I’m convinced. And I started following the basic diet in the appendix of “Why We Get Fat” (from Westman’s Duke Lifestyle Clinic) last week. Too early to report many results, but I do feel better, and am much happier now eating a diet with a lot of animal fat and very few carbs (without the guilt). Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I think your stuff is spot on and funny, and you do really have a knack for cutting through the smoke and mirrors. I work for a health services research company, and I encounter the misty fog of the public health establishment on a daily basis. I literally just finished arguing with one of my directors (public health person) about the folly of reporting results from less robust statistical models (her view) versus reporting results from more robust statistical models so as not to mislead the audience (my view). I can’t tell you how many times she has trotted out the disclaimer, “oh, we didn’t have enough statistical power to show a difference” when one of the many ill-conceived public health hypotheses falls on its face under the bright light of empirical data.

I do have one issue to take up with you about the implicit notion that free markets fix everything and that government is solely to blame (maybe that’s a misrepresentation of your views, and if so, I apologize). I mean, the claim that an economist would say that “lack of supermarkets would be associated with lack of community support for supermarkets” is way too simplistic. An economist would probably say that, but they also say that any kind of hiring discrimination is economically irrational, and thus does not happen, which, I think is pretty obviously not true. Plus, economists have the luxury of never having to validate their theories with empirical data – they try to distract with shiny statistics, then claim their challengers are too unsophisticated to understand their analyses (given more space, I can illustrate with an article from Finkelstein, Trogdon, Cohen, and Dietz about the “high cost of obesity”).

Anyway, people typically build supermarkets in densely populated areas, and I would say that almost any population would have sufficient demand for much of what is sold at a supermarket. And supermarkets are pretty flexible in terms of what they stock. But imagine proposing to build a supermarket in an area where there are only 30 people per square mile – I doubt there is a venture capitalist anywhere who would go for that. Supermarkets have huge overhead, and are dealing with really perishable products. I imagine that even really busy, successful marts still toss out a ton of food. All 30 of those people (or, say, all 600 in a 20 square-mile area with similar low density) could all be demanding fresh produce and meats, but that still wouldn’t be enough to justify, financially, building a supermarket in the middle of that area. Meeting demand isn’t just about what people want, but also about how the people are distributed, the perishability of the products, the efficiency of the supply chain. Conveniency stores sell stuff with a really long shelf life, and raw materials at a McDonalds (or other fast food place) are mostly frozen (or have a long shelf life, like ketchup), plus, McDonalds has a super-efficient supply and production chain – they manage their balance of supply and demand with surgical precision. I’m not saying that government should step in to force or subsidize their own notions of a ‘food landscape’, but markets are not perfect.

My other issue: government does not operate in a vacuum, and is far from autonomous. Why do you think corn subsidies persist, year after year (to just state one example)? Certain big corporations demand them, and find ways (follow the money) to get the politicians in corn-producing states to keep the subsidies coming. It is a partnership. Then the private corporations (say, Monsanto, or Coke) use the artificially cheap corn to mass produce the very foods that make people fat. These same corporations fund the American Dietectic Association through whom they are able to influence the dietary advice coming out of the government that says, “eat more grains”. Is it the case that we can never fault a private corporation for seeking to maximize it’s own material self-interest, even when they are aware of the negative impacts of their actions?

Sorry for the diatribe – for probably 98% of what you say and do, I say Bravo!

We actually agree about the unholy alliance between big corporations and government officials. I don’t excuse the corporations, but see their behavior as exactly what any libertarian economist would predict: people act in their own best interests. Same goes for the government officials; they’re acting in their interests, not ours. That’s why I’m such a firm believer in limited government. Every time government gains new powers, the opportunity for corruption grows accordingly. If you have no special favors to confer, no corporation has any motivation to bribe you.

On an ironic ans somewhat related note, i thought you might like to know that the google ads to the right of your entry link to a page stating that high fructose corn syrup is completely natural and “meets the Food and Drug Administration’s requirements for use of the term ‘natural,’” and that it is nutritionally identical to sugar (http://www.sweetsurprise.com/index.php?q=myths-and-facts/top-hfcs-myths&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_content=Myths&utm_campaign=CNGeneralCATEGORY&gclid=CLyMisio26cCFRFOgwodCFyb_g). And when confronted with the idea that they are metabolized differently, the article’s answer is that “beverages sweetened with sugar, high fructose corn syrup and 1% milk all have similar effects on feelings of fullness.” Doesn’t that make you feel better?

Yeah, Google places some strangely inappropriate ads in those spots.

I also agree with the person who said above that elementary school children typically don’t have money to buy fast food. My school had a fast food place one block away, but the only time I ever got fast food after school is when a friend’s mother picked us up and took us through the drive thru for a snack. The concept of having a happy meal as just a snack had been foreign to me at the time because my own mother never took us for fast food except for occasional lunches and dinners. Not that that stopped me from gaining weight as a teenager… I ate bad food at home that I homemade myself… bowls [yes plural] of cereal as a snack. At the time I thought I was eating healthy because I was getting in my grain pyramid allowance. It kills me to think now how much of my weight gain was from the cereal I thought was a good snack for me.

You and me both. Cereal was my snack of choice as an adolescent, which is when I started gaining weight rapidly.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704288204575363072381955744.html

I especially enjoy:

“Studies have found that a diet of sweet, high-fat foods can indeed blunt the body’s built-in fullness signals. Most of them emanate from the digestive tract, which releases chemical messengers including cholecystokinin, glucagon-like peptide and peptide YY when the stomach and intestines are full. Those signals travel up to the brain stem and then the hypothalamus, telling the body to stop eating. ”

There is no mention of the action insulin levels have on hunger, of course.

And also:

“Bypass surgery seems to make food less tempting, too.”…”The bypass patients and the non-obese had scores far lower than those who were currently obese. (Exactly why is still unclear, but some experts think it could relate to “dumping syndrome,” in which high fat and sweet food creates nausea and dizziness in bypass patients. They may have learned to associate such foods with discomfort rather than pleasure.)”

No shit? Their bodies have been mutilated so that they can’t over eat without suffering discomfort.

My friend who underwent bypass surgery has all kinds of digestive issues now. She regrets the surgery.

Interesting to read the Strategic Vision of the USDA:

“USDA has created a strategic plan to implement its vision. The framework of this plan depends on these key activities: expanding markets for agricultural products and support international economic development, further developing alternative markets for agricultural products and activities, providing financing needed to help expand job opportunities and improve housing, utilities and infrastructure in rural America, enhancing food safety by taking steps to reduce the prevalence of foodborne hazards from farm to table, improving nutrition and health by providing food assistance and nutrition education and promotion, and managing and protecting America’s public and private lands working cooperatively with other levels of government and the private sector.” (USDA Website http://www.usda.org

If processed foods–specifically the HFCS in most of them–are fueling obesity epidemic, then it would be bad expanding markets to tell countries that import these foods the truth. As Dr. Lustig pointed out to Jimmy, “The fox is guarding the henhouse.” The USDA’s true role–promoting commodities–means it has to recuse itself from offering nutritional guidelines.

Like that will ever happen.

So we simply have to make our conversation more frequent and a lot louder.

Thanks, Tom, for using math.

Unfortunately, as Thomas Sowell points out in his books, the fox guarding the henhouse is a common result of government regulations. People mistakenly believe that while businesses are self-interested, most people in government act purely out of good intentions and a desire to protect us. In reality, we simply end up arming self-interested people with government power — a very bad combination.

Not gonna happen, period.

Listening to diet advice handed down by the USDA makes as much sense as taking medical advice from a Pfizer sales rep.

Me: So how did you select methodologically strong studies?

Them: Well, we trained some people to do it for us.

Me: So how did you train them?

Them: Well, we showed them how to use a checklist that tallied up whether they were good or not.

Me: So what was on the checklist?

Them: Oh, that’s not important, what’s important is that it was done by qualified nutritionists.

Me: And the panel is made up of…?

Them: Qualified nutritionists.

Me: I see, and the the people doing the research are…?

Them: Qualified nutritionists.

Me: And what kind of study is this?

Them: Independent.

Me: I see… have you picked up a dictionary lately?

Also: “systematic bias, nonsystematic bias, and inferential error”

So, lemme guess. Any high fat intake among healthy individuals was systematic bias in determining fat intake. Any unhealthy people on high carb were non-systematically biased in that they were the unhealthiest carb eaters, thus involved in clinical trials because of this. Any study that concluded saturated fat did not elevate heart disease rates obviously made an inferential error.

@ Wanda, what really steams me up is if I ask for some butter and they give me margarine…as though they are somehow equivalent. Sorry, no.

I think you’ve pretty much nailed it. Considering how abysmally weak the evidence that saturated fat causes heart disease is, the fact that they’re calling for an even further reduction of it can only be selection bias.

On a mainly unrelated note, at least in the good ol’ US of A you can get butter with your english muffin, something I occasionally indulge in at breakfast. Up here in Canada, when you ask for butter, they reply “sure,” and hand you a couple of containers of Becel Margarine. Yup, can’t even get real butter at McD’s here!

I’ve asked for butter in a few restaurants here, only to be told they don’t have any. Even a steakhouse here doesn’t have butter. How’s that for strange: we’ll serve you a big, fatty, juicy steak, but not butter … ?

Thanks for revealing the obfuscation of real science with gobbletygook. Did these folks get paid by the pound?

They weren’t paid, at least not directly. I’d be curious to see what kind of grants they receive for future research, however.