The USDA is revising its nutrition guidelines – some say in the wrong direction. Critics of past federal guidelines that favored high carbohydrate diets and were compromised by industrial food producers are closely scrutinizing the new regulations because they advocate “reducing focus on chronic disease risk reduction” and more on “improving the lifespan.” This oxymoronic shift from prevention to cure pervades many modern medical areas. Are conflicts of interest at play?
Sedentary lifestyles and diets of ultra-processed food, unhealthy fats, and the dubious chemical additives that accompany them were reducing Americans’ life expectancies before COVID-19 and the fentanyl pandemic. Indeed, preexisting obesity increases vulnerability to COVID-19, and food additives that cause depression and anxiety may well fuel more than just compulsive eating addictions (also aggravated by food additives that stimulate taste receptors and appetite or suppress natural biological appetite shut-offs).
It is well known that past “food pyramids” were unethically influenced by industrial interests that touted high-carb (grain) diets as “healthy” and have long eschewed any discussion of the chemical additions to their ever-more-processed “products.” Americans were told butter was bad, and margarine was “better” than Mother Nature; that eggs and meats are unhealthy; that women and children were better served by the “convenience” of baby formulas and pre-packaged baby foods. In its recent nutritional iterations, is the USDA focused on the health of humans, or of corporate food and medicine manufacturers?
Health-conscious eyebrows have been raised at the presence at the USDA guidelines drafting table of many who have benefitted from consulting fees or other remuneration from companies including Pfizer and Eli Lilly, and the dubious “World Health Organization,” which advocates for a plant-based diet without cautions against the chemical residues commonly present in many modern plant crops. These include cancer-causing pesticides, endocrine disruptors that mimic estrogen, and processed fats that increase obesity. Might it be that such organizations (and the people they employ) suffer from conflicts of interest or ideological bias?
The new guidelines make no distinction between processed and unprocessed foods. Perhaps there should be one simple chart for all, split in half: fresh = good; ultra-processed = bad. Instead, the USDA appears to be shifting away from such old-fashioned simplicity and “listen to grandma” advice toward the not-so-sweetly singing sirens of Big Ag, Big Pharma, and Junk food.
The mission shift away from prevention and toward more drug and surgical “interventions” to combat obesity is reflected in recommendations that nutrition information goals should “reduc[e] focus of the Dietary Guidelines on chronic disease risk reduction and more on promoting growth and development and improving the lifespan,” and “leverage technologies to provide more interactive guidance.” “Leveraging technologies” to provide guidance telling people to just eat whatever they want to “promote growth” (of adipose reserves) and then “improve lifespan” using insulin, hypertension, or obesity drugs, or have their massive guts reduced surgically at public expense (so their reduced stomach size will limit their ability to consume what appetite-stimulating food additives influence their brains and bodies to ingest), is a bass-ackwards approach. People need to leverage their butts out of their La-Z-Boys and eat healthily if they want to live long lives – whatever their bathroom scale or “body image” tells them.
This horrible USDA dining prescription ensures future profits for both manufacturers of highly processed foods and the pharmaceutical “remedies” to cure them – the “stakeholders” who are re-writing the rules. What of prevention and education rather than cure? How healthy is it to label obesity as a “disease” that excuses people from individual responsibility – as well as hope and control over their illness?
A similar pathological pathway is demonstrated in the addiction treatment world. Pfizer paid the largest fine in US history for lying about Oxycontin while millions of Americans became opioid dependent. The term “addict” was replaced with “substance abuse disorder” to reduce stigma, yet changing the nomenclature does nothing to change the nature of addiction and its harms. As with food, all studies agree that education and prevention are much better modalities to counter drug addiction than treatment. Now Big Pharma sells synthetic opioids (Medically Assisted Treatment, or MAT) to “victims of substance abuse” at taxpayer expense – for life, if necessary. Narcan is available in all Vermont public schools…..
Cancers are caused in part by smoking, poor diet, and a lack of exercise. Yet the cancer-curing industry is big business – its stakeholders are at the USDA nutrition advice table too – just get big and fat and “develop” cancers, and the industry will “improve your lifespan.” Of all scientific disciplines, those studying cancer are aware of the direct connection between many cancers and poor diet – they are at the nutrition table to “reduce focus on chronic disease risk reduction”? This circular reasoning extends to many government-industry collaborations to purportedly rescue people from the diseases seeded by these same alliances, much like the revolving door of captured regulatory agencies like the SEC, EPA, and FDA tasked with protecting public health.
Consider the “scientific” involvement in guideline draftsmanship of The Obesity Society (TOS). This global entity is ideologically awakened with victimological prescriptions to rescue obese people not from poor dietary and exercise choices but from the “disease” of obesity. Like drug addiction, it appears that one “catches” obesity from a toilet seat, and anyone who is disgusted by the results is “phobic” or “stigmatizing.” Its website states:
“….TOS recognizes the importance of diverse perspectives and experiences in our efforts to better understand, treat, and prevent obesity.
Obesity Society is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive organization. We encourage participation of individuals of all backgrounds, regardless of race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, religion, political affiliation, body size or economic circumstances. We strive to be a leading force in furthering the scientific understanding of obesity and to highlight and promote equitable access to the best evidenced-based practice for its prevention and treatment while working with partner organizations to eliminate the stigma and discrimination associated with this chronic disease.
OUR VALUES: Rigorous science, highest professional standards, and strength through diversity.”
Obesity sickens and kills people regardless of their ethnic or racial diversity. Like so many DEI failures, “diversity” here excludes common sense, personal accountability, or views that are not corporate-fashioned and corporate-benefitting. Like the “new” guidelines, this beneficent-sounding organization appears to focus more on technological cures than natural prevention.
Chicken and egg, or Sicken and beg?
From an October 30, 2024, TOS paper titled “The impact of weight self-stigma on weight-loss treatment engagement and outcome” counsels:
Results suggest that weight self-stigma plays a role in weight management during an online weight-loss intervention, affecting engagement and outcomes.
Media often endorse and perpetuate negative stereotypes surrounding overweight and obesity, portraying individuals of higher weight as lazy, less competent, and unattractive.
Weight-based stigma has been linked to many adverse psychosocial outcomes, including increased stress, binge eating, depression, avoidance of healthcare settings, and increased weight gain. Evidence suggests that weight stigma’s adverse effects are exacerbated by its internalization (also referred to as ‘weight self-stigma’), a widespread phenomenon that occurs when an individual identifies with negative attributes ascribed to people with larger bodies and has self-devaluing thoughts because of their weight.
Indeed, systemic anti-fat bias contributes to a culture where weight loss is desirable, and concerns have been raised that behavioral weight loss treatments may perpetuate weight stigma by reinforcing weight loss as a path to improved health.
This kaleidoscopic confusion reflects a similar conclusion in addiction treatment and other areas: drug addicts are victims of stigma, and so if that is eliminated, the problem will go away; criminals are stigmatized victims, and so their crimes should be forgiven; “people of color” are victimized by racist laws (and math) that hold them accountable wrongly: prisons and cash bail must be eliminated to free offenders from dreaded “stigma.” Are weight loss drugs now the Narcan to cure the obesity caused by addictive processed foods?
