On Treehugger.com Katherine Martinko covers the evolving controversy over healthy food in the UK:
The debate about dietary fat has reached a crescendo in the United Kingdom, where a new paper has been released by a group called the Public Health Collaboration. The paper, titled, “Healthy Eating Guidelines & Weight Loss Advice for the United Kingdom,” is not an official study, but rather a campaign document drafted by people from mixed backgrounds – dieticians, cardiologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, GPs, and athletes.
This Public Health Collaboration (PHC) group takes issue with the official government-supported stance on what good nutrition should be. Their paper challenges three main points that are encapsulated in the UK’s Eatwell Guide…
I see this entry impacting this thread of mine because of the infusion of the private sector into public health, as Katherine notes:
Journalist Nina Teicholz is another supporter of saturated fats, as explained in her hugely controversial yet fascinating book, “The Big Fat Surprise.” Teicholz argues that saturated fat has been unfairly vilified for decades by a world that is fraught with poor science, loads of industry money, political clout, and bloated egos pushing for specific results that always feature the demonization of fat.
In the phenomenon of cheap, easily accessible publishing we see the conundrum of understanding which advice is in conformance with facts and what conceals an agenda. Add into the mix the simple fact that we’re talking about a difficult subject, and I think many folks are bewildered by a government study that is now under active attack as being incorrect from an independent group.
The problem of conflicting goals is brought to the fore in this instance. The government is supposed to give good advice, but in those countries with capitalist economic systems, we often hear accusations of corruption by corporate entities pursuing profit; what is interesting is that often those with the accusations have their own agenda of replacing capitalism, without highlighting the possibility that their favorite replacement may also have conflicting goals – and may, like its capitalist cousin, also attempt to corrupt the government entity.
But back to the point at hand, how does the public know the independent group also has no hidden agenda? Public Health Collaboration has the requisite web page that explains what it’s doing – but how do we know it’s truthful, how do we know their “solutions-based reports” (I’d be more reassured by “scientific study summaries”) have merit? I have no interest in demeaning this organization; this is a problem in general. Will there be an attempt to measure how their recommendations pan out? And not in the sense of how they influence the UK public, but whether or not a scientific study of the impact of their recommendations on some group of people has a substantial impact on their health? And how do you do that in general?
