My Nutrition Topic Proposal Crashed and Burned

Eating disorders and body image issues make dietary guideline reform off limits

Okay, first off, it was my fault. I wasn’t prepared and was presenting to an audience of very prepared and capable people. Friday and Saturday I made a case for a national debate topic on reforming the federal dietary guidelines and nutrition policies. My proposal drew mostly from Nutrition Coalition research and advocacy, plus my brief for the Goodman Institute (pdf). My focus was on Americans suffering (last post) from poor metabolic health (over 80%) and being overweight or obese (where much quality research shows reducing carbohydrates is key).

But a recent high school debater participating in the conference was deeply concerned that a topic making students debate diet and nutrition issues would be dangerous since many are themselves dealing from eating disorders and body image issues. It was recommended that “dietary” be removed from the topic title and replaced with “food security.” I suggested adding “nutritional quality” as a qualifier:

Resolved: The United States Federal Government should significantly improve the nutritional quality of food assistance programs for public schools, hospitals, nursing homes, the military, or low-income families.

An advantage of this resolution was to focus on reforming the food programs the federal government actually runs or influences, rather than changing what the federal government tells everyone they should eat. Of course “experts” disagree on what foods offer “nutritional quality.” But this is okay because students can do their own research on nutrition and health. But I defer to our high school (now college) student with first-hand knowledge of the extent of eating disorders and body image issues among debaters and other high school students.

So, if we can’t debate reforming the federal dietary guidelines now because of the severity of eating disorders and body image concerns among high school students, let’s address these problems this year and next, so students can be healthy enough to debate reforming the federal dietary guidelines a couple years from now.

Eating disorders and being overweight or obese in high school and college has it’s origin with metabolic syndrome/insulin resistance and not from “eating too much and not exercising enough” (the standard energy balance theory). Today’s food culture and policy makes things worse, as students are offered high-carb/low-fat meals in schools, and industry endlessly promotes fast food, pizza, and processed foods.

Blame the fast food and processed food industry’s quest for profits, or blame corporate influence of medical and nutritional schools, or blame federal dietary guidelines. There is plenty of blame to go around. But let’s get healthy. Not everyone has the skills to research the divergent viewpoints and research. But debaters do have these skills, and they can find and advocate pathways to restorative health.

I’m watching these videos now and students can too. For eating disorders, we can start with the worst first…

The studies discussed on LowCarbMD Podcast.

And Ketogenic diet may help eating disorders
https://www.dietdoctor.com/ketogenic-diet-may-help-eating-disorders