2019 March Board Book

The vilification of saturated fats, meat and dairy are just three elements in the commission’s plan that are being hotly contested in health and nutrition science. Others include the commission’s recommendations on "healthy" proportions of whole grains, overall carbohydrates and sugar in the diet. Their recommendations contradict recent high-quality nutritional studies on obesity and diabetes, including work from Willett's colleague at Harvard’s School of Public Health, David Ludwig . Given that 30 percent of the global population and most people in many western nations struggle with metabolic syndrome (increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels that increase risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes), adoption of the EAT-Lancet Commission proposals, either through policy changes or shifts in consumer behavior, risks repeating, and possibly exacerbating, the mistakes we made 40 years ago. The dangers of white hat bias In public health, there is a term for "bias leading to the distortion of information in the service of what may be perceived to be righteous ends."It is called white hat bias. This is the trap the EAT-Lancet report falls into. Nutrition is an arena where such bias could have profound consequences. It would not be the first time. Similar good intentions nearly a half century ago inadvertently made diet the leading cause of our global health and healthcare crises. The scale of our health crisis is on par with the projected climate impacts of the future including premature deaths, large scale human suffering and economic impact. The scale of our health crisis is on par with the projected climate impacts of the future including premature deaths, large scale human suffering and economic impact. For example, diet-related chronic diseases cost the U.S. economy nearly $3 trillion a year — that’s 16 percent of America’s GDP. By comparison, the U.S. Fourth National Climate Assessment estimates the economic impact of climate change on the U.S. economy around 10 percent of GDP by 2100. None of this diminishes the urgent need for aggressive action to curb climate change, especially through policies such as a carbon tax and indeed, many recommendations on food production and waste in the EAT-Lancet report. But the attempt to produce a scientifically credible dietary plan aligning nutrition science with environmental goals was doomed to fail from the start. The science on climate change is essentially settled. The science on nutrition is in flux. Prematurely forcing them together will, in the end, serve neither.