet Coke was first sold in 1982. That must mean that there was, already, a clear awareness of the detrimental effect of sugar, and sugary drinks in particular, on health. That awareness can't have come from the soft drinks industry itself so it must have come from public health officials.
USDA guides have historically referred to “sweets” as something to consume “sparingly” without any concrete recommendations around maximum grams per day. Up until 2015 they have provided no guidance around added sugars in other products, including in the 6-11 servings of bread (!!) recommended per day.
In 2015 they finally released a recommendation that sugar make up no more than 10% of an American’s daily calories, which is insane.
Also at a practical level, a recommendation to remove fat from diets is a recommendation to add sugar. A wide variety of foods are just absolutely disgusting if you have neither fat nor sugar, and if you declare that the reduction of dietary fat is the main goal for Americans, the result will necessarily be more added sugar. The dietary guidelines still recommend that Americans eat leaner cuts of meat and switch to 1% milk, as if they haven’t already done that.
There have been some successes, we are now very good at catching CVD early, and should you have a heart attack you are now much more likely to survive than before. But on the food front, what we’re talking about here, it has been a complete and unmitigated disaster.
Because of that, I don’t trust public health officials one iota when it comes to food and diet. That doesn’t mean I’m right, but I know that they have a track record of failure and unintended consequences.