| Thirty years ago the majority of people were slim. If | | | | profession who happily went along. |
| they wanted to lose weight, they made sure it was an | | | | Clinics all over the world began to measure everyone's |
| at home weight lose. Today the majority of people are | | | | cholesterol. They did it by adding both readings |
| overweight. Chances are they are either on a diet, | | | | together to come up with a guaranteed high reading |
| about to go on a diet or they have just finishes a diet. | | | | for just about everybody. |
| In thirty years, diets have gone from being almost | | | | Thirty years ago the vast majority of people still had |
| ignored to being a way of life. | | | | their normal weight. Think of the hundreds of diets |
| You see to measure cholesterol, there are two | | | | people have used since then. Yet today, the average |
| separate readings. One is for the healthy cholesterol, | | | | person is grossly overweight. If just one of those diets |
| and the other for the bad. The correct reading is when | | | | had proved to work, we would all know about it, we |
| you deduct the count of the bad cholesterol from the | | | | would all have used it, and nobody would be fat today. |
| good. The labs did not do that. They added the two | | | | What has changed between the average person thirty |
| counts together. This meant that just about everybody | | | | years ago and the average person today? The |
| on the planet needed a diet to reduce their cholesterol. | | | | weight has certainly changed and so has the diet. If |
| Because nutritionists grabbed the opportunity to report | | | | you were to turn the food groups on that pyramid |
| on cholesterol, they became identified as having | | | | upside down you would almost have the diet people |
| discovered it. That gave their profession a lot of undue | | | | ate for centuries, right up till the sixties and seventies. |
| credibility. When they launched their first major diet, it | | | | Before you think it, let me point out that people had just |
| was said to reduce cholesterol. People who were slim | | | | as much available food on offer than they do now, |
| and had never dieted in their life rushed to use a diet | | | | including fast food. Shops had plenty of produce and |
| that would lower what was termed a dangerous level | | | | nobody went hungry. |
| of cholesterol. | | | | Obesity is now at epidemic levels. People with obesity |
| It has only recently become general knowledge that | | | | seem to lapse into type2 diabetes. This is a life |
| the reading for cholesterol had been incorrectly | | | | threatening condition. Food addiction is proving to be as |
| performed for almost thirty years. Even today you will | | | | overlooked or ignored as tobacco addiction used to |
| find a few labs and institutions that continue to cling to | | | | be. It is every bit as dangerous, possibly more so. That |
| the old way. | | | | is because despite the efforts of cigarette makers, |
| The diet was launched with a poster depicting a | | | | they were never going to turn everybody into a |
| Pyramid. The base of the pyramid was filled with | | | | smoker and in any case, not everybody who smoked |
| grains, cereals pasta and pulses. It filled around two | | | | got lung cancer. |
| thirds of the pyramid. | | | | Food addiction is different. We all eat food, every day. |
| Then there was a layer of greens; fruits and | | | | Most of us are addicted to it. We eat too much, we |
| vegetables. This was followed by small amounts of | | | | eat too often and we eat the wrong food. Most |
| meat and fish. This diet, we were told, was a direct | | | | people eat food the body was never designed to |
| response to the newly discovered cholesterol problem | | | | process. If we continue on our present path, we will all |
| caused by the bad diets in the past. | | | | end up obese, we will see our children grow up obese |
| You may wonder why that was suddenly a problem | | | | and soon our children's children may be born obese. |
| and why it was publicized by nutritionists rather than | | | | We have already seen that happen. |
| scientists, but nobody asked, not even the medical | | | | Our survival may no longer be all that certain. |