CNN NEWSNIGHT AARON BROWN (who of course is jewish)
cnn.com
BROWN: Back when the painter Peter Paul Reubens was making masterpieces out of well padded women. Tonights story would have been laughable. Back then obesity was desirable because being fat meant being rich and starveation was the norm. Today being fat is quickly the norm for rich and poor alike.
And the question is, does our diet have something to do with it. Not just how much we eat, although, clearly, that's part of it, but the kinds of foods we eat. Too many carbs say some, too much fat say others. We'll take up the battle of the bulge in a moment. First, though, the bulge itself.
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BROWN (voice-over): From kids loading up on nachos in a school cafeteria to adults flocking to fast-food joints. You can't argue the facts. More American kids and more American grownups are fat.
OZ GARCIA, NUTRITIONIST: We eat way to much. We don't exercise enough. We're exposed to tremendous amount of marketing muscle aimed at us to eat a lot more food than our bodies of capable of consuming.
BROWN: In the past 20 years, figures show the number of overweight children has doubled. The proportion of overweight adolescents has tripled. As much as 60 percent of the adult population -- 60 percent -- is either overweight or obese.
GARCIA: We're living through the fattening of America. When you have 20 million American children that are overweight, and that figure continues to expand at the rate of 4 percent to 6 percent a year, it's an extraordinary phenomena.
BROWN: But why? Some doctors believe the cause might actually be those so-called refined carbohydrates, the pasta, the rice, the bread. They're at the very foundation of the famous food guide pyramid. The government's guidelines for healthy eating.
GARCIA: It's getting worse. People are not losing weight as a result of better information and better access to food sources. It continues to expand. Within a number of years you're going to have 70 percent or more of the population overweight.
BROWN: So what to do. There's a proposed new food guide pyramid circulating these days, one that still has some with the same carbohydrates as the foundation, but puts things like pasta and potatoes way at the top. Saying clearly they are not nearly as important for health as we once thought.
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BROWN: This new food pyramid is part of the work that Dr. Walter Willett, the chairman of the department of nutrition at Harvard University Public Health has been doing. Dr. Willett with us now. Much of this was -- this work was originally reported in this week's edition of "Newsweek magazine."
Dr. Willard, it's good to have you with us. I'm going to get to the pyramid in a second. Let me ask you a quick question.
Do we know that the same foods, for example, that might make me fat would also make you fat?
DR. WALTER WILLETT, HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Well, there's really overwhelming evidence that it is total calories that count. Whether they come from fat or from carbohydrates, it's calories. But there's some issue whether it's easier to control the caloric intake depending on whether it's fat calories or carbohydrate calories. So there may be some differences.
BROWN: So there is some -- I guess -- how the body processes these different foods comes into play, and that's what the sort of fat at the moment -- the low-carb diet is all about?
WILLETT: Right. There are many diets. First of all, nutritionists and the food guide pyramid that's put out by the Department of Agriculture told the public that it was only fat calories that counted. And that we could load up on all kinds of fat- free cookies and cakes and it wouldn't make us fat. That probably has contributed to the obesity epidemic. We can't, of course, attribute the whole epidemic to that. There are many factors. But anything that makes it worse is a problem.
BROWN: And what they were telling us in this is, eat as little fat as you possibly can. And in fact, isn't there a reasonable body of evidence now that some fat, or some fats, think it depends on which ones, are actually good for you? WILLETT: Absolutely. Some fats -- and we've known this for 30 or 40 years -- are absolutely essential for a healthy life. Many fats in saturated fats in general will help reduce blood cholesterol levels and prevent heart attacks. There's now evidence accruing that high intake of refined carbohydrates that make up the base, the majority of the government's food guide pyramid can actually make it more difficult to control our caloric intake. Because when we eat a lot of refined carbohydrates, in a couple of hours we're hungry and head to the refrigerator.
BROWN: OK. I am going to go back to the old pyramid then we'll talk about then new pyramid again. If we can put that up. In the existing pyramid, which I think goes back about a decade now, that bottom level is -- that's bread, that's potatoes, that's pasta and the like, right?
WILLETT: Right. And it doesn't make a distinction whether it's white refined bread or what could be a healthier choice, whole-grain pasta or whole-grain bread. That will make an important difference.
BROWN: In your work, some of those carbs are still at the foundation, correct?
WILLETT: Right. I think in the healthy diet, it is possible to have a modest amount of those kinds of foods. As long as they're the whole-grain, high-fiber versions. But unfortunately, the vast majority of that base of the pyramid, that so-called complex carbohydrates are eaten as white bread, white rice and pasta. And is potatoes put in as a vegetable, but they really act just like white bread.
BROWN: Is there within the nutritional community, if that's in fact -- in fact there is such a thing -- is there an acceptance that the existing food pyramid is not healthful?
WILLETT: I think the situation is in flux. Just two or three years ago, it was against party line to even raise a hint that the food pyramid night not be good for us. But the last two years I think have seen a big shift. I think -- probably the majority of the nutrition community now believes that it's time for a major overhaul. In fact, some people are even suggesting the overhaul needs to be so dramatic that we should get rid of the pyramid shape itself.
BROWN: Is there in the formation of the pyramid, and these decisions is there political pressure? Do the rice growers weigh in and the potato people out in Idaho, and the ranchers and all of that?
WILLETT: You can bet there's plenty of political pressure out there. The agricultural economic forces are huge. They're more powerful than the tobacco industry. So each of those segments is out there pushing hard in every way they can directly and indirectly to make sure that they stay in a very prominent part on the dietary pyramid.
BROWN: Eat less, exercise more, always good advice.
Dr. Willett, thanks for joining us.
WILLETT: Good to be with you.
BROWN: Appreciate it. Dr. Walter Willett from Harvard university. |
