Is anyone else getting tired of the "medical community's" work at forcing us all to be "healthy" (of course, they get to define healthy)?

Here are the latest to piss me off:

Trans fats - the government tells us that trans fats are "bad". And some are - like the artificially produced ones that make Twinkie's cream filling shelf stable. So, in typical fascist style, they ban them. But oops, milk and meat contain naturally occurring trans fats, and there is some evidence that these trans fats may be good for you. Result: restaurants can't use butter now, cause doing so will add more than the allowed amount of trans fats.

Chinese food - the Center for Science in the Public Interest (gawd I'm ashamed to be a scientist some days) tells us that chinese food is "bad for you" - too much sodium, too many bad fats, whatever. And I suppose if you ate every meal at the all-you-can-eat Golden Taiwan Drangon Dynasty Buffet (or wherever), you might have a problem. But if I eat Chinese once a month, and have an order of General Tso's chicken, I don't think I'm going to flop over dead from a heart attack on the spot.

iPods - if you listen to an iPod with the volume turned up too high, it could cause hearing damage. Wow, that's so different than the old days when you had to listen to a stereo, and had those safe headphones - you know, the ones that couldn't cause hearing loss. Oh, and if you listen to an iPod while crossing the street, you might get hit. Better make that illegal.

Diets - Dean Ornish condemned the latest study that showed that the Adkins diet not only works, but is overall healthy. But you can't trust him on this, because he's not criticizing it as a doctor, but as a competitor in the "diet industry".

Ok, done for now, and yes, I do feel better.

this post reminds me of the movie "supersize me" about the guy who ate mcdonalds everyday, every meal for 30 days. and if they asked him if he wanted it supersized, he said yes.

yes he got majorly ill from this. too much of something could have negative effects on you.

quote:

Originally posted by john1520:
this post reminds me of the movie "supersize me" about the guy who ate mcdonalds everyday, every meal for 30 days. and if they asked him if he wanted it supersized, he said yes.

yes he got majorly ill from this. too much of something could have negative effects on you.

I was reading a blog entry by Dr. Eades (sp) (one of the authors of the Protein Power Diet) about that movie. His take was that it was the massive amounts of pop (soda to you Easterners) that the guy drank that caused the biggest problems (the fatty liver and large weight gain). He also said something else - that the movie creator won't let anyone see his food diaries, and that quite a few people have questioned the alleged weight gain.

What I get from that critique is that if you base your health choices on a movie, you are not making a wise choice.

So maybe the thread should be retitled "Media driven health practices" to make sure that the whole entertainment industry is included.