A Rant About Diet Privilege

[joreth]

I was reading http://worldmysteries9.blogspot.com/2010/05/harmful-drinks-in-america.html and it's all about how much sugar and calories are in popular drink items that we probably don't think about. I found it interesting, as someone who ingests a LOT of sugar on a regular basis and will probably develop adult-onset diabetes because of it, but as someone who is not all that concerned about weight gain, the lack of other information wasn't a problem. Sometimes, you can really only tackle one problem area at a time.

But then I started reading the comments, and they just pissed me off. Most of the were complaints that it was only a comparison of sugar, not of fat or whatever other problem that individual has with foods - yes, we know that, the author said so at the beginning, and not all health or dietary problems have to do with eating fat. Quite a few of them were admonishes for anyone who dares to drink anything other than water - ever. More than I'd like to see were insults about all Americans being fat and how Europeans understand diet better & are therefore not fat. And a few called for the legal system to intervene making these death-foods illegal for our own good.

I had quite a few things to say about all this, and I tried to post, but ran into some problems. First, it told me my post was too long (who, me?). Then it let me post the first half but gave me a vague "your request could not be completed" error when I tried to post the second half. I waited between postings, and I waited before hitting submit in case there was some 'bot using time as the sole criteria for determining auto-form-fillers. No dice.

So I'm posting my entire answer here for safe-keeping. Eventually I'll try to post the second half again, but in case it never gets posted, I'll have it here:

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First of all, to the people who say "Why offer alternatives? Just drink water!"

Because the reason why people drink this stuff is because they LIKE it. We want something that tastes *like this* or does whatever else the drink is supposed to do (like alcohol or caffeine), it's not because we're dehydrated.

If you want people to give up something they like doing, you have to suggest something they will like at least enough to make the substitution worth it. Trading water for a mocha latte isn't going to cut it (not to mention the caffeine withdrawal & the belief that they "need" the caffeine to stay awake - that's a whole other topic).

Second, to the people who think this should be illegal:

The whole point of living in a supposedly free society is so that other people can't arbitrarily decide for you what you will and won't be allowed to do to yourself. It's absurd to make this illegal just because some people over-do it. I am well below the obesity range, no matter what system you use, I have low blood pressure, low cholesterol, good muscle tone ... basically, I'm about as healthy as you get. And I eat junk food regularly because I like it. I am aware of my individual nutritional needs & I moderate as required by my own dietary requirements, not yours. I was lucky enough to have been born with good genetics, and your inability to process sugars the same way I do does not give you the right to dictate to me how I should eat and what foods I should choose.

I can't process vegetable protein, so I require a diet high in meat. How would you like it if I made a law that said you had to eat as much meat as I do simply because that's the diet that works for me so it MUST be right for everyone? Clearly meat is good for me, and vegetarians often have difficulties getting the correct amount of protein and fats, so vegetarianism should be outlawed because it's so dangerous! Right?

Humans evolved though times of scarcity which created a design to want to find as many calories as possible to survive. But with the abundance of calories in a First World society and not enough physical activity to burn off the extra calories, people find it harder to be "healthy". BTW, a recent study showed that we, as a species, are not actually less active than our tribal ancestors - we just consume more calories, and being "fat" is no longer necessary for survival, which once overruled the other health problems associated with obesity. "Survival", in evolutionary terms, doesn't mean "most efficient", it means "good enough".

The real problem is that foods with higher calories but lower nutritional value & lifestyles not conducive to enough physical activity to balance out the calories are more readily available, while the lower-calorie/high nutritional value foods are more expensive and not as easy to find (neither is the time for exercise). When you have only $5 in your pocket and you're on your way to your minimum wage job standing around and not moving, you are more likely to drive through the Starbucks window on the corner than to find a Farmer's Market on the way with a filling-yet-affordable breakfast item, and to pick up McDonalds or a pizza after your 10 hour day that is required to make just enough money to survive only to come home and find more work to be done with a household of people depending on you and not enough people contributing (kids are liabilities in the First World, not assets to contribute to the labor and fewer adults are invested in the family's survival than in tribal societies too) so there's no time to cook that healthy meal full of fresh vegetables and lean meats that you can't afford even if you did have time.

If you really want to work on the obesity problem, don't insult all Americans (which is a stereotype and not even true), and don't revoke people's freedoms to suit your own biology that doesn't match everyone else's. Find solutions to the economic problems that make these "empty calorie" foods so much cheaper, and find ways to make the "healthy" foods more appealing to our limbic systems that thinks "sweet" and "fatty" are the primary criteria for survival.

**UPDATE** grumble I finally gave up re-submitting and tried posting under "name & URL" instead of my open ID (LJ in this case), which is how I posted the first half. This time it went through. It should go through moderation soon and show up on the blog site.

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

On a side note, tea is currently believed to be better for health than pure water. I point this out because people will criticize me for not drinking water. What I drink most is unsweetened tea. These days I add milk to it and sometimes almond milk (I don't like almond milk, but I'm trying to get almonds into my diet for complex reasons and I find liquified almonds mixed into tea less objectionable).

One of the things that really bothers me about a lot of the statements people make about diet and obesity is that most of the people making them don't seem to have even really researched the subject. So, often they're not even right.

However, I do think we need warnings for foods that are modern and specifically trick our brains. High fructose corn syrup did not used to exist. It appears to do even more harm than pure sugar, which also did not used to exist. These foods trigger biological mechanisms, but not in ways that were ever evolved to be triggered. I'm fine with keeping them legal, but we should include warnings. Not everyone realizes what these foods do.

In fact, I'm all for a lot more warnings. I'd like to see warning labels on soda that soda contains a caffeine, which is an addictive drug. I know, that seems obvious. But the first time I got really high on caffeine and had problematic side effects it was because I had assumed it contained no drugs, nobody had told me it contained a drug, and I kept drinking it assuming the reaction must be psychosomatic because it contained no drugs. I've heard stories of parents giving soda to kids and being surprised by the reactions and not connecting the dots.

We do have serious problems of education. And I do feel that education should be our first line of defense. It doesn't remove liberty; it allows for more choice, because it lets people better understand what their options are and what it is they are choosing.

[joreth]

Absolutely, I'm all for more warning labels! That's why I found the original blog interesting - the amount of sugar in each drink is relevant data to making informed choices.

Unfortunately, that requires each individual to be somewhat responsible for his own education & to make conscious choices - something we don't seem to want to do. And, as the recent study I posted about suggested, people don't seem to learn anything by just being given facts - they have to be told those "facts" by people who look like them. And a lot of the times, it is difficult to root out the true facts - I have conflicting resources on the HFCS vs. sugar debate, and the ones in favor of HFCS being no worse than sugar are very convincing. Plus, people *still* insist on believing that sugar is responsible for kids' hyperactivity even though all the latest studies say there is no causal relationship, but rather the types of situations where kids are given sugar tend to encourage hyperactivity.

But that doesn't change my opinion that a better informed society should be allowed to make their own, individual, choices, rather than someone on high passing laws according to their own individual preferences. I absolutely agree that we need better education as our first line of defense. We need, not just more information, but a better system of delivery for that information so that the right information gets past all the bullshit and the people have better tools for seeing the difference.

I don't take any caffeine either, and it annoys me that I have to look for the "Caffeine Free!" label, rather than "this product contains caffeine" label - especially since the caffeine-free one is not required so I often have to go hunting through the very tiny-printed ingredients list to find out if there is caffeine or not.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of issues about the lack of info on food. For one, that alcoholic beverages don't need to tell you anything about what they contain.

*sighs* It always comes back to education though... for so many things. One of the things I want is to improve the school system. The government runs public schools and does have a responsibility for seeing that the populace is educated.

If I hadn't become ill, one of the things I really wanted to do was to teach high school kids. Given free choice of what to teach (which I wouldn't get), I'd teach two classes. One on psychology, aiming at the stuff that you actually can apply most readily to real life and one on statistics and experimental design, aimed at understanding what these things mean and how to evaluate "studies say FOO" sorts of claims.

It's not nearly enough, but it's a very good start for what I feel every person should know, as it helps to start giving the tools for people to learn more on their own. I've seen classes, when I was subbing, on consumer awareness. I saw Elementary School kids critically looking at advertisements to try to assess their truth value and what tricks they use. That's good. But it isn't always there, and it's not enough.

The problem with freedom of choice is that it only helps people who can understand their choices. Choices that hurt you are a serious problem with freedom of choice when you don't have the info for how they hurt you. So, I'd like a really good base level of education and a lot of freedom in my ideal society. Without that education, allowing various choices to exist is likely to do more harm than good. But I do dislike cutting off choices, and it sucks for the informed for whom those choices really are what they'd pick. Thus, education needed.

[joreth]

When I was in elementary school, I had lots of classes aimed at critical thinking skills ... problem was that only the "gifted" students got those classes, who were in the minority. I felt that the "average" students probably needed them more, since, theoretically, we were supposed to be smarter anyway, so it should take less for us to figure this stuff out.

Of course, no one should be bereft of that kind of education - smarter-than-average people are no less likely to be guilty of logical fallacies and lacking critical thinking skills than anyone put into whatever "less-smart" grouping one wants to put someone. Really, they're more likely to think they *aren't* doing those things when they are, because, after all, they're smart, right?

But somehow the population that is believed to be less smart or less educated decided to revel in their ignorance rather than fight to correct it.

*sigh* yes, better education is needed. For everyone.

[joreth]

As a side note - that's what I do with this journal, with my twitter, and with my IRL activism ... point out logical fallacies, critical thinking methods, and facts so that people can make *informed* choices. Many issues are not yes/no - for instance, all sugar is not all bad all the time, but knowing how much is bad, and how it's bad (and how much is good and when it's good) means that people can decide for themselves when to eat that mocha latte and when to skip it, based on their own dietary needs and personal value system.

[leora.livejournal.com]

*nods* And it's useful. As with most problems, the scale is just so huge. But I do approve of individuals doing what they can do to help. It doesn't help to focus on how much more ought to be done if you can't do it. And if it discourages people from trying to help at all, then it's no good at all. Just now and then I think about the scope of the problems. And I have had to admit that I will not be taking over the world.

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

Yes, this. Thank you for saying this, and saying it well.

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

The idea that caffeine is a drug with an effect is so often overlooked, because it's everywhere and so commonly consumed, which troubles me. I agree that the stuff ought to have a warning.