By Janet King and Cheryl Achterberg
Whatever your opinion of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., he’s the first national candidate to platform the issue of chronic disease in America. To address this crisis, for children and adults alike, our response should be bipartisan.
As former members of the expert committee that oversees the science for the U.S. Dietary Guidelines, we can tell you that these chronic diseases are primarily driven by poor diet, and our guidelines are part of the problem.
Published every five years by the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA), the guidelines represent more than just suggestions. They’re the nation’s nutritional North Star
But they’ve led us astray. Today, over 70% of American adults and one-fifth of children are overweight or obese.
As members (and one of us chaired) the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, we aimed for the highest quality reviews. Sadly, those standards have deteriorated, leading to a national nutrition policy that no longer reflects the best or most current science.
The guidelines were controversial at the start. In 1980, the National Academy of Sciences derided the diet’s foundational studies as “generally unimpressive.” Despite these concerns, the guidelines were embraced by government officials for most of the next four decades — even as the concerns of skeptics grew louder.
In 2017, two landmark studies from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine delivered a critical verdict: the development process lacks scientific rigor and transparency, leading to guidelines that were not “trustworthy.” The reports made 11 concrete recommendations to improve rigor and transparency in the guidelines process. Yet, shockingly, follow-up evaluations in 2022 and 2023 revealed that the USDA had fully implemented none of them.
The result? Continued untrustworthy guidelines that continue to drive bigger waistlines and poorer metabolic health.
Consider: Since the first guidelines were published in 1980, we’ve been told to fear fat and instead consume more than half of all calories as carbohydrates.
This advice fundamentally misunderstands metabolism. Chronic, excessive carbohydrate consumption — especially refined grains and added sugars — drives obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other metabolic disorders.
The guidelines also maintain an unfounded hostility towards saturated fats, ignoring the last decade of evidence challenging their link to heart disease.
Following the guidelines, Americans have increased grain calories by 28% since 1970, while reducing red meat intake equally. Butter and egg consumption dropped as vegetable oil use surged 87%. We’ve engineered a dietary disaster, swapping wholesome, satiating foods for processed carbohydrates that leave us hungry and sick.
Fortunately, hope is on the horizon thanks to this year’s farm bill. This massive legislative package, revisited every five years, could be the key to unlocking a healthier future for America.
The bill proposes crucial reforms to the guideline-development process, demanding “standardized, generally accepted evidence-based review methods” and requiring full disclosure of potential conflicts of interest among committee members.
By mandating greater transparency and adherence to rigorous scientific standards, we can begin to rebuild trust in these crucial recommendations.
It’s an opportunity to reclaim our health, one meal at a time.
Janet C. King, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, and former chair of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. Cheryl Achterberg is a former Dean at The Ohio State University and was a member of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. This piece originally ran in The Hill.
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