In a bid to completely muddy the waters, a draft report by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition now suggests that the recommendation for daily calorie intake be increased by as much as 16%!
Of course this is because if people exercised more they’d need more calories to maintain their weight. Perfect theory!
But people won’t exercise more … and people will never see beyond the precedent that has been set for the last 18 years which effectively suggests that all women should eat 2000 calories per day and all men should eat 2500 calories per day in order to fall within healthy eating guidelines.
Instead of trying to clear up the original mess, they have only succeeded in compounding the confusion of the general population.
This became patently obvious in the discussion on BBC breakfast where even the resident expert looked confused when the anchor, Charlie Stayt sought to clarify the logic behind the report.
Predictably, the question he asked was along the lines of “if there is an obesity problem, why on earth is it now being proposed that people eat more calories?”
Eventually that particular discussion was abandoned because time ran out, but it might just as well have been abandoned out of sheer exasperation. I normally enjoy seeing someone on soggy ground squirm … but this was about as sad as watching someone shoot a lion in a zoo.
I see this whole situation as painfully analogous to a team of bumbling experts trying to explain sex education to a bunch of school kids while still insisting on sticking to the whole story of the stork!
So let me attempt to at least do a little better:
First, the energy needs of adults vary according to a whole host of variables including, but not limited to, gender, lean muscle mass, activity levels, stress levels, biochemical individuality, etc, etc, etc …
To attempt to pigeon-hole every individual into 2 neat categories, then label it as “healthy” is about as far from reality as the proverbial stork!
To expect the average person to get their heads around any of these factors, let alone how they all integrate, is overly ambitious. Not because people are stupid, but because it’s actually quite complicated and even the qualified experts aren’t in agreement. This makes me think that “those-that-are-suitably-qualified” still has no clue.
If they were clear, then please show me the consensus, or at least a simple explanation. Until then, please stop blowing smoke.
People understand “simple”.
So here it is:
Drum roll please … if people eat foods that are calorie-dense, but not nutrient-dense, they will get fat and mal-nourished. This is exactly what has happened to hundreds of millions of people who battle the bulge today.
These same people are told that they are fat, not because the “food” they consume is in conflict with their design, but because they consume more calories than they expend … and who dares question the first law of thermodynamics which implies that weight loss can only happen with a calorie deficit?
But here’s the danger: the obvious solution is to go on diet and eat less. Which means temporary weight loss on the dieting yo yo … and an even greater nutritional deficit.
No wonder people are not only fat, but sick!
Whether anything concrete comes out of these recommendations remains to be seen. But who cares? It will make no difference. They are flogging a dead horse.
As the saying goes … “when you fall in a bucket of sh*t, don’t duck your head!”
