I hate bulls%*t health scaremongers

mr_eddy

Ok so went to the docs the other day for a routine check up (required for some insurance) and it got me thinking about my health and made the decision to try and eat a bit more healthy and lose a few pounds.

So I started doing some research based on the latest fitness and nutritional stats etc and quite frankly I was amazed out how much stuff the average Joe is meant to take in or confirm too. Lets start with the fruit and veg - For ages it was '5 a day' now it transpires its at least 7 however it would be better apparently if we can get 10 portions of fruit and veg a day with only 1 coming from juiced fruit the rest has to be as nature intended.

On top of that we have to reduce salt/sodium to less than 2000mg a day, have 0.5g of protein per lb of body weight plus make sure all sugars are natural and then just when your head is about to explode with all the calculations we have to hit that 60/30/10% of protein/carbs/ fat ratio !

Whilst I was trying to get my head around the above I also decided to measure myself to gets some stats required for my BMI etc. Another shocking thing I noticed is that the natural waist line has absolutely NOTHING to do with the waist measurement on trousers, for example I am a 34" waist from most run of the mill shops, According to the doc my natural waist line when fully breathed out / pushing my belly out is 47" which means I am in the HIGH risk section of the population for heart attack / diabetes / stroke etc and yet I look like a normal bloke, not skinny but not fat just normal, I am naturally stocky always have been - I cycle 5 days a week and swim /gym twice a week but according to the numbers I am going to drop dead from a heart condition very soon.

Now I am sorry but I have some bones to pick with all this nonsense, firstly I don't think there is such as thing as '5 a day' as everyone's body is different and it does not take into the fact that most people take at least a multi-vitamin which whilst not as good as the real thing still counts for vitamin intake etc, also if everyone ate 10 portions of fruit and veg a day most people would be a LOT poorer and no doubt suffering from the runs. I eat a lot of fruit and a fair bit of veg but I don't count it - Can't we just say to people 'Fruit and veg is good for you so eat more of it!"

Secondly and the major criticism I have is the bogus stats that get put out there, if you waist is over X then you will die from Y or Z. If you don't eat enough of something you will get this disorder etc.

If I was to base my health on simply counting calories and taking measurements then I am not doubt far worse off than some super skinny person who lives off chicken nuggets and does no exercise simply because they're stats are more acceptable.

From now on I am not going to bother counting calories or ticking off boxes, I am going lose a few pounds, cycle a bit more and try and eat more wholesome food,

mr_eddy

And to further prove my point, look at the countries in the south med like south of France or Italy etc, most blokes there are not exactly skinny but they mostly live without much medical help well into their 80's or 90's, I can't imagine any of these old boys are ticking off boxes - no they simply eat decent food that happens to contains nice veg and fruit and just get on with it. I reckon the hectic stressful lifestyle and faster pace of things in the UK has just as big of an impact on health.

BelgianBeerGeek

I had a whole packet of Starburst the other day. I was disappointed to find that's not my 7 a day.

BelgianBeerGeek

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/heal ... 4031884715

ai_1

All the guideline figures you've mentioned are almost certainly based on statistical studies that show that people meeting certain criteria are at more/less risk of certain health issues. However, I think it's futile to try and position yourself nicely into each "healthy" bracket and think that means you're going to live forever. Statistics need context and appropriate analysis. For example the wasitline/height ratio is a refined version of the BMI scale used for years. BMI is a very rough rule of thumb for healthy weight but doesn't tell you what that weight is made up of so while it's accurate for most it's not for all (most rugby players would class as obese even if they have minimal body fat), the waist/height version takes location of mass into account so will be a more accurate indicator for a bigger propotion of the population but it's still not a direct measurement of health. It's a statistical indicator. If that's how you use it, it's a perfectly legitimate tool. So in your case, do you have a fair amount of abdominal fat or are you unusually proportioned? - it's probably one or the other.

5 a day is pretty much a PR exercise. Ticking off 5 or 7 or 10 per day doesn't magically make you healthier. It depends what those fruit and veg are, how much you eat of each, with what, what other nutrition you get and when, etc, etc, etc....

Health is a massively complex thing. Most of the advice and evaluation tools out there are just a snapshot of small sub-topics and some of them are contradictory. The simple truth is that it's a lottery which elements will be most critical for any given individual. You can try and cover as many bases as possible but really i think you need to accept you can't look up the "rules", follow them and be healthy.

Eat mostly unprocessed food including a broad variety of foods, avoid high body fat, avoid excessive sun exposure, excessive alcohol and excessive most things.... relax and hope for the best.
The "rules" are a legitimate tool to improve the health of a population on average. For any given individual it will probably be advantageous to follow a proportion of them but you can't be sure and so long as you understand the underlying principles the fine detail is much less important.

For example you mention in your post: "we have to hit that 60/30/10% of protein/carbs/ fat ratio"
Let's be honest, how credible is it that the human body is specifically demanding of a set ratio of different food types and furthermore that they just happen to be nice round numbers. Why would we have evolved that way?
I'm not familiar with this guideline but if you were to follow it along with some of the others I think you'll run into problems. Given fruit and veg are largely composed of carbs it might be tricky to stick to 7 "portions" of fruit and veg, 0.5g of protein per lb of body weight, and reconcile this with 60% protein and 30% carbs.

mr_eddy

As you state and as I was trying to get across ultimately it comes down to being sensible. I am NOT going to be and NEVER will be one of these people who never eats a chocolate bar or has a beer at a BBQ because the people who deprive themselves of the nice things in life quite frankly don't have a life.

As you say as a tool some things can help but ultimately it comes down to common sense, If you are normal height and find yourself picking up XL or XXL jumpers or 40" Jeans then that should be the indication that you are not healthy.

I think the only people who can with any justification analyse their health from a spreadsheet are athletes everyone else should just move more & eat less cr&p simples !

The trick is actually doing it ! I gonna give it my best shot.

ai_1

Agreed.

Although it is a good idea to have some sort of benchmark for what you should weigh and measure. It's very easy to suck in the belly and convince yourself you're in better shape than you are. I used to weigh 10kg more than I do now and had nearly convinced myself I was fine. I didn't look terribly overweight or unhealthy but I was definitely carrying an unhealthy amount of weight. However when I looked back at what I used to weigh in my mid-twenties it was clear that it wasn't muscle or "big bones". Nearly back to that range now and feel much better for it.

earth

Nutritional science seems to be a very unreliable field.

A few weeks ago I read this

http://news.sky.com/story/1227846/satur ... link-found

I also read something about there being no problem with dairy products and that margarine is the new evil instead of butter.

My suspicion is that when there is an oversupply of some foodstuff somebody cooks up a news story that it is the wonder cure for everything so people buy it all up.

earth

Then there was this the other day about unhealthy vegetarian diets

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 36340.html

feltkuota

Ai_1 wrote:

All the guideline figures you've mentioned are almost certainly based on statistical studies that show that people meeting certain criteria are at more/less risk of certain health issues. However, I think it's futile to try and position yourself nicely into each "healthy" bracket and think that means you're going to live forever. Statistics need context and appropriate analysis. For example the wasitline/height ratio is a refined version of the BMI scale used for years. BMI is a very rough rule of thumb for healthy weight but doesn't tell you what that weight is made up of so while it's accurate for most it's not for all (most rugby players would class as obese even if they have minimal body fat), the waist/height version takes location of mass into account so will be a more accurate indicator for a bigger propotion of the population but it's still not a direct measurement of health. It's a statistical indicator. If that's how you use it, it's a perfectly legitimate tool. So in your case, do you have a fair amount of abdominal fat or are you unusually proportioned? - it's probably one or the other.

5 a day is pretty much a PR exercise. Ticking off 5 or 7 or 10 per day doesn't magically make you healthier. It depends what those fruit and veg are, how much you eat of each, with what, what other nutrition you get and when, etc, etc, etc....

Health is a massively complex thing. Most of the advice and evaluation tools out there are just a snapshot of small sub-topics and some of them are contradictory. The simple truth is that it's a lottery which elements will be most critical for any given individual. You can try and cover as many bases as possible but really i think you need to accept you can't look up the "rules", follow them and be healthy.

Eat mostly unprocessed food including a broad variety of foods, avoid high body fat, avoid excessive sun exposure, excessive alcohol and excessive most things.... relax and hope for the best.
The "rules" are a legitimate tool to improve the health of a population on average. For any given individual it will probably be advantageous to follow a proportion of them but you can't be sure and so long as you understand the underlying principles the fine detail is much less important.

For example you mention in your post: "we have to hit that 60/30/10% of protein/carbs/ fat ratio"
Let's be honest, how credible is it that the human body is specifically demanding of a set ratio of different food types and furthermore that they just happen to be nice round numbers. Why would we have evolved that way?
I'm not familiar with this guideline but if you were to follow it along with some of the others I think you'll run into problems. Given fruit and veg are largely composed of carbs it might be tricky to stick to 7 "portions" of fruit and veg, 0.5g of protein per lb of body weight, and reconcile this with 60% protein and 30% carbs.

The 60/30/10 should be 60 carbs/30 protein and 10 fat...

priory

I am one of those tasked to push the absurdly detailed health advice, and much of it I too am uneasy about.

John Mortimer who wrote Rumpole is supposed to have said ' there is no pleasure in life worth giving up so that you can spend an extra 3 years in an old folks' home'.

get breast fed,don't get get fat, don't eat sheet, take a lot of exercise , have very old relatives, don't smoke. The rest of it is all a bit neurotic and might be distracting people from these things which really do work.
How often I am asked to check the cholesterol of a fat, smoking couch-potato, when statins for primary prevention have not even been shown to improve life-expectancy.

Oh, and don't exceed 50mph down slack hill unless it has been resurfaced recently.

sloppyschleckonds

mr_eddy wrote:

I am naturally stocky always have been

Rugby build?

finchy

Well, I'm staying in a Premier Inn for a few days, and eating all meals here, so on Wednesday morning I'll be able to give you all a report on what 4 days without vegetables does to a human body.

(Seriously, how the f'k do their restaurants get any custom? Even non-guests come to eat here. Why pay to eat such mediocre food?)

ai_1

johnfinch wrote:

(Seriously, how the f'k do their restaurants get any custom? Even non-guests come to eat here. Why pay to eat such mediocre food?)

Plenty people have no taste... or sense!

graham.

A modern nursery rhyme.

Jack Sprat ate lots of fat,
His wife ate lots of sweeties,
He has had a heart attack,
And she's got diabetes.