I would not underestimate the importance of US dietary guidelines.
For example, dietary guidelines are followed by schools, hospitals and military. They are also taught in medical schools and used by doctors to advise their patients. Additionally, lots of countries semi-blindly follow whatever guidelines US comes up with (see the parallel with covid treatments & measures?)
My gut feeling is that those guidelines directly contributed to a vast number of deaths / lost QALYs.
The effect could be different in Vietnam because of cultural differences, strictness of regulation or somethings else. Same as vaccine program compliance.
The central point is about adequacy of governmental decisions, not about compliance to them.
There are plenty of regulations about hospital food or child nutrition in the US that follow the dietary guidance. I have not looked into it but it would not surprise me if they regulate macro calorie intake for military (not that it matters for the central point of discussion).
There are plenty of regulations about hospital food or child nutrition in the US that follow the dietary guidance.
I don’t believe this. I could get Taco Bell and cookies and other junk food in my high school cafeteria out of proportion to the pyramid. No one was regulating calories or macros.
The effect could be different in Vietnam because of cultural differences, strictness of regulation or somethings else. Same as vaccine program compliance.
Maybe. But the point that USDA dietary guidelines causing are obesity is obviously wrong because the guidelines are the same in other parts of the world and they’re thin. At best you could say “contributing” in some vague way, but even that’s wrong.
Try strictly following the USDA diet guidelines, literally to the letter and calorie and macro and I will guarantee you that you will lose weight. I can also guarantee you that you will be in a group of maybe, 4 Americans that actually do this outside of metabolic wards.
The strictness of the regulations of pyramid in the US is basically zero, and the Vietnamese government doesn’t go around punishing people eating fat or sugar either.
I think you’re closer to the mark when you talk about cultural differences, but sill not quiet on it.
So what does cause this fattening effect? I think the book’s answer is “no single factor, but that doesn’t matter, because capitalism is an optimization process that designs foods to be as rewarding as possible, so however many different factors there are, every single one of them will be present in your bag of Doritos”.
I’m generally for free markets, but they are guaranteed to make populations fatter overtime.
I would not underestimate the importance of US dietary guidelines.
For example, dietary guidelines are followed by schools, hospitals and military. They are also taught in medical schools and used by doctors to advise their patients. Additionally, lots of countries semi-blindly follow whatever guidelines US comes up with (see the parallel with covid treatments & measures?)
My gut feeling is that those guidelines directly contributed to a vast number of deaths / lost QALYs.
Okay. Why would those guidelines be awful for Americans but great for the Vietnamese?
Are they? Like to the exact calorie and proportion?
The effect could be different in Vietnam because of cultural differences, strictness of regulation or somethings else. Same as vaccine program compliance.
The central point is about adequacy of governmental decisions, not about compliance to them.
There are plenty of regulations about hospital food or child nutrition in the US that follow the dietary guidance. I have not looked into it but it would not surprise me if they regulate macro calorie intake for military (not that it matters for the central point of discussion).
I don’t believe this. I could get Taco Bell and cookies and other junk food in my high school cafeteria out of proportion to the pyramid. No one was regulating calories or macros.
Maybe. But the point that USDA dietary guidelines causing are obesity is obviously wrong because the guidelines are the same in other parts of the world and they’re thin. At best you could say “contributing” in some vague way, but even that’s wrong.
Try strictly following the USDA diet guidelines, literally to the letter and calorie and macro and I will guarantee you that you will lose weight. I can also guarantee you that you will be in a group of maybe, 4 Americans that actually do this outside of metabolic wards.
The strictness of the regulations of pyramid in the US is basically zero, and the Vietnamese government doesn’t go around punishing people eating fat or sugar either.
I think you’re closer to the mark when you talk about cultural differences, but sill not quiet on it.
Scott (or Scott channeling Stephan) was on the mark here:
I’m generally for free markets, but they are guaranteed to make populations fatter overtime.