Undeniably, there is a healthcare crisis. Perhaps it hasn’t quite hit us yet, but it is not something that we can avoid discussing any longer. One in three American children is overweight or obese and by 2030 if current trends continue, 85% of American adults will be overweight or obese.[1] For years we’ve been preaching the virtues of eating healthy and exercising, but with scant success. What’s the problem?
There are numerous issues at play, including the availability of cheap fast food, increasingly sedentary lifestyles, and the disappearance of the sit-down family meal. Although very important, I don’t think that these factors entirely explain the problem. The obesity crisis emerges from the fact that Americans no longer know what food is. I’m not talking about the cultural acceptance of Twinkies, but instead our inability to see food as a whole rather than broken down into its components.
Science has identified the important nutrients that make up our food, which has in turn determined modern day eating practices. Food itself means less and less as the focus falls on its nutritional variables instead. We’re told that we need to eat fiber and vitamins while shunning carbohydrates and calories, and consequently seek or avoid foods containing these ingredients. In pursuit of a healthy diet, Americans are likely to seek out foods containing these nutrients rather than seeking foods which are recognized as healthy as a whole.
The benefit of breaking food down into its parts is that it allows all foods to become equal. If foods have the same levels of carbohydrates, calories, proteins, or fats, etc, they are treated as equals by our system of grading nutrition. Little consideration is made for food origin, freshness and level of processing or other factors. If all nutrients are comparable, it doesn’t matter if they are delivered via fast food or the farmers market. This has encouraged Americans to believe that it is acceptable to get our fiber from a yogurt instead of vegetables. Vitamin- enhance granola bars save us the inconvenience of eating fruit. Now we can serve children Lucky Charms, and know they’re eating healthy whole grains. What a fantastic way to eat healthier without having to change what we eat! And this has had very, very bad consequences for our health.
As long as Americans think that individual nutrients make a healthy diet, health will continue to decline. As long calorie-counting is a more popular weight loss tool than eating square meals, weights will continue to rise. Although a diet is much more appealing when you simply need to limit your order at McDonalds rather than finding a meal not fried in grease, it is no surprise that 95% of diets are unsuccessful in the long term. All food is not equal, and America needs to recognize that substitutions cannot be made when it comes to our diet.
Instead of seeing calories as a part of food, we need to focus on how food becomes part of a meal, and learn to recognize the health benefits of eating kale rather than eating Vitamin K. We need to overcome this need to micro-manage and regulate our diet. MyPlate, championed by Michelle Obama and Let’s Move! is the tool Americans should be using to reeducate themselves about food. Instead of listing the abstract nutrients our bodies need, it illustrates the whole foods that make a genuinely healthy meal.
Americans need to relearn what foods are healthy instead of what nutrients are necessary. When you eat a balanced meal, your nutritional needs are taken care of without needing to know anything more.
[1] http://www.thelunchtray.com/a-startling-infographic-on-childhood-obesity/
Well spoken. Unfortunately, the process of dividing up food into its component parts is a capitalistic venture that generates lots of revenue. So while your logic is sound, the forces of capitalism are against you, at least for now.
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