Ten Points for Health From the U.K.

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Childhood Obesity News has been following the history of how various factions in the United Kingdom deliberated and propagandized along the way to finally instituting a sugar tax. We have looked at the arguments in favor, and the objections.

One of the side roads was the creation, by the National Obesity Forum and Public Health Collaboration, of a set of guidelines representing the ideal diet. Published about a year ago, the list contained 10 major points.

The first, “Eating Fat Does Not Make You Fat,” is another valiant attempt to correct the decades-long misconception caused by corrupt scientists who were paid to exonerate sugar and blame the obesity epidemic on dietary fat. The Harvard School of Public Health had done its best to straighten things out, by examining the medical records of more than 68,000 individuals from 53 studies. The conclusion was, “In weight loss trials, higher fat weight loss interventions led to significantly greater weight loss than low-fat interventions.”

More course correction

For the next point, “Saturated Fat Does Not Cause Heart Disease,” the publication likewise cites studies, and recommends the consumption of meat, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, olive, and avocados, because evidence that saturated fat causes cardiovascular disease is just not there. In fact the report states: “Full-fat dairy may also protect against obesity.”

Point 3 covers the same ground from another angle, warning against products that are advertised as low fat, low cholesterol, “lite,” and so forth. Point 4 recommends avoiding starchy and refined carbohydrates. Staying away from those is said to prevent, and even reverse, type 2 diabetes.

The report expressed disappointment because the websites of two authorities that should know better, Diabetes UK and the National Health Service itself, were still recommending starchy carbs to type 2 diabetes patients:

A recent comprehensive review concludes that dietary carbohydrate restriction is the “single most effective intervention for reducing all of the features of the metabolic syndrome” and should be the first approach in diabetes management.

Point 5 is quite straightforward: “Optimum Sugar Consumption for Health is ZERO.” Point 6 addresses the misunderstanding that caused a craze for omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, when omega-3 is what we really should be going for.

The report also takes a stand on the idea that “Obesity is a disease of energy partitioning, not one of total energy intake.” The partitioning is decided by insulin, and for lack of a deeper understanding of how various nutritional elements are metabolized, calorie-counting has actually damaged public health.

According to the repost:

For example, equal calorie portions of sugar, alcohol, meat or olive oil have widely differing effects on hormonal systems such as insulin, and satiety signals such as cholecystokinin or peptide YY. It is highly irrelevant how many calories a portion of food on a plate contains. What matters is how our body responds to the ingestion and absorption of those calories…

Point 8, “You Cannot Outrun a Bad Diet,” is especially relevant for the young, who think that sports participation and constant activity will somehow cancel out the effects of junk food. Point 9 is for everybody: “Snacking Will Make You Fat.”

Point 10, for now, comes under the heading of “wishful thinking” as far as both the U.K. and the USA are concerned. Back in the mid-1980s, America’s National Academy of Sciences recommended a minimum of 25 hours of nutrition instruction for medical students. But, decades later, the number of medical schools providing even that minimum has actually decreased. The typical American medical student gets less than 20 contact hours of nutritional education.

In Britain no one, including the doctors themselves, believes that what they have learned is adequate. So Point 10 is:

Evidence Based Nutrition Should Be Incorporated In to Education Curricula For All Healthcare Professionals.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Eat Fat, Cut The Carbs and Avoid Snacking To Reverse Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes,” phcuk.org, 05/23/16
Source: “Teaching Doctors About Nutrition and Diet,” NYTimes.com, 09/16/10
Photo credit: Dun.can via Visualhunt/CC BY

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About Dr. Robert A. Pretlow

Dr. Robert A. Pretlow is a pediatrician and childhood obesity specialist. He has been researching and spreading awareness on the childhood obesity epidemic in the US for more than a decade.
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Presentations

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the American Society of Animal Science 2020 Conference
What’s Causing Obesity in Companion Animals and What Can We Do About It

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the World Obesity Federation 2019 Conference:
Food/Eating Addiction and the Displacement Mechanism

Dr. Pretlow’s Multi-Center Clinical Trial Kick-off Speech 2018:
Obesity: Tackling the Root Cause

Dr. Pretlow’s 2017 Workshop on
Treatment of Obesity Using the Addiction Model

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation for
TEC and UNC 2016

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the 2015 Obesity Summit in London, UK.

Dr. Pretlow’s invited keynote at the 2014 European Childhood Obesity Group Congress in Salzburg, Austria.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2013 European Congress on Obesity in Liverpool, UK.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2011 International Conference on Childhood Obesity in Lisbon, Portugal.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2010 Uniting Against Childhood Obesity Conference in Houston, TX.

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