Most everyone vaguely knows about the Food Guide Pyramid–the government’s advice on what Americans should eat. But virtually no one pays much attention to it. Even so, a new panel of 13 academic experts has been convened by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to sort through all the conflicting and confusing dietary claims and formulate new dietary guidelines.
That is extraordinarily important. Now, more than ever, Americans need straight talk about diet and exercise. They need to realize that they ignore these health warnings at their own peril.
The panel should be an absolutely unimpeachable source of the latest and best scientific information. It should tackle some of the thorniest dietary issues of the day–Atkins-style low-carb versus low-fat diets, for instance–and help Americans understand exactly what the studies show, and don’t show. In an age when new diet books seem to land on the bestseller list every week, and a new study is churned out at about the same rate, some specific, irrefutable information would be welcomed by many Americans struggling with conflicting advice and expanding waistlines.
Maybe a lot of people aren’t paying attention. But there could hardly be a more crucial time for them to start. A recent study by Rand Corp. showed that the number of extremely obese U.S. adults–those at least 100 pounds overweight–has quadrupled since the 1980s. That figure is staggering: About 1 in every 50 adults fits into that oversized–and extremely unhealthy–category. Another study showed that diabetes is running rampant through society, cutting deeply into life expectancy rates for those born in the last few years. The average American female born in 2000 has a stunning 38.5 percent risk of developing diabetes, which will cut her life short by 14.3 years if she is diagnosed with the disease by age 40, the study said.
If that’s not a wake-up call, what is?
The dietary guidelines now being revised govern such programs as school lunches and are supposed to be an official, neutral expression of the healthiest way to eat. That’s why it is important that the panel be as insulated as possible from outside interference or lobbying of food manufacturers and other industry groups.
As it stands, the panel works under the aegis of HHS and USDA, and USDA has sole authority over the pyramid. As Tribune reporter Andrew Martin pointed out in a recent article, however, USDA is the same department that heavily subsidizes and promotes commodities produced by American farmers, including cheese, sugar and tobacco. The USDA, for instance, helped Pizza Hut move 100 million pounds of cheese in its “Summer of Cheese” campaign last year. And the director of the USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, which oversees the pyramid and guidelines, is Eric Hentges. He spent more than 15 years working for the meat industry, most recently the National Pork Board, before coming to the USDA last February.
That the USDA has such a large role in formulating these dietary guidelines creates at the very least the impression of a conflict of interest. U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) recently announced legislation that would end the department’s role in writing dietary advice, transferring complete authority to the HHS. Fitzgerald argued that “putting the USDA in charge of dietary advice is in some respects like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.”
Agreed. None of this means, necessarily, that the process is tainted. But common sense dictates that a panel seeking to give independent advice on food issues would find a far better home in HHS, which currently shares jurisdiction with USDA. That’s an easy fix. Far harder is to convince Americans of the dangers in their eating habits and persuade them to change. No federal panel will be able to do that single-handedly as long as most Americans focus not so much on the food pyramid, but a pyramid of food.
