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this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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Everything about public health policy sucks. The best way to improve nutrition and health is by making eating healthy affordable and easy. It’s too hard and expensive for working people to prepare healthy meals for a family also working 40+ hours a week.
So many myths and pseudoscience around health, wellness, etc. Basically everything that is talked about is based on really shaky science at best, and outright lies and nonsense at worst. Way too much emphasis is put on weight loss, dieting, waist circumference and so on. Dieting is hugely unhealthy, weight cycling (losing and regaining weight) has worse health implications than just remaining at your original weight, and for most people the weight they are is fine, the health risks around weight are hugely overstated. The BMI is a worthless metric without any scientific basis. Almost everything that people say about sugar is wrong - it’s not physiologically addictive, it doesn’t cause hyperactivity and it’s not poisonous, and it doesn’t cause type 2 diabetes - the causes of type 2 diabetes are generally not well understood.
The most important thing is having a varied diet with some fruit and vegetables and getting some regular activity - something that you enjoy! Doesn’t have to be major or whatever, if it’s just going for a walk or paintball or whatever, that’s great!
Fad diets are hugely unhealthy, in general, and should be avoided.
Healthy food doesn't get advertising or status symbolism. When's the last time you saw an ad for cabbage, carrots, or dry lentils?
The affordability is less of a problem than you think.
If healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, pulses, etc. were subsidised instead of animal products then they’d essentially be free. Affordability is a huge problem, at least here in the UK. Thousands of people use food banks because they’re struggling with the cost of living. vegan btw
Grains and beans being subsidized would be great, but it would probably make them negative in price. You'd get paid to get them from a store.
People who think that "vegan diet" or "plant based diet" means "you eat mostly fruits and veggies" are simply and dangerously wrong.
Yup. Eating delicate greens all the time like on cooking shows would be great, but that's some bougie shit I can barely dream of. I'm not about to set a print record but I still have a better than average diet, and it tastes good.
Time to plan, shop for food, and cook. Time is the only thing separating the healthy and unhealthy. It's a travesty.
That measures an effect, not an outcome. Is the goal to improve health, or to sell less sugary drinks? All of the evidence we have around using low-calorie sweeteners is that it does not displace the consumption of other dietary sugars, because there is a compensatory effect.
I invite you to point out what part of my advice you consider to be “shitty”, and back up your case with evidence - because I actually know what I’m talking about.
I feel like you're taking a grain of truth way too far. The diet-health connection is subtle and poorly understood, but being morbidly obese or eating a really unvaried, processed diet are definitely known to cause harm.
BMI is shitty because it's too coarse a measure at the individual level. Unfortunately a volumetric scan to measure internal visceral fat just isn't as convenient.
Having a very high weight is known to cause harm, but so is having a low weight, and so is skydiving. Dieting is more harmful to 90% of us than our waistline is, and yet we approve of dieting and refer to fat people as an epidemic.
Yes, because there's a sudden abundance of overweight people, not underweight people. Epidemic refers to any sudden population increase of a health problem. I don't think public health people mean it to be stigmitising.
Dieting is dumb though, you're right about that. At least locally the authorities try to be clear that you've got to make a lasting lifestyle change.
There’s no real evidence that there are significant average weight differences between today and 70 years ago. Differences in the proportion of the population of “overweight” people is primarily due to changing the definition of what constitutes overweight.
And being fat isn’t a “disease”, any more than having big feet is.
I'm guessing you'll ignore any evidence I provide based on BMI, which is the only useful form of weight information available at the historical population level (given that it's based on weight and height, which has also changed)?
Yes, because BMI is complete junk science. The BMI categories have been changed several times since it was created. It was also devised to work exclusively for white european men. It’s totally worthless for almost every purpose for which it is used.
Well then, congratulations, you've arrived at a stance you can never be argued out of regardless of it's truth.
Sure I can - find actual average weight, in lbs. of americans in the 1970s and compare them to today. It’s actually pretty easy to change my mind.
The problem is that you can’t find that evidence, because it doesn’t exist, because the studies we have show that average weight hasn’t changed very much.
You’re the person here who is zealously refusing to change their position based on facts, not me - my views are shaped on years of research and review of the scientific literature. Your views are based on your lifetime of being exposed to a media narrative based on pseudoscience. designed to push an ideological goal.
Taller people are heavier. If you're not adjusting for that your data will be funny. Guess what, if you adjust for that using the square of height you've invented raw BMI. The categories are probably arbitrary, but you don't need them, and a different exponent will generally show the same trajectory if by different magnitudes.
Although come to think of it, the population got taller, so the trend would be even stronger if we weren't factoring that out.
I'm willing to change my mind too, and I do indeed have a lifetime of exposure to media and experts behind this, although I don't believe in conspiracy theories which seems to be what you're suggesting by a certain ideology being pushed.
Here's the first paper that comes up, using BMI, about the exact breakdown of how it increased: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30054-X/fulltext
That’s a fun paper, because they basically find no actual negative health effect, then just ignore that fact and continue as if they did.
All the study shows is that as people get richer they can overcome being underweight, which is an incredibly good thing - it reduces health risks significantly. Then it goes back to the usual moral panic shit about how that’s actually a bad thing.
Essentially everything you ever heard about weight and fat is ideological, not scientific, in basis. Research consistently finds results that aren’t statistically significant, then just blathers about how that statistically significant result would exist if they could account for x y z. There’s no scientific basis to the claim.
The basics of it are that extremes on either end, of being underweight or very overweight, are health risks. The health risk of being “overweight” are massively overstated, because people like to judge and bully fat people.
I mean, there's also
in the same exact excerpt.
Yes, being poor and starving still sucks. Nobody cares because it happens outside of the magic Western bubble, but that's another issue for another thread.
I think I've proven my point here, so I'll just duck out.
Yeah, because the individual-level studies aren’t worth shit, that’s the point. They’re like the scientific level of analogies. You get these studies that are on like, 15 people or whatever that make some statistically significant finding, then it later turns out that they either very selectively chose their test subjects, the methodology was a complete joke, they p-hacked the findings into worthlessness or all of the above. If the individual level studies scaled up, if they were actually finding something real, they would be reflected in population-level studies. The fact that they aren’t pretty clearly demonstrates that there isn’t a strong correlation.
Low weight is a significant health issue in wealthy countries too. It’s a massive contributor to mortality rates, as much as high adiposity is. But it’s not discussed because it’s less popular to bully people for being skinny as it is to bully people for being fat.
But sure, I’m the one who refuses to change his mind when challenged.