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Comment by rainbowmverse | Hacker News Reader

The main thing I got out of this thread is that everyone thinks they know the right way to health, that everyone else disagrees with them, and I have no idea how to tell who's actually right.

If you want to know why there's a health problem in some developed countries, the confidence of all the factions in the back and forth in this thread is a shining example. Unless you can afford professional guidance (and know how to tell if they know what they're talking about), you don't have much hope unless you stumble on to something that works for you.

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I don't get that impression. Maybe I have selective reading but the following things get little controversy here:

1. Sugar bad

2. Eat less

3. Find good eating-habits that you can maintain indefinitely

Point three is where people will naturally have different outlooks. I don't read that as disagreement as much as diversity.

Points 1 and 2 are certainly controversial for endurance athletes doing intense workouts or races. Those are a small fraction of the population, but the point is there are hardly any universal guidelines.

or those are the exceptions that prove the guideline

I think we should also put culture/group back into the equation.

Instead of being bored on a couch watching channels, spend time with people gathering fruits and making your own meals as a fun thing to do. It may first feel dull at first but I think it's a good blend of social, physical and nutritional health.

I think it's easier for each faction disagree because even professionals disagree about fundamental nutrition and healthy living questions.

I think there's considerable evidence that human physiologies vary enough that different and contradictory regimens can seem to wonderfully for different individuals.

On the current topic, fasting might indeed work great for some but I stay close to underweight regardless of my diet or exercise regime so any serious, multi-day fasting probably wouldn't be healthy for me.

Edit: Also problematic is how the topic jumps from the topic of cancer and fasting, which is very specific, to the healthiness of fasting is problematic (coming before the jump you note, fasting-in-general to "here's a my fasting anecdote and pet-theory").

> If you want to know why there's a health problem in some developed countries, the confidence of all the factions in the back and forth in this thread is a shining example.

I think you might be extrapolating from your experience with your own social class. I can assure you that armchair nutritionistism is not the biggest problem for the majority of the country. Nutrition isn't on most people's minds--even people whose lives are imminently threatened by their nutritional habits.

>> "I think you might be extrapolating from your experience with your own social class."

You don't know anything about my social class. I'm not HN typical. People without much think about health too, and receive plenty of conflicting advice.

Or the huge reliance on personal anecdote and web sites/studies that agree with those anecdotes. It's stunning how quickly the dialog shifts from reasoned arguments about programming to "I'm right and you're wrong" in nutritional articles.

Personally, I find a collection of anecdotal data (ideally from a wide variety of people) is worth much more to me than these studies that just report average results that apply to the average person/animal/cell in their sample.

The average person/animal/cell doesn't exist, and focusing on that has been a huge mistake in my opinion.

How would you approach trying to determine a good approach to healthy eating for most people then? Even breaking it down into 27 different groups requires an average of each particular group.

I'd expand that a bit - how can you find a good approach for anybody based solely off anecdotes?

Finding someone with a similar age, height, weight, race, ancestry, metabolism, activity level, sleep level, gut flora, etc. to take advice from would be nearly impossible.

A dozen "it worked for me" stories without any form of control is effectively useless.

You use general principles. Eg, someone else posted this which I think is good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hara_hachi_bun_me

Also throughout the thread you see people saying "that's what worked for me, everyone is different". The underlying point is to eat a diet that satisfies your hunger to the point you feel comfortable without consuming more calories than you need for your daily activities.

People with a sweet tooth may need to avoid high fat, high salt stuff. People who enjoy fat more may need to avoid carbs. People who enjoy exercise may just need to exercise a bit more, etc.

The science is just immature and not actionable for most people. Any anecdotal evidence and it's inverse can be backed by some study all of equal quality/lack of quality. The science just hasn't transcended the quality of anecdotes yet.

At least anecdotes represent something vaguely real.

>"How would you approach trying to determine a good approach to healthy eating for most people then?"

I wouldn't. As noted in my response to falcolas' response to you I would assume everyone can have different approaches to the same problem. Breaking it down to subgroups doesn't really help that you are still going to be studying an average person that doesn't exist.

Yes.

We should let the body tell us what, and how to, eat. My body is allergic to a variety of food groups, so I'm eating only meat. Normally I eat two meals a day; but at times, depending on what my body wants, I may eat just one or three meals during the day.

There is no professional guidance.

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