The sound of the guns could be heard all over the UKs news channels today as the National Obesity Forum sought to demolish official dietary guidelines from Public Health England (PHE). The so called “Eatwell Plate”. All the more remarkable if we remember that both used to part of the same organisation that jointly promoted earlier versions of the same advice. A truly astonishing turnaround from the National Obesity Forum but no less welcome for that.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/22/official-advice-to-eat-low-fat-diet-is-wrong-says-health-charity
So I haven’t read the report at the time of writing this but from the articles it looks like good stuff. Judging by the reaction of Professor Susan Jebb, the UK governments advisor on obesity, on BBC radio this morning it’s pretty incendiary too!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Jebb
To say she was angry is putting it mildly, she was apoplectic with rage!! It was interesting for me to see that she adopted the same tactics as are traditionally employed against people who question official dietary guidelines, attack the messenger rather than engage with the arguments. Watch out for more of this in the weeks to come from the food industry and the vested interests such as PHE.

Finally, after what feels like a long winter, spring has made to the UK and my little corner of Surrey. We had temperatures in the high 20s at the weekend which was a shock as the week before we were below 10!

We are not quite out of the woods yet as far as frost is concerned but the plants in the garden have gone into overdrive. First out of the blocks is the asparagus. It’s my indicator that soon I can stop buying vegetables and collect them from the garden and allotment.

Following closely behind the asparagus will be broad beans and salad vegetables like rocket and lettuce. It’s also gratifying to see I still have two squashes from last year left when it’s almost time to start this seasons.

Growing vegetables connects you to the seasons and their variations. Eating your own produce eliminates the pesticides and other chemicals that are used by commercial producers.

Back to the asparagus… I think  it’s going to be a good year for using my traditional asparagus knife.

Always in debt to my fitness colleagues at Run to Live for keeping me on the straight and narrow with footwear.

If you are in Surrey and need shoes, Run to Live is my top recommend. 

Something that I talk about with my clients regularly is how big a portion of food should be. It seems to me that we have got collective amnesia when it comes to how much we should be eating and there is very little advice around except what food manufacturers decide to print on the packet. Not much good if your objective is to buy and eat food that doesn’t come in a packet…

In my experience of being an obese person, one of the most insidious effects of fast, processed carbohydrates was to make you want more and more of them. “Want” is probably the wrong term as it suggests there was some sort of choice in the matter and to my mind there wasn’t much choosing by me, it seemed to happen without my noticing that my portions of carbohydrate got larger and larger. By the time I reached my heaviest, I would think nothing of cooking an entire 500g packet of spaghetti for two of us and then eating most of it myself. My portion would barely fit on the plate and, after I had finished it, moving around was quite uncomfortable for a while. But that was the amount of spaghetti I had to eat to feel like I had eaten enough. I didn’t worry that so much spaghetti was making me over weight because spaghetti has no fat in it and it’s fat that makes you fat, right? Wrong. That amount of carbohydrate was massively spiking my insulin, forcing me to store almost everything I ate; storing the energy from the carbohydrate as fat, and a lot of it too. What’s worse is that when the insulin had done its job and stored everything away, my blood was then low in glucose and within a couple of hours I was hungry again. So the cycle of weight gain goes round and round and potions get ever larger to try to stop the feelings of hunger but larger portions make you MORE hungry, not less.

Today the Guardian tells us that a portion for spaghetti is about the size of a tennis ball at 150g.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/apr/25/problem-portions-eating-too-much-food-control-cutting-down

I don’t know what the weight was of the portions I used to eat but they were more like a volley ball size than a tennis ball. I do know what my recommended portion size is for spaghetti now is though. 0g. Enjoy.

Yesterday the World Health Organisation has published its Global Report on Diabetes which estimates that 422 million people people worldwide were suffering from diabetes in 2014.

http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/204871/1/9789241565257_eng.pdf?ua=1

The key messages make distressing reading:

– Diabetes caused 1.5 million deaths in 2012.
– Higher-than-optimal blood glucose was responsible for an additional 2.2 million deaths as a result of increased risks of cardiovascular and other diseases, for a total of 3.7 million deaths related to blood glucose levels in 2012.
– Many of these deaths (43%) occur under the age of 70.
– In 2014, 422 million people in the world had diabetes – a prevalence of 8.5% among the adult population.
– The prevalence of diabetes has been steadily increasing for the past 3 decades and is growing most rapidly in low- and middle-income countries.
– Associated risk factors such as being overweight or obese are increasing.
– Diabetes is an important cause of blindness, kidney failure, lower limb amputation and other long-term consequences that impact significantly on quality of life.

For the last 40 years in the western world at least, our governments have been issuing nutritional advice and guidelines as to the types and amounts of food we should eat while at the same time we have got more and more over weight and more and more unwell. Now the developing world appears to be playing catch up with us.

Can it really be the case that millions and millions of people have been deliberately ignoring the advice that their governments have been giving them? I doubt it and the evidence is that calorie intake has gone down and exercise levels have gone up. Which is exactly what the WHO is calling for in its report. But if that is what has already happened and diabetes has gone UP, what is the point of asking for more of the same?

In my view and my personal experience, it is the ADVICE that is wrong. Not the exercise more bit, we should all do that, but the advice about what we should be eating. Advising people to eat a low calorie and low fat diet is the same as advising them to eat a high carbohydrate diet and a diet high in carbohydrates increases insulin production and promotes fat storage. A diet high in fast carbohydrates such as sugar, may lead to the development of diabetes.

So why do governments continue to promote this type of diet when all the evidence suggests that it is making us seriously ill. The Guardian has published a summary of the case against the nutritional establishment, funded by the food industry and determined to silence those who question the evidence that has supported the dietary guidelines. Its a sorry story of ruthless personal ambition mixed with very poor science and an absolute determination to never admit that you might have been wrong. And its killing 422 million people.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin

And if you are on Facebook, Wheat Belly has picked it up too:

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialWheatBelly/?fref=nf

Three weeks after the spectacular unraveling of the sugar tax in the UK, The Lancet reports that we are now on track to become the most obese country in Europe. At least we are good at something.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/31/british-people-will-be-fattest-in-europe-by-2025/

We are also still waiting for the UK government’s Childhood Obesity Strategy which has been repeatedly delayed. I suspect that by the time it sees the light of day, many ofthe  overweight children that it is supposed to help will have become obese adults.

The Guardian is also carrying the story with a quite shocking graphic comparing the numbers of obese people with the number of underweight people in the world. Unfortunately I can’t copy it so if you want to be appalled you will have to go and look yourself.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/31/one-fifth-of-worlds-adults-will-be-obese-by-2025-study-predicts

Where is this all going to end and what can we do about it? With thanks to the Irish Times, (Ireland is sharing the obesity honours with the UK) here is a sobering assessment from the report:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/ireland-s-obesity-rate-among-world-s-worst-1.2594266

That’s right… 0% probability of halting it. A generation of children destined to die before their parents.

I like this article and I certainly like the exercise! The Turkish Get Up is a simple but extremely effective all-body exercise. Its usually done with a kettlebell, but if you don’t have a kettlebell then any weight will do, just make sure it has a safe way to grip it as the last thing you want to do is drop the weight on your head as your get tired!!

If you are not sure of the format of the exercise from the article then there are a load of video demonstrations on YouTube.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/26/turkish-get-up-exercise-review

If you have never done the exercise before, then take it steady and be aware of how you feel as it gets very tiring very quickly!

Have fun with the TGU!!

The UK’s (btw, is it a UK tax? Will it apply in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?) sugar tax may have a shorter life than expected…

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/mar/20/drinks-makers-consider-legal-action-against-sugar-tax-budget

A HM Treasury spokesperson said: “He introduced a new levy on the soft drinks industry to pay for a doubling of dedicated sport funding for every primary school in the country, a huge expansion of breakfast clubs to ensure that every child gets the best start to the day, and new funding for a longer school day.

“The chancellor also made clear that this was a policy aimed at driving meaningful change. The new levy will not be introduced until 2018, giving companies plenty of time to change product mix and reduce sugar content.”

How will it pay for all those things, and the list of things seems to be getting longer, if the manufacturers reformulate their products to avoid the tax? 

I haven’t got my head round this yet, principally because I am skiing in the Pyrenees, but you may be interested to look through. As ever, with a tax designed by HM Treasury, it appears to have some odd consequences…

http://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/budgets/budget2016/budget2016_ks.pdf
And of course, Coca Cola says it won’t work…

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/mar/17/coca-cola-hits-back-at-sugar-tax-plan

Britvic sort of get it, although they don’t know it… 

“We remain of the view that only a holistic, wideranging strategy will tackle obesity.”

Yes I agree, and you are the start.

Let’s see how this develops…

“Osborne announces a new £520m levy on sugary drinksOsborne turns to child health.

A child age five eats their body weight in sugar every year, he says.

He says some manufacturers are addressing this. Industry can act and, with the right incentives, it will.

He says is is not prepared to do nothing.

A sugar tax to be introduced on the drinks industry. It will be introduced in two years time, so they have time to change. There will be two bands. Pure fruit juices to be excluded.

The government will consult on this, he says.

He says manufacturers can choose if they want to pass the price onto consumers.

Sugar levy to raise £520m.

Money to be used to double the amount of money spent on sports in schools. And schools will be able to apply for money to extend the school day, with more sports activities. One quarter of schools will get help. But that is just the start, Osborne says.”