"Deconstructing" Dietary Advice

I was unaware that every five years the Guidelines have to be examined. It seems weird to create a committee if nothing is particularly wrong with something, of course they will feel pressured to make some sort of change. It appears to me that sound, good, dietary advice really has not changed all that much in years: eat lots of whole grain, fruits and vegetables and less meat that is high in fat. But committee's feel the need to tinker and mold guidelines based on relationships with industry. No wonder everyone in the public is so confused about dietary advice. I would say, if it ain't broke don't fix it. The part about the tiers was really interesting. Its fascinating how much psychology goes into these guidelines and how important semantics can be. Her deconstructions of the 2000 guidelines is fascinating. It's so complex, how can policies and guidelines possibly please everyone? I wonder how I would interpret the 2000 Dietary Guideline tiers if I had never heard of them or discussed them in class. Now I am bias after reading this article. I suppose it is only natural to think that A is most important out of A, B and C. A is the best grade on a test or the best quality in food industry so it only seems fit that it is the most crucial of the recommendations. It is unrealistic though for readers to think that they can only exercise and lose weight and be healthy. I also find it fascinating how the industry realizes that talking about limiting certain nutrients is ok for their companies; they probably realize that many people won't understand or take the time to read labels thoroughly and they take advantage of that fact. The section on dairy was interesting, especially in the light of so many discussions about WIC and how much milk they provide people. Its amazing how much history and industry can affect our perception of the health of a beverage (milk) that may not even be that crucial after a certain age, given the huge proportion of humans that cannot digest lactose into adulthood. Lastly, I understand that it is important to distinguish between different kinds of fat for example, but how is one to get all that differentiation on one easily understandable diagram for the general public? Quite the connundrum.

Politics Versus Science: Chapter Two

I actually laughed out loud when I read that Madigan blocked the printing of the Food Pyramid in 1991 because it was "confusing to children." I was 6 when this was occurring and I remember soon after that learning about the food pyramid. I have always thought it was incredibly un-confusing, there is really very little interpretation of what the hierarchical structure would mean, unless one thought the top of the pyramid meant the best or something like that. I think that the meat and dairy producers revealed how not confusing the pyramid was in their worries about the pyramid stigmatizing their products, making people eat less as a result. So clearly Madigan's concerns about it being confusing were not really validated by the industry either which can be inferred from their worries about stigmatization. When I was reading about how confusing he thought it might be, I was asking myself, ok, so exactly who was pushing him towards blocking it. Finding out it was the meat and dairy industry wasn't very surprising, especially after learning that the dairy industry often has problems, for example with the WIC program trying to cut down on milk consumption.

I am so disconcerted with the quote, " the USDA is in the position of being responsible to the agriculture business. That is their job. Nutrition is not their job." However, they fought to have to jurisdiction over nutrition. Was this because they care or because it would allow them to control it more. I unfortunately assume it is the later, although it seems to me that the actually professionals in the USDA have a much different idea of how the USDA should work than the leading officials in it who are more tied to industry. Seems like everything comes down to money, from initiating the process to create a guide (to cut health care costs) to blocking it because of certain industries.

The idea of a food guide bowl was humorous to me. Personally, if I had seen that as a child I know I would have been more confused because its harder to tell the difference sizes between the groups and the fats, oils and sweets make up the base of the bowl, which looks like it is holding it together or something. But I was also fascinated to see the data about how the food pyramid was also not particularly effective. The bowl design actually reminds me a little of the new MyPyramid, which in my personal opinion is a step down in quality of design than the original because it is not very obviously hierarchical and it was nice to have the pictures. Also the colors don't make that much sense for the groups (but this is a bit of a tangent). I wonder who put in a lot of input on the new food pyramid? Lastly, I really have noticed from this chapter, and from Dr. Siega-Riz's discussion, how important very sound science is in making these policy choices. Even Madigan had to cede in the face of the 850,000$ facts.