Voyajer
Thu, Aug-01-02, 21:23
Why are we eating less fat and getting fatter?
July 10, 2002
Press Democrat Editorial
What if scientists, the American Medical Association, government agencies, the family doctor and your favorite diet guru are all wrong?
What if fat doesn't make you fat?
What if nature's most perfect food is the sirloin steak?
This is the heretical notion explored in the cover story of the New York Times Magazine this week.
It is a story sure to generate controversy -- and to tempt a few among us to reconsider the virtues of the hot fudge sundae.
Notwithstanding the hard-core orthodoxy of the last 25 years, science writer Gary Taubes explains, researchers are beginning to say out-loud that "the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the test of time."
Why? In simple terms, because Americans are eating less fat -- and getting fatter every day.
And this national epidemic of obesity -- and of Type 2 diabetes -- began at the exact moment that the medical establishment began to preach the no-fat orthodoxy.
While fat consumption, cholesterol levels and cigarette smoking have all declined, the incidence of heart disease has not.
"This is very disconcerting," Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, told Taubes. "It suggests that something else bad is happening."
One theory -- over-simplified here -- postulates that diets with fat (red meat, whole milks, cheese and other dairy products) satisfy the appetite, while diets loaded with carbohydrates (pasta, rice, bread, sugar) stimulate hunger.
Ironically, this is a simplified version of the orthodoxy that guided diet recommendations 25 years ago.
Today, the average American consumes 400 more calories in a day than he or she consumed 25 years ago.
"For a large percentage of the population, perhaps 30 to 40 percent, low-fat diets are counter-productive," said Eleftheria Marastos-Flier, director of obesity research at Harvard's Joslin Diabetes Center, "they have the paradoxical effect of making people gain weight."
Taubes acknowledges this issue is infinitely complicated and confusing. Science doesn't fully understand how the human body governs appetite and weight. Statistical research is imperfect. The sedentary lifestyles of many Americans and easy access to high-caloric, fast foods can never be discounted.
And then there is the confusing business of good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. Taubes explains: "If you work out the numbers, you come to the surreal conclusion that you can eat lard straight from the can and conceivably reduce your risk of heart disease."
So what are we going to do about dinner?
If you are like me, you are thinking: Gee, maybe I could eat that sirloin and lower my cholesterol. Then another voice joins the conversation: Don't go there, bozo. You know it can't be good for you.
I hate that voice, but I will probably want to learn more before eating butter and cheese three times a day.
In the movie, "Sleeper," the character played by Woody Allen arrives in the year 2173 and a doctor tells him: "Steak, cream pies, hot fudge -- those were thought to be unhealthy -- precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true."
This was always a joke about humankind's capacity to embrace dogma later proved to be wrong. We now know the earth isn't flat. We now know that the sun doesn't revolve around the earth.
But not many would have predicted that the movie would prove prescient about future conversations about the virtues of fat.
If nothing else, these learning experiences remind us of our fallibility -- and the value of tolerance.
Something we know with certainty today will prove to be wrong.
I'm holding out for the health benefits of hot fudge sundaes.
Bon appetit.
Pete Golis is editorial director of The Press Democrat. E-mail him at pgolis~pressdemocrat.com.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/opinion/columns/10note.html
July 10, 2002
Press Democrat Editorial
What if scientists, the American Medical Association, government agencies, the family doctor and your favorite diet guru are all wrong?
What if fat doesn't make you fat?
What if nature's most perfect food is the sirloin steak?
This is the heretical notion explored in the cover story of the New York Times Magazine this week.
It is a story sure to generate controversy -- and to tempt a few among us to reconsider the virtues of the hot fudge sundae.
Notwithstanding the hard-core orthodoxy of the last 25 years, science writer Gary Taubes explains, researchers are beginning to say out-loud that "the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the test of time."
Why? In simple terms, because Americans are eating less fat -- and getting fatter every day.
And this national epidemic of obesity -- and of Type 2 diabetes -- began at the exact moment that the medical establishment began to preach the no-fat orthodoxy.
While fat consumption, cholesterol levels and cigarette smoking have all declined, the incidence of heart disease has not.
"This is very disconcerting," Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, told Taubes. "It suggests that something else bad is happening."
One theory -- over-simplified here -- postulates that diets with fat (red meat, whole milks, cheese and other dairy products) satisfy the appetite, while diets loaded with carbohydrates (pasta, rice, bread, sugar) stimulate hunger.
Ironically, this is a simplified version of the orthodoxy that guided diet recommendations 25 years ago.
Today, the average American consumes 400 more calories in a day than he or she consumed 25 years ago.
"For a large percentage of the population, perhaps 30 to 40 percent, low-fat diets are counter-productive," said Eleftheria Marastos-Flier, director of obesity research at Harvard's Joslin Diabetes Center, "they have the paradoxical effect of making people gain weight."
Taubes acknowledges this issue is infinitely complicated and confusing. Science doesn't fully understand how the human body governs appetite and weight. Statistical research is imperfect. The sedentary lifestyles of many Americans and easy access to high-caloric, fast foods can never be discounted.
And then there is the confusing business of good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. Taubes explains: "If you work out the numbers, you come to the surreal conclusion that you can eat lard straight from the can and conceivably reduce your risk of heart disease."
So what are we going to do about dinner?
If you are like me, you are thinking: Gee, maybe I could eat that sirloin and lower my cholesterol. Then another voice joins the conversation: Don't go there, bozo. You know it can't be good for you.
I hate that voice, but I will probably want to learn more before eating butter and cheese three times a day.
In the movie, "Sleeper," the character played by Woody Allen arrives in the year 2173 and a doctor tells him: "Steak, cream pies, hot fudge -- those were thought to be unhealthy -- precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true."
This was always a joke about humankind's capacity to embrace dogma later proved to be wrong. We now know the earth isn't flat. We now know that the sun doesn't revolve around the earth.
But not many would have predicted that the movie would prove prescient about future conversations about the virtues of fat.
If nothing else, these learning experiences remind us of our fallibility -- and the value of tolerance.
Something we know with certainty today will prove to be wrong.
I'm holding out for the health benefits of hot fudge sundaes.
Bon appetit.
Pete Golis is editorial director of The Press Democrat. E-mail him at pgolis~pressdemocrat.com.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/opinion/columns/10note.html