Day 79 – Big Brother Wants The Rest Of Us To Slim Down. Finally.

“It is bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children’s health than the pediatrician.”

~Meryl Streep

190 lbs.

How I gained more than 3 lbs overnight after eating about 350g of food, total, yesterday is a mystery to me. We’ll see what tomorrow’s scale reading is. One of my old high school friends just boasted on Facebook that she can still fit into the earrings she wore back then, ha ha.

I’ll be glad when this is over and I can stop weighing myself daily. Right now I feel that 1/2 the reason you’re paying attention is because of the starvation – there should be some results, n’est pas? Hovering at the same weight for 2 weeks while starving is a bit insulting. At least if I were still dropping weight there’d be a twisted sense of accomplishment.

Then again the main thing is to make a difference. In the bigger picture, changes are starting to take place. You may have read my rants against the food pyramid and its vilification of fat, or the insidiousness that is HFCS creeping into more and more of our foods…

Well.

Last Tuesday a group of experts dozen experts of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee publicly announced that the focus of new U.S. nutritional guidelines should be keeping Americans from getting even fatter. This time around they’re calling not only for an emphasis on healthy food, but also on finding ways to help Americans eat better and exercise more.

This new report couldn’t have come at a better time – except maybe back in 1982 when they thought declaring all fat evil and encouraging the carbfest that has, in part, lead us down this fat, heart-disease filled road. Or at any point in between. But back then the problem wasn’t that big, so new solutions probably would have been met with “meh.” Or a 1982 equivalent, like “barf me out, dude. Quit baggin’ on the food pyramid. Cheeuh!”

But now it is a big problem. Two out of every three U.S. adults are overweight or obese. 2 out of 3! That’s an epidemic. In this case a potentially seismic one.And child obesity rates have kept pace, tripling in the past 30 years.

So how is this new report a real-world cry of “Captain Hammer, save us!”? I dunno. Good thing I have Rear Admiral Penelope Slade-Sawyer of the Health and Human Services Department here to tell us:

“The aim is to help people cut calories while getting the right nutrients,” says RAPS-SotHaHSD. Um… I’m gonna call her Penelope, k? I’d call her Penny, but then Felicia Day would kick my butt.

“This report is unprecedented in addressing the obesity epidemic”, Penelope goes on to say, “and the obesity epidemic is the single biggest threat to public health.”

The report states something I’ve been saying all through this project – and not only because I’m a super genius who foresaw these events, but because savvy nutritionists have been saying it for a few years. “Americans of all ages,” states the report, ” consume too few vegetables, fruits, high-fiber whole grains, low-fat milk and milk products, and seafood and they eat too much added sugars, solid fats, refined grains, and sodium.”

After a 30 day period to review the report (which came out a week ago, mind you) Health and Human Services, working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will then draw up new guidelines, as required by Congress every five years, that will set standards for federal programs including U.S. school breakfasts and lunches.

Yep, those guidelines. The ones that, in the current version, prevented Jamie Oliver from serving rice in school cafeterias during his food revolution because rice only counted as one starch, whereas french fries were two starches and thus acceptable.

I’m not expecting anything earth shattering – after all, it’s been 28 years since the USDA and AHA drew up the food pyramid that contributed to this mess, so they had at least five chances to redraft for the better. But at least this time there appears to be an effort made.

I’m going to credit Michelle Obama’s initiatives on reducing child obesity. And before you angrily slide down to the comments section to blast me about being one of those “progressives” Glenn Beck has programmed Red Staters to hate, remember I’m neither Democrat nor Republican. So chill, Winston.

Some of the committee’s recommendations are restatements of previous guidelines, it seems, like emphasis on a plant-based diet with plenty of whole grains, fruits and vegetables and moderate amounts of lean meat, poultry and eggs. But there are a few new items that stand out.

These ones is kind of neat: decreasing sodium from the current level of less than 2,300 milligrams a day to less than 1,500mg, and phasing out processed grains like white flour.

“There is a call for drinking fewer sugar-sweetened beverages,” said Penny. Er, Penelope. ” There is a call to decrease saturated fat from 10 percent to 7 percent of daily calories. It is sort of a graduated approach to decrease the caloric intake of the American public.”

This report dared to go where past reports have feared to tread: public policy.

“The daunting public health challenge”, says the report, ” is to accomplish population-wide adoption of healthful dietary patterns within the context of powerful influences that currently promote unhealthy consumer choices, behaviors, and lifestyles.”

“Primary prevention of obesity must begin in childhood. This is the single most powerful public health approach to combating and reversing America’s obesity epidemic over the long term.”

“For all Americans, especially those with low income, create greater financial incentives to purchase, prepare, and consume vegetables and fruit, whole grains, seafood, fat-free and low-fat milk and milk products, lean meats, and other healthy food.”

There are several more key recommendations. We need to relearn how to cook healthy food, and kids need to rediscover recess. More fish farming (hopefully without the eco-disaster that comes with farming atlantic salmon in the Pacific Northwest). in theory more fish farms will make fish a cheaper, healthier protein.

One point in the report is particularly full of win: there are no short-cuts to good nutrition.

“A daily multivitamin/mineral supplement does not offer health benefits to healthy Americans,” the report said.

At the time of this writing, the report is available here though it’s only going to be up for a few weeks. N.B. it’s a big stack of .pdfs. If you’re not an industry geek you may get frustrated 1/2 way through trying to open or download them all. if the link is now dead, let me know and I’ll see about archiving the report on this site.

If implemented, will the actions called for in this report help? Should we even wait? Why not educate ourselves and our kids on these topics? Then get active in the local schoolboard and see what’s in the kids’ lunches, and so on.

Wait for government action, or start a revolution of our own? Or both?