Scrutinizing Nutrition: An Introduction
Across the recent decades, nutrition has been a seemingly confusing topic with much advice about nutrient needs, malnutrition, weight loss or gain, and fad diets by a plethora of health experts and government officials. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) published the well-known food pyramid in 1992, which transformed over time, and was unveiled as the Healthy Eating Plate in 2010. The Harvard School of Public Health proposed the plate model after the concern of business interests that were evident in the former one (Healthy Eating Pyramid, n.d.) was disclosed. How can the public navigate through all this conflicting information and marketing bias surrounding food?
According to information circulated by NPR, economists reviewed the USDA food consumption data from 2011 and estimated that the average American consumes 1,996 pounds of food. This number is nearly equivalent to one ton annually per person (Aubrey, 2011)! Breaking down this huge number looks like this: 600.5 pounds non-cheese dairy; 415.4 pounds vegetables; 273.2 pounds fruit; 199.7 pounds meat and fish; 192.3 pounds flour and cereal products; 141.6 pounds caloric sweeteners; 85.5 pounds fat and oil; 32.7 pounds eggs; 31.4 pounds cheese; and 24 pounds of coffee and cocoa (What are we eating? n.d.). Does this make you wonder how one ton of food affects your body?
There is an age-old saying that food is fuel. What are the ramifications, however, if the fuel is poor in nutrients? Surveys, such as one published by the Commonwealth Fund in 2021, rank the United States as the country with the worst health outcomes among wealthy countries, even after spending the most money on healthcare (Schneider et al., 2021). Furthermore, the United States is estimated to have the worst rates in maternal mortality and preventable deaths. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that in 2020 the top two leading causes of death were heart disease (696,962) and cancer (602,350) (Leading causes of death, 2020). The institution also divulges that 42.4% of adults are classified as obese, and an additional 9.2% as severe obese in 2018 (Adult obesity facts, 2021). What is wrong with health? Could these diseases and conditions be affected by how we feed our body with an annual one ton of food?
In looking at nutritional research, there are many correlations between diet and disease. In 2004, a team sponsored by National Geographic investigated the regions where the highest concentration of people lived to over 100 years old. They identified that the highest percentage across the world were the five locations of Ikaria, Greece; Loma Linda, California; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Okinawa, Japan; and Sardinia, Italy. Largely plants and “beans, including fava, black, soy, and lentils, are the cornerstone of most centenarian diets. (Buettner & Skemp, 2016, p. 319)” The authors discuss that long-lasting health changes are not a result of dieting and gym membership programs, as these methods are simply not sustainable. Approximately 90% of people fall off their diet in the first seven months and 70% stop going to the gym after two years. Instead, a series of characteristics are connected to longevity. These include moving naturally, having a sense of purpose, reducing stress, belonging to a faith-based community, putting family first, and eating mostly plants with animal consumption limited to approximately five times per month.
One large study that has shed light on the connections of disease and diet is the China Study. T. Colin Campbell and colleagues analyzed data of more than 50 diseases from 65 counties and 130 villages in rural mainland China, collecting information from 50 people in each location (Campbell et al., 1998). Compared with Americans, the investigators discovered that the food consumed by the Chinese greatly differed. While the consumption of animal protein was approximately 10% of Americans, the Chinese also ate food containing less than half the fat of Americans and three times the amount of fiber. The results found that heart disease and other chronic degenerative diseases were lower with the greater consumption of green vegetables and less animal protein. Breast cancer mortality increased with more dietary fat and higher cholesterol levels.
In another study, 198 patients with cardiovascular disease were educated on plant-based nutrition (Esselstyn et al., 2014). The education consisted of consuming vegetables, fruit, whole grains, legumes, and flax seed meal, while eliminating dairy, fish, meat, added oil, and refined sugary foods. Of the 198 patients, 177 followed the diet. The results showed that cardiac events occurred in 62% of the non-adherent patients, but only 0.6% of the patients in the adherent group. Participants who adhered to the diet sustained this nutritional change for 3.7 years on average. The authors relate that these findings offer confirmation that plant-based nutrition may prevent, stop, or reverse cardiovascular disease.
What do these studies offer in terms of nutrition? Eating whole plant foods, less animal products, and less processed sugary foods could affect longevity and contribute to less disease. Instead of a fad diet, this way of eating could be adopted as a lifestyle change.
References:
Adult obesity facts. (2021). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
Aubrey, A. (2011). The average American ate (literally) a ton this year. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2011/12/31/144478009/the-average-american-ate-literally-a-ton-this-year
Buettner, D., & Skemp, S. (2016). Blue Zones: Lessons from the world's longest lived. American journal of lifestyle medicine, 10(5), 318–321. https://doi.org/10.1177/1559827616637066
Campbell, T. C., Parpia, B., & Chen, J. (1998). Diet, lifestyle, and the etiology of coronary artery disease: the Cornell China study. The American journal of cardiology, 82(10), 18-21.
Esselstyn, C. B., Gendy, G., Doyle, J., Golubic, M., & Roizen, M. F. (2014). A way to reverse CAD? Journal of Family Practice, 63(7), 356 – 364.
Healthy Eating Pyramid. (n.d.) Foodpyramid.com. http://www.foodpyramid.com/food-pyramids/healthy-eating-pyramid/
Leading causes of death. (2020). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
Schneider, E. C., Shah, A., Doty, M. M., Tikkanen, R., Fields, K., & Williams, R. D. (2021). Mirror, mirror 2021: Reflecting poorly. The Commonwealth Fund.
What are we eating? What the average American consumes in one year. (n.d.) https://www.creditloan.com/media/ve-american-average-food-consumption1.jpg