wtf.si

One bad choice with 40 years of consequences?

Just recently I’ve read a great article in the NY Times Magazine with the title What if It’s All Been a big Fat Lie.

What really surprised me was the fact, that the article was from year 2002 and it focused greatly on some hard facts and asked some good questions.

Because “someone”, back in the 1970s, made, which is a more and more obvious, a bad decision and advised that the best way for your nutrition is high protein and carbohydrate intake and no fat, since well, fat causes hearth problems. But, carbohydrates, you can go crazy with them.
The whole food industry adapted, fast. They threw out sugar from everyday meals, presented with more and more diet and light products, when the truth was far off. And it wasn’t only the food industry that adapted.
Is it possible, that we, 30-40 years later, are the ones feeling the consequences of somebodies bad choice?
Obesity percentage isn’t getting lower, but higher, hearth diseases, cardiovascular diseases are a huge problem. Diabetes is beginning to sky rocket. Sometimes I even get a feeling smoking isn’t that much of a problem. I’m aware it’s actually still a huge problem and closely connected to previously mentioned cardiovascular and hearth diseases.
So after so many years of “correct” nutrition we should have seen quite the opposite effect, improvements, right?
How many of you have heard, even these days: “if you eat so many eggs, each day, you’ll have cholesterol problems”. This is so 1970s we can’t get away from it.

Since this ain’t the 70s anymore and because the information travels much faster now, because the studies, ideas, research, etc. can be published on the web and all the lobbies have a much harder time controlling the information, if any at all, since it’s becoming impossible to control the information flow these days (more or less).
Are we running into completely different icebergs ahead now? The food industry is enormous, so are the drug companies, lobbies are influential, they got powerful over the years and they sure know how to play “the game”. So how and who is gonna fight the tilting windmills?
And the food industry keeps coming out with new light, diet, without this, with that, etc. product. And when you read the product’s nutrition facts label you can just shrug and walk on.
A few years ago I’ve read a recipe on one of the slovenian cooking portals for a cake and I’ve also found the light version of this same cake. When I compared the recipes and the preparing procedure, I’ve noticed that the author used only light cottage cheese instead of ordinary cottage cheese, the 2kg (4 and a half pounds) of sugar stayed unchanged. It was a cake. A light cake.

If anyone, then the Americans are god-know-how-many-years dealing with the problem of obesity and diabetes. But they aren’t alone. Europe isn’t trailing behind at all.
Just this saturday, while having our mexican meat plate for 2 persons, we were watching the kids, who had a birthday party at the same restaurant, outside on the playground. Nothing bothering, except for those few kids, who came by and on the way moved two chairs and one table. Not because of the playing and running around or being fast. Because they had trouble getting past the “obstacles”, cause they were obese.
While I was watching this, it immediately went thru my head, what kind of irresponsible parents, how are they feeding their child, like they’re gonna feast on him/her. But immediately the next thought stroke: how hard is it to raise your child, who is overweight already at the age of 8 and you have to take food away from him/her and watch his meal ratios, calorie intake, etc.. I know it’s damn hard, I’m doing this to myself. Unfair not only to the child, also for the parents themselves.
But where is the initial, ground zero problem? Are the parents incapable of choosing the suitable food quality when the child is still younger? Is the everyday life, the 8 to 4, the 9 to 5 job taking it’s tool and the parents are to tired to prepare suitable nutrition meals? Or is the problem the lack of parent knowledge regarding daily protein/carbohydrates/fat ratio? All that matters is the child is quiet, cause she/he is full. Of junk food.

One idea is also interesting me enormously. If you regularly deny your child sugar or her or his desire of craving for sugar, lets say, for the first 10 year of your child’s life, so you reduce the amount of consumed sugar in the first 10 years, does his or her desire for sugar drop after 10 years, so he or she doesn’t have trouble with overdosing sugar later in her or his life?

I’ve been fat twice in my life. First at the age of 27, when i peaked my weight at 124kg (273 lbs) and lost it by the age of 28 coming down to 81kg (178 lbs) max. Second at the age of 31/32 (aka now) when i peaked at 108 kg (238 lbs) and i’m dropping it (still), currently around 88kg (194 pounds).
At this age I strongly believe it’s much easier to drop weight. I can’t imagine how is this for younger people or even teenagers, since the way I comprehend them these days, they aren’t nearly as tuff and strong willed as previous generations.

Back when I was younger, doing sports was just training hard and competing. Nobody cared how you ate and what you ate. Does anyone, the coaches, the trainers of for example swimmers, age 8 to 13, prescribe diets which are suitable for the needs of an individual and not all of the swimmers? Or do all of them get general guidelines if any at all?
A few years back, a friend of mine told me about a father who came to him for advice. His son was training hockey, age 14 and he was constantly tired but otherwise healthy. After a two hour talk with the father, my friend wrote him a simple diet for his son, which had the suitable protein/carbs/fats ratio and meal substitutes if they were necessary, so the son would get necessary nutritional intake thru out the day. The results were more than obvious, less then 14 days later.

When do the obesity and diabetes problems, errors, troubles really begin? If we have sex talk in the schools should we start thinking about nutrition talks also?