Politics of Government and Dietary Advice

The article "Politics of Government and Dietary Advice" addresses the ways that the government sets nutritional standards and the effect of these standards on food organizations. The original intention of each nutritional standard is to attempt to help the community make good choices about their eating habits. However, food organizations dont always go for the governments new standards because sometimes it gives the community a reason not to purchase their products, and so their business would be hindered. One particular example was when the World Health Organization advised the public to limit their sugar intake to improve their health. Of course everyone involved in an organization based in the production of sugar saw this as a threat to their business and fought to have the claim that sugar was bad for your heath revoked. The sugar organizations threatened to withdraw funding and so the World Health Organization withdrew their claim regarding sugar. Situations such as this continued to happen over time and the goverment could no longer tell the public exactly what they needed to do to practice a healthy diet. If they said that one thing was good to eat and another was not good to eat then not all food organizations would be happy with their new dietary guidlines. So, now these dietary guidelines are vague and can be broadly interpreted.

I find it slightly disturbing that the food industry has so much influence over the set dietary standards that the government publicizes. it would be interesting to see how much these industries spent on lobbying so that they can defend the health benefits of their products.

Also, I think that it can be assumed that the standard American diet is certainly one of the most unhealthy diets among those of other nations in this world. Would it be beneficial to mimic the dietary standards in countries that eat healthier than we do? Health in our country seems to be important, so the food industry should certainly not be able to call the shots on what makes a healthy diet.