I doubt she’d attribute height or any other benefit to a low-fat diet … high-protein, high-fat maybe. We know from anthropological evidence that when humans went from being hunters to farmers, they shrank. Affluent people do tend to eat more meat and protein, and yes, I believe that contributes to height. Protein is, after all, the macronutrient used for building new tissue.

Mendiola et al recently published a paper in Fertility and Sterility that I think fits into bad science. It’s a crock, but here is the pre-article summary.

Objective
To compare dietary habits in normospermic and oligoasthenoteratospermic patients attending a reproductive assisted clinic.

Design
An observational, analytical case-control study.

Setting
Private fertility clinics.

Patient(s)
Thirty men with poor semen quality (cases) and 31 normospermic control couples attending our fertility clinics.

Intervention(s)
We recorded dietary habits and food consumption using a food frequency questionnaire adapted to meet specific study objectives. Analysis of semen parameters, hormone levels, Y microdeletions, and karyotypes were also carried out.

Main Outcome Measure(s)
Frequency of intake food items were registered in a scale with nine categories ranging from no consumption to repeated daily consumption.

Result(s)
Controls had a higher intake of skimmed milk, shellfish, tomatoes, and lettuce, and cases consumed more yogurt, meat products, and potatoes. In the logistic regression model cases had lower intake of lettuce and tomatoes, fruits (apricots and peaches), and significantly higher intake of dairy and meat processed products.

Conclusion(s)
Frequent intake of lipophilic foods like meat products or milk may negatively affect semen quality in humans, whereas some fruits or vegetables may maintain or improve semen quality.

Key Words: Semen quality; food frequency; xenobiotics

So what happened to the potatoes?

I guess that explains why humans failed to reproduce in the million or so years before agriculture.

They do tend to lend support to that hypothesis, but as someone who has had a bit of experience in this area, their reasoning would be the following:

“Eating protein helps build muscle mass, which has a greater metabolic rate than fat, helping to burn calories and lose fat”

Which tends to go with the calories in-calories out theory, which is only part of the story at best. They don’t tend to look for alternate explanations.

I happen to have a good trainer. I don’t know that he quite believes as we do, but he told me when I was working out (because I was/still kind of am scrawny) that I should up my fat intake so that my body didn’t attack muscles for energy. He also said don’t stock up on carbs because in his experience, lots of carbs led to reduced endurance in exercises. Anecdotal, but fits with a lot of the other stories here.

I suppose that’s progress, but it’s kind of shame they have to be covert about cutting the carbs.

When I was high school (pre-McGovern Committee), I knew some body-builders who worked out at the YMCA. When they wanted to get cut for a contest, they eliminated carbs totally. The wrestling coach told his wrestlers to do likewise when they needed to drop weight. If only we’d kept doing what we already knew worked …

This guy would not be exercising too much, except on Paleo Principles. But will still lose a lot of fat, possibly much more than others, if Fasting is used a lot, when reduction slows down after a couple of months.

That would be cool to see.

As far as the exercise goes – I used to eat “low fat” and I exercised twice a day. I wouldn’t recommend that as a way to stay thin because it was hard and not a whole lot of fun. Oh, and you really don’t have much of a social life because you’re constantly at the gym… unless your friends like going to the gym too (mine did not). When I visited my parents for a month (I was in the military) I didn’t exercise at all (lots of family to visit, friends to see – and I think I was burned out). My dad was on Atkins, my mom stopped serving and purchasing carb laden food to support his choice. I was in the military, so to save money I had what they had for food. When I went back to my duty station at my lightest weight since 10th grade. I think I lost 20 or 30 lbs. I thought for sure that I would have gained something – bacon and eggs, steak, salads with full fat dressing, cheese! Nope. A lot of exercise gurus say that the way your body looks is 80% diet… I’m thinking it’s probably more.

Also, I read Jimmy Moore’s (first) book and it was the first time it dawned on me that people say generally 20 minutes to a fat burning zone – but when you’re eating low-carb you’re already burning fat! That should have been a big duh! but I was so astonished I didn’t realize that before. Now that’s motivation to eat low-carb if I’ve ever heard any!

I was exactly 6’0″ when I graduated college, but I’ve shrunk a fill inch in the past 27 years. Clearly, it’s because I gave up playing driveway basketball.

And of course, most of the “Biggest Loser” contestants have regained the weight, now that they’re no longer being horsewhipped.

I remember reading an interview by Taubes when he was still doing GCBC that because of his research, a lot of his own long held beliefs about nutrition, obesity, and weight loss got questioned. A lot of what he believed when he started the book, he now longer held as true by the time he finished GCBC. Was it the same for you while making Fat Head?

BTW, I live in the Philippines, and the DVD regional coding on Fat Head is a bit of an annoyance.

Our international distributor is still working on DVD deals in non-U.S. markets, but nothing yet. That’s the hazard of being an independent filmmaker; there’s no studio pushing your product.

Since kids are less likely (for now) to have elevated insulin than adults, I think lack of activity has a more dramatic effect on kids. When my family moved to a different city and I stopped playing outside for two hours before dinner, I began putting on weight — but I was also snacking more. I think both were contributing factors.

This post is of particular interest to me, as I’m very seriously considering heading back to school to learn to be a personal trainer. Having lost around 50kgs last year by eating low carb (27kg before I even started to exercise) I think the section I’m going to have the most trouble with is the nutrition section. Not just in the classroom either – I have trouble reining in my nutritional opinions and suspect I may be a little over enthusiastic at times. People get that wide eyed look like possums caught in headlights and you can see they are truely sorry they asked how I did it LOL.

So how do you ‘spread the word’ without being seen as some kind of zealot?

As an aside, was heading to the supermarket today so grabbed a recipe book to get some ideas of low carb treats to enjoy over the week. The particular recipe book was one of my Type 1 husband’s, called ‘Food for Every Body: Cooking for diabetics the low GI way’.

Withing seconds I was wanting to poke my eyes out with forks, discovering such gems as “glucose is the only type of food our brain cells can use”, “long gaps between food intake mean we become over-hungry, then we overeat. Small frequent eating controls hunger and shrinks the stomach” and the classic “by eating 10% less food than you are now eating will shed tummy fat. Try cutting crusts off sandwiches or leaving 10% of that dessert”.

Naturally, the recipe categories are potatoes, rice, pasta, grain, legumes and desserts. Yup, all the carb you can shake a fist at. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

Our government has found all kinds of ways to help screw up our health. Subsidizing corn and thus making it the cheapest feed for livestock was just one of them.

The “eat your starch” advice for diabetics drives me up a all. I saw an informational video for diabetics in a doctor’s office recently, and of course it demonstrated balancing your little serving of meat with a potato.

I seem to recall Eades & Eades had some suggestions in their books for eating low-carb on a vegetarian diet. I of course eat lots of meat, knowing it would be better if it were pasture-fed, but it’s still preferable to loading up on carbs.

Sorry to hear about what your former mother-in-law did to herself. I read once that a stunning percentage of people in a survey that they’d rather sacrifice two years of life than be obese. Looks like they’re getting the chance to prove it.