It may be a new year, but in the world of nutrition, not much has changed--yet. If the amount of press dedicated to who gets to say what in the next edition of a document the previous
edition of which insisted no American has ever paid one whit of attention to has taught us anything, it's that
"facts" don't always do what we want them to do, right, Secretary Vilsack? And so, just like David Byrne, we're
stiiiilll waiting
on the 2015 Dietary Guidelines, which were due out, like, last year already.
Like the Dietary Guidelines, my life is all about things changing and staying the same. As both of my readers probably already know, I'm smack dab in the middle of a
PhD program in communication, rhetoric, and digital media. Quite a switch from my work in nutrition? Not really. The things I work on in my studies now are
the same things I was interested in as a PhD student in nutrition epidemiology: dietary recommendations, politics of food, the health gap, methodological issues in nutrition epidemiology of chronic disease, and the ethics of dietary policy. Only now I have
a theoretical toolbox that is actually useful for critically examining those things.
Here's the thing though. I thought that approaching nutrition from the perspective of rhetorical and communication theory would help me take a big step back and take a couple of
deep breaths and have a nice cool, calm, totally "academic" attitude about things. Nope. The more I study this stuff, the more ticked off I get. In fact, the more sensitized I am to the rhetoric of nutrition and the better I can identify and understand the
structures of privilege and power at work in the discourse surrounding food and health in America, the angrier it makes me. Same as it ever was.
To avoid beginning the year with a full-on, foam-at-the-mouth rant, I am instead hosting a wonderful guest post from my good friend Jennifer Callihan over at
EAT THE BUTTER.org. She has a smart, perceptive take on the past 35+ years of nutrition recommendations from a unique perspective. Her post,
"Low Fat, High Maintenance," provides some insight as to why the low fat dietary approach really does "work" for some Americans--and really doesn't work for many more (and she does this without mentioning "insulin" once). If you haven't already,
you should check out her work.
Her post is the stepping stone to a different direction for my own writing. I'm sick of the diet wars, of "good" science vs. "bad" science, but I still think it is important to
try to understand why all the talking heads of nutrition feel compelled to insist that everyone in the known universe can (and should) win at the game of "health through food" and in
exactly the same way, despite vast differences in metabolic and genetic characteristics, and more importantly, economic and social contexts (I'm looking at you, Michael
Pollan, Marion Nestle, Walter Willett, and--the biggest meat puppet of them all--David Katz). Jennifer not only brings a fresh new voice to the discussion, she directs our attention outside of our own bodies, to how all of us must negotiate our "food worlds"
on very different terms.
Stay tuned. Jennifer's post will be up later this week, followed by some commentary by me. As grad school allows, I'll return to the regularly scheduled, full-on, foam-at-the-mouth
rant already in progress.
Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don't do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them
Facts are nothing on the face of things
Facts don't stain the furniture
Facts go out and slam the door
Facts are written all over your face
Facts continue to change their shape
--The Talking Heads,
"Crosseyed and Painless"
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