Nutrition Policies to Prevent Cancer?
A most unusual presidential panel on cancer prevention, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, has just weighed in with a report asking for better policies to make it easier for people to eat more healthfully. The Washington Post views the report as taking on the food industry (also tobacco). It quotes the chair of the panel as saying that the country has a moral obligation to protect the health of Americans. Indeed it has, but it is surprising that a panel reporting to this president puts so much of the responsibility for healthful eating on the food industry. The report itself is worth reading for its strikingly candid comments–”Ineffective policies, in conjunction with limited regulation of sales and marketing in the food and beverage industry, have spawned a culture that struggles to make healthy choices – a culture in dire need of change”–and its emphasis on the need to eat less and move more (my philosophy, precisely). The committee had only three members: it’s chair, Dr. LaSalle Leffall of Howard University, Margaret Kripke (M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas), and none other than Lance Armstrong.
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Syracuse, NY: Upstate Medical University
This will be Public Health Grand Rounds at SUNY-Upstate Medical University’s Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, co-sponsored with Syracuse University, 4:00 p.m.
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“A most unusual presidential panel on cancer prevention, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, has just weighed in with a report asking for better policies to make it easier for people to eat more healthfully.”
Huh? A presidential report? No, thanks. Between this administration’s inability to do *anything* right, and the generally abysmal health and nutrition advice the government has increasing dished out the last century, it’s time to leave the table and to borrow a phrase from my third grade son, “use our own noodle”. Many people *are* trying to follow the recommendations and they are losing their health for it. Chronic degenerative diseases are increasing even in children and the advice is just getting worse. No one seems to notice that the advice is dished out, but little to no evidence that any of it works.
It’s a national scandal how many billions of dollars have gone down the drain chasing misbegotten health and nutrition theories, i.e., low fat, high carb, cut out red meat, eat soy, more polyunsaturated oils, replace butter with margerine, there’s no such thing as a bad food, part of a “balanced” diet, study people’s diets with highly inaccurate and unscientific self-reported questionaires, looking for correlation and reporting it as causation, and so forth. They’ve sent us down so many wrong paths and blame us for not following closely enough. Oh please!
When is someone going to say “the Emperor has no clothes” and they’ve gotten a heck of a lot of it wrong? I’m holding out hope that Gary Taubes’ new book will shake the sleep out of people’s eyes and start people thinking for their own again. I don’t know who else can. There are a LOT of health care professionals, government officials, lobbyists, activists, corporations, and nutritionists who have some things to answer for.