Are Americans eating healthier?

For those questions and discussions on the McDougall program that don’t seem to fit in any other forum.

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Re: Are Americans eating healthier?

Postby HealthFreak » Sat May 08, 2010 2:39 pm

JeffN wrote:You hit on what I think is the biggest problem in the country. It is not that people don't know, it is what they know that they think is right, ir wrong.
Jeff


This is so true! Everyone I know, knows that "olive oil is good for you and that if you don't eat a side of beef per day you'll wither up and die from lack of protein".

I think you and Dr McDougall deserve some kind of humanitarian award for continuing to tell people the true scientific information decade after decade even though you get criticized and resisted every step of the way. I really appreciate your efforts.
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." Henry David Thoreau
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Re: Are Americans eating healthier?

Postby kittyadventures » Sat May 08, 2010 3:02 pm

I see a couple of different issues at play in this whole problem... When you go to the Doctor and are diagnosed with High Blood Pressure or High Cholesterol or high Blood sugar... even if it is just begining it's trend up... you are given one option... drugs.. Take a statin for cholesterol and this one for high blood pressure and another one for your high blood sugar... IF you do ask about trying diet your doctor will kind of hem and haw about it.... they will tell you they don't reccommend it becasue most people will not maintain the diet.... of course in the telling you of your illness and giving you a pill to treat it.... they never stop to explain the side affects of the pill or what the pill does to lower your numbers.

THey just dispense the medicine...SO you take a pill but never change your diet.
The other issue I see is people then assume they don't have to change their diet I can not tell you how many times I have heard Oh I will just take the pill when they ask why I am eating as I do ...

They are completely uninformed about what cost there is (I don't mean Financial cost) to taking the medicine.
On top of that they believe the medicine is curing the problem.

So it is a vicious cycle... Missinformed and not encouraged to make the change from the get go ... HOW would they even know what to do.

I was insistent that I would find something out that would work to get my health back.. even still my Doctor was Shocked at how much just going vegetarian did to improve my numbers.

Thank goodness for the internet... I found information from all over the world about moving to a vegetarian /vegan diet to improve my health.
Who knew an Apple a day, really would keep the Doctor away!
"Be the change you want to see in the world"--Gandhi.

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Re: Are Americans eating healthier?

Postby HealthFreak » Sun May 09, 2010 8:54 am

kittyadventures wrote:THey just dispense the medicine...SO you take a pill but never change your diet.
The other issue I see is people then assume they don't have to change their diet I can not tell you how many times I have heard Oh I will just take the pill when they ask why I am eating as I do ...


Taking the pills is a bad solution because it gives people a false sense of security. It's really a horrible system. A pill might improve someone's chance of avoiding a stroke by 2% while a proper change in diet might improve it by 80%. These are just my own estimates, but the point is that dietary change is exponentially better at improving health.
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." Henry David Thoreau
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Re: Are Americans eating healthier?

Postby afreespirit » Sun May 09, 2010 5:30 pm

Just to reinforce points made by others upthread...Taking pills is a false solution as it never gets to the root cause of the problem (whatever it may be). All too often there are side effects from the med, which then requires further medical intervention, and so the SAD spiral downward continues.

Although vegan/vegetarianism have become more well-known and popular, the initial attempts of many to convert to this lifestyle have been derailed by the legions of money-makers who have eagerly jumped on the bandwagon and then corrupted and perverted it for purposes of profit...the odds are nearly overwhelming and it takes an unusually determined person to fight the SAD tide. The onslaught of products touted as "healthy" and "vegan" etc. is truly disheartening. It is always, always about the money and never, ever about health. Never. And the gov't sure isn't going to protect you as they are hand-in-glove with all the rest.

Sometimes I am surprised we can even still find fresh fruits and vegetables--such as they are--in our markets at all. :cry:
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Re: Are Americans eating healthier?

Postby JeffN » Sun May 09, 2010 5:37 pm

afreespirit wrote:Although vegan/vegetarianism have become more well-known and popular


While I do not have them handy this second, the numbers do not actually support this. What has happened, is that they have changed the definitions of what a vegetarian is and added in more "types" of vegetarians so many others can be included who would not normally be counted.

We know have pesci-vegetarians, polo-vegetarians, flexatarians, semi-vegetarians, social-vegetarians, etc etc. Most of it had to do with marketing by the food industry and creating markets and marketing trends.

Sadly, the amount of actual vegans and/or vegetarians has changed little in the almost 40 years I have been following the trends.

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Re:

Postby afreespirit » Sun May 09, 2010 5:59 pm

Thanks for pointing this out Jeff! I have no problem believing that as you say, "the amount of actual vegans and/or vegetarians has changed little in the almost 40 years I have been following the trends"...after all, you are in a position to know.

My statement that "vegan/vegetarianism have become more well-known and popular" came from my own experience living in a very vegan-friendly city as well as the quote shown below, and the increase in Morningstar etc. products available. But as you suggest, marketing trends and general observations are not hard data!

Rob wrote:My sense is that in the past few years there has been a real increase in awareness of the need for more of our diet to come from plant foods. I believe that this awareness is translating into more people occasionally eating vegetarian or vegan meals. I also believe there has been some increase in the number of people following a vegan diet from the ranks of vegetarians. Why?

Not any single measure - just what I'm observing. For example, I'm seeing more mention of vegetarian, vegan or plant-based meals in the press. The September 2009 issue of 'Real Simple' magazine has a 6-page spread with vegetarian and vegan meals, for example. I've recently dined at a couple vegan restaurants in smaller cities in the Midwest and have been surprised at the number of people in these restaurants. This would have been hard to imagine 10 years ago. There are now quite a few vegan celebrities. John Mackey's recent conversion to a vegan diet was widely publicized. There's also a growing interest in local foods, fresh foods, slow foods, and organic foods mirrored by the rapid increases in farmer's markets in the past couple years.

In an attempt to validate this trend, I simply ran a search on an academic database for the word 'vegan'. The number of articles retrieved by year are as follows:

Year Articles

2000 567
2005 1,160
2008 2,089

Draw your own conclusions.
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Re: Re:

Postby JeffN » Sun May 09, 2010 6:16 pm

While I will agree that the terms seems to be more common know, part of the reason is the terms no longer have the same meaning.

Here are some numbers from actual polls;

Health Conscious (2 to 3 Veg Meals/Wk)
35-50%

Vegetarian Inclined (> 4 Veg Meals/Wk)
20-25%

Vegetarian (“Semi-Vegetarian”)
5-9%
(20% College Students)

True Vegetarian (No Flesh)
~2.5%

Vegan (No Animal Products)
~1.5%

As you can see, the real "growth" is in the categories that don't really reflect true vegans and/or true vegetarians.

The numbers (especially the ones for true Vegetarians, and Vegans, have not changed much over the last few decades and any minor changes have all been in the margin of error of the poll.

Most important though, is neither of these terms reflect health or healthy behaviors. And, as the rest of the studies I posted in this thread reflect, the amount of Americans who follow those behaviors known to be healthy, has fallen 47% in the last 20 years.

So, even if the amount of vegans and vegetarians has grown, it must not be what we would call "healthy" vegans and/or vegetarians.

Vegan, vegetarian or not, that is very sad news.

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Re: Are Americans eating healthier?

Postby afreespirit » Sun May 09, 2010 7:13 pm

>>So, even if the amount of vegans and vegetarians has grown, it must not be what we would call "healthy" vegans and/or vegetarians. <<

Yes, absolutely. It is stylish, even faddish, in some circles to be vegan/vegetarian (what I meant by "the bandwagon"), but the actual practices are generally a far cry from McDougalling. I should know, as I was one of them! :\ As are some of my family members. Got cheese?
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Re: Are Americans eating healthier?

Postby Rob » Sun May 09, 2010 9:41 pm

I would like to be more optimistic and believe that the general trend is towards broad acceptance of vegan/vegetarian meals on occasion, vegan/vegetarian diets as a legitimate option and vegan/vegetarian lifestyles for the truly committed.

However, as Jeff points out, it does not appear people are eating more healthy foods, i.e. fresh fruits and vegetables. On the other hand, there continues to be a consistent growth in Farm Markets - an annual average 13% increase per year over the last 16 years, from 1,755 Farm Markets in 1994 to 3,137 in 2002 and 5,274 in 2009:

http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fet ... frmrdirmkt

Is this simply a shift from purchasing at supermarkets to farmer's markets or an increase in absolute consumption of fruits and vegetables? Is it a case where the same relative percentage of people are eating fruits and vegetables but now that same group is consuming them in larger quantities?

Also, witness the tremendous growth in Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Fresh Market, not to mention the expanded produce sections of most mainline supermarkets. Who's eating all of this stuff?

Yet I see the same dismal numbers reported when people are asked whether they have consumed 5 servings of fruits and vegetables in the past 24 hours. The latest data I have seen has been for the 10 years ending in 2005. In a study completed in 2008, 'Trends in Fruit and Vegetable Consumption Among U.S. Men and Women, 1994–2005', the researchers concluded the following:

Methods
We assessed total and sex-specific changes in daily consumption of fruits and vegetables among 1,227,969 adults in the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia who participated in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System from 1994 through 2005. To estimate changes in consumption according to dietary recommendations that were in place during the years examined, we used geometric mean and the percentage of people eating fruits or vegetables or both five or more times per day. Estimates were standardized for sex, age, and race/ethnicity and analyzed by multivariate regression.
Results
From 1994 through 2005, the geometric mean frequency of consumption of fruits and vegetables declined slightly (standardized change: men and women, −0.22 times/day; men, −0.26 times/day; women, −0.17 times/day). The proportion of men and women eating fruits or vegetables or both five or more times per day was virtually unchanged (men, 20.6% vs 20.3%; women, 28.4% vs 29.6%); however, we found small increases for men aged 18 to 24 years and for women who were aged 25 to 34 years, non-Hispanic black, or nonsmokers. Consumption of fruit juice and nonfried potatoes declined for both sexes.
Conclusion
The frequency of fruit and vegetable consumption changed little from 1994 through 2005. If consumption is to be increased, we must identify and disseminate promising individual and environmental strategies, including policy change.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2396974/

It will be interesting to see what the numbers look like for 2006-2010. There is a lot of interest in vegan and vegetarian diets, farmer's markets, better school lunches, etc. Whether this will result in healthy dietary change of any significance remains to be evidenced in the studies I've seen to date.
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Re: Are Americans eating healthier?

Postby ruupyet » Sun May 09, 2010 10:29 pm

Rob wrote:
Is this simply a shift from purchasing at supermarkets to farmer's markets or an increase in absolute consumption of fruits and vegetables? Is it a case where the same relative percentage of people are eating fruits and vegetables but now that same group is consuming them in larger quantities?

Also, witness the tremendous growth in Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Fresh Market, not to mention the expanded produce sections of most mainline supermarkets. Who's eating all of this stuff?



In the county I live, there is a farmer's market in one of the nearby cities every day of the week. I have hit them all. The amount of fruits and veggies sold at the ones around here are minimal. The one I went to last week had a seafood vendor and a steak vendor! You can buy homemade soaps, blankets, jelly, cheese, dog biscuits, honey, essential oils, etc. Nothing wrong with those items but just because the farmer's market is drawing more people, that doesn't mean they are necessarily buying more produce. The other trend at the farmer's markets around here is that all the produce is grown hydroponically. I find the items to be drier compared with veggies grown in the ground.

I can only tell you what my friends buy at stores like Trader Joe's and it isn't good. Many of my friends feel if it came from TJ's or WF, it has to be healthy. We all know that is not the case. It isn't much different than someone seeing the words 'lowfat' or 'heart healthy' on a package and automatically thinking it is a great choice.

So while I agree that more people are shopping at these types of stores and farmer's markets, I still don't notice many making true healthy decisions. I will say that it is a step in the right direction but they still have a long road to follow to really get there.
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Re: Are Americans eating healthier?

Postby Skip » Mon May 10, 2010 2:01 pm

ESPN classic sports shows old baseball games, basketball games etc.
Last week, they were showing the 1976 American League baseball playoff series with the Yankees. The amazing thing is how much thinner and trimmer these players were than our current players. It's amazing how far we have come in 30+ years with the coming of steroids and the emphasis on high animal protein dietary habits for athletes.
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Re: Are Americans eating healthier?

Postby herbwalles » Mon May 10, 2010 3:15 pm

Skip wrote:ESPN classic sports shows old baseball games, basketball games etc.
Last week, they were showing the 1976 American League baseball playoff series with the Yankees. The amazing thing is how much thinner and trimmer these players were than our current players. It's amazing how far we have come in 30+ years with the coming of steroids and the emphasis on high animal protein dietary habits for athletes.


How come trimmer baseball players in 1976 and their "animal protein dietary habits" are linked to modern obesity problem in America?
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Re: Are Americans eating healthier?

Postby JeffN » Wed Nov 05, 2014 3:21 pm

I was updating a presentation with this newer data and it reminded me of this older thread, as I thought it applied to the topic..

The results of this study are not only very sad, they did not improve over the 30 years of the study.

Healthy Lifestyles Reduce the Incidence of Chronic Diseases and Dementia: Evidence from the Caerphilly Cohort Study. PLoS ONE 8(12): e81877. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0081877 (2013)

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Ad ... ne.0081877

The Caerphilly Cohort Study

- 2,235 men aged 45–59 years followed for 30 years

- Tracked 5 Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors

1) Smoking: not smoking, including ex-smokers;

2) BMI: body mass index 18 to under 25 Kg/m2;

3) Diet: 3 or more portions of fruit &/or veggies/day was accepted as ‘healthy’, together with < 30% of calories from fat;

4) Physical activity: walking 2 or more miles to work each day, or cycling ten or more miles to work each day,

5) Alcohol: three or fewer units per day

- Those following all 5 slashed the risk of developing diabetes by 70%, heart attack, stroke and dementia by 60% & cancer by 40%

- Only 1% followed all five of the behaviors

- Only 5% followed at least 4

- At baseline..... only fifteen men consumed five or more portions of fruit and/or vegetables daily, so the definition of this behaviour was reduced to three or more portions per day, and 18% of men satisfied this criterion.

- Only 429 (19%) followed three behaviors, 111 (5%) followed four or five behaviours and only two (0.1%) followed all five behaviours

- These numbers didn't change over 30 years

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Re: Are Americans eating healthier?

Postby dteresa » Wed Nov 05, 2014 6:28 pm

Re: some of the statistics. The statistic that eighty percent of sit down restaurants offer veg meals is surprising. Of course there is no definition of what veg means. I can't believe it means no fat vegan because all the veg meals I see both in regular restaurants and vegetarian restaurants have plant foods loaded with cheese and oils. Unless you mean you can order a plain baked potato and a salad with balsamic vinegar on the side and consider that a veg meal.

The statistics for those with diabetes who are either obese, overweight, normal weight or underweight add up to about forty percent. What about the other sixty percent of diabetics. Don't get it.

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Re: Are Americans eating healthier?

Postby Spiral » Wed Nov 05, 2014 6:53 pm

I don't see Americans eating healthier. In my workplace I hear of various people following gluten free diets. But I wonder how many of them actually have a gluten sensitivity.

One woman has diabetes and talks as if she is an expert in controlling a type 2 diabetic's blood sugars. She's a smoker and she's very overweight.

It's what Jeff said a few years ago. It's not what people don't know that is the problem. It's what they are certain of that isn't true (or a half truth) that is a big problem.

One woman at work who is very overweight told me (in a nice way, I suppose) that her metabolism is different than most peoples' metabolisms and that she could eat the same number of calories that I eat and she would not lose weight.

And this she knew . . . . . . . . how? Because she wanted to believe it?

One of my relatives who has two MDs (one in anesthesiology and one in pediatrics) is now on a gluten free diet. But cheese is okay, as is yogurt. She's a lacto-ovo-vegetarian. But I have to say that she maintains a low BMI. She participates in Ironman races.

I think my relatives represent the rare outlier in America. They eat lots of fat, lots of wine, lots of meat, cheese. But they don't seem to be overweight and don't seem to be suffering from any health problems, which is remarkable, given their age. Though, I admit that they do stay away from high fructose corn syrup.

Maybe that's all one has to do to be healthy, huh? Stay away from high fructose corn syrup. Oh, and sugar.

It's so frustrating. The disinformation. The ignorance. That combined with greed is the source of our discontent. :cry:
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