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Comment by aplummer | Hacker News Reader

I often get frustrated with people who hate the food pyramid. A modern diet now lets people be the biggest, fastest and strongest they have ever been. The only difference is now we have the flexibility to be informed and eat the healthy or destroy ourselves with bad food where previously malnutrition made that call for us.

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Modern diet is good in some respects, but bad in others.

Some populations have famously experienced strong detrimental effects on their health when switching away from more traditional diets. North Karelian heart attacks post-WWII are a notorious example.

Within my field of research, we know there's an enormous budding crisis in Southern US. A very significant fraction of all Alabama population is pre-diabetic. This is a massive public health problem. Corn syrup-driven diets are terrible.

Out of curiosity, has the population realized this to any level? Are there any actions being taken to address this? It seems like an incredibly horrible problem!

Yes, Healthy at Any Size, Paula Deen, etc.

Obesity as a result of poor diet is a point of pride for many people in the US.

I thought HAES stood for 'health at every size' meaning you should strive to be healthy no matter how fat you are?

No, it means that you can have a BMI of 45 and still be "healthy" in the eyes of people who are definitely not doctors.

Alabama state is devoting tons of money to Type 2 Diabetes research. However, the problem is already there. And with all those pre-diabetics, I'm not sure how the healthcare system will be able to function in few years time.

I think it's in part a sociocultural issue. If your rent is low, you tend to avoid buying good food which is usually way more expensive and less satiating than cheap and simple carbohydrates.

Abusing soft drinks is also really problematic. These completely wreck your metabolism with their high concentrations of soluble syrups.

Yes, the CDC has even published material identifying the "Diabetes Belt" which covers hundreds of counties that have almost twice the rate of Type 2 Diabetes than the national average. [1]

[1] www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pdfs/data/diabetesbelt.pdf

Despite the fact that there are many different "food pyramids" the USDA food pyramid was basically pay to play propaganda, created by various food industries. Also note how I say was because the USDA food pyramid existed less than 20 years and was retired in 2011 because the science became undeniable. Of course the new "food plate" really isn't much better and is still USDA propaganda paid for by the food industries.

Few, if any, of the biggest, fastest and strongest athletes eat a diet based on the food pyramid.

He's speaking about people in general, not about athletes which eat diets that are highly specific to the task at hand. (runners eat very, very differently from power lifters)

Yet one of the often heard arguments in favour of the pyramid I remember is that it has lots of starches because it was good for people who practiced sports (in general).

It was something said to everyone in high school.

A modern diet being better than the past doesn't mean people shouldn't hate on the food pyramid. There's plenty of reasons to.

I am skeptical that the food pyramid has anything to do with what you call the "modern diet". What seems to be happening is that food is cheaper and more diverse than ever before. This appears to be a byproduct of technological progress and trade, not some government chart.

Fortunately, almost everybody ignores the food pyramid. They just interpret it as "oh, I should try to eat from all the food groups". Fine.

The problem with the food pyramid is that it is based on obsolete science at best, and was probably designed by food industry lobbies.

What food pyramid? The one with excess simple carbs and lack of fats that caused the obesity epidemic?

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