Yes. I Still Ignore Gov't. Dietary Advice.
Monday, September 21, 2026
Back in January, Faye Flam wrote one of the better assessments of the latest round of government dietary advice: a mess [but] still better.
What I like about this assessment is that it neither hinges on the alleged credibility of the crank who serves as Secretary of Health and Human Services, nor ignores the issue altogether.
Flam acknowledges that nutrition is a contentious field and that such guidelines are distorted by politics -- while also doing a good job of putting the change in a full historic and scientific context:
The new US dietary guidelines are distorted by politics and tainted by the influence of the meat and dairy industries -- but they may still improve Americans' health because they reverse previous nutrition standards that were themselves politicized and unduly influenced by the sugar industry.That's the good news, such as it is, and we aren't just taking the word of Bobby Kennedy, Jr. or one of his lackeys.
The biggest change is a clear-cut recommendation to avoid added sugar and junk food. While nutrition is a contentious field, there's a rare consensus that eating too much sugar is harmful to our health.
And, in another tectonic shift, it's now recommended that Americans eat "full-fat" dairy products instead of fat-free versions. That recommendation is more controversial, but it's consistent with the results of recent studies showing that full-fat dairy may benefit some people by cutting the risk of diabetes and helping with weight control. [bold added]
This is good, not just because Kennedy has no relevant training, but also because he is dishonest:
[Pediatric endocrinologist Robert] Lustig was initially part of the advisory panel behind the new recommendations but quit after two days, he told me, because Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to cherry-pick which papers the panel was allowed to consider. Despite his concern about political meddling, Lustig agreed with the recommendation to limit sugar and highly processed foods and endorsed full-fat dairy products over fat-free ones. [bold added]In other words, unlike the case with vaccination, affected Americans are somewhat fortunate that Kennedy happens to favor less-bad advice than before. That fact notwithstanding, there is no reason whatsoever to look to government guidelines if one wants nutritional advice, particularly today.
-- CAV
P.S. An interesting thing I learned about from Flam's piece is a phenomenon called healthy user bias:
Today, scientists know much more about food chemistry, but the field is still hampered by what researchers call healthy user bias. If you tell people not to eat full-fat cheese, meat or eggs, those most likely to follow that advice are also more likely to abstain from smoking, be more affluent, and have better access to health care. As a result, rule followers may appear healthier not because of the rules but in spite of them. [link in original, bold added]It's part of the answer to the implicit challenge of how can you argue with someone so ripped that Kennedy's flaunting of his physique seems to raise -- or to anyone else peddling kookiness who seems to have "results."
2 comments:
I have serious problems with the idea of federal nutritional guidelines as such. Any guideline--especially federal guidelines--assumes that there is a single answer to the question. It assumes, as a necessary foundational assumption, that there is ONE solution to the problem. And with nutrition that's not the case. Humans have, for the past few thousand years, had an incredible variety of diets, a variety that has real impacts on what constitutes a healthy diet today. For example, Europeans can process dairy far better than most cultures, whereas Asian cultures tend to avoid the stuff after weaning.
Further, there are multiple body types. I always use the example of my cousin. I'm a tall lanky guy, my cousin is short and stocky. If he has my BMI he will end up in a hospital from malnutrition, and I simply can't eat enough to get his. But we are both healthy. He's a cop that works out a lot, and I spent most of my adult life as a field geologist carrying heavy things through wildernesses.
The combination of diverse diets on an evolutionary timescale, and of multiple body types, means that any one-size-fits-all solution such as a federal guideline is doomed to failure. At best you have something so vague as to be meaningless, and most likely you have something that hurts everyone.
It's also worth noting that our food infrastructure wasn't built around eating. It was built around transportation of food. That's why apples and tomatoes and the like are tasteless compared to days gone by, or to what you get from a garden.
At the end of the day the only realistic solution is to eat your vegetables, listen to your body, and if need be talk to your doctor.
I agree with your objection and will add one of my own.
Government promotion of any particular idea, including of a proven scientific theory, violates freedom of speech, and so it has no business doing so. (This is distinct from the government relying on sound science, such as when evaluating a new military weapon or adjudicating an allegation of fraud where some kind of forensic testing is required.)
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