[ellyagg]

No way. Health scare memes are absolutely dangerous and almost certainly the reason for the most pernicious and widespread health problems in the US.

The media always need a new villain. If it were settled that an obvious component of our diet were the culprit for most of our problems, much of the drama and conflict would be drained from one of their favorite story lines.

Your example of trans fats is a good one. Trans fats are bad relative to other fats, but nowhere near as sickening as sugar and corn syrup. Unfortunately, reporting on the evils of trans fats is in its shiny glamorous stage, so we are bombarded with stories about it, which creates a skewed perspective on what matters to our dietary health.

Today's health crises, which exploded around 1980, can be traced back to the media trumpeting the twin (false) claims that dietary fat is evil and that corn syrup is a healthful alternative to sugar. Given the power of the media, this predictably resulted in an explosion of corn syrup uptake and consequently an explosion in obesity, diabetes, and probably cancer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.htm...

[arohner]

>Today's health crises, which exploded around 1980, can be traced back to the media trumpeting the twin (false) claims that dietary fat is evil and that corn syrup is a healthful alternative to sugar.

I'm surprised you think this is only the media's fault:

"In January 1977, after listening to the testimony of Ancel Keys and other doctors and scientists intent on promoting the unsupported Dietary Fat-Heart hypothesis, the Committee published the "Dietary Goals for the United States" recommending that all Americans reduce their fat, saturated fat and cholesterol consumption, and increase their carbohydrate consumption to 55-60% of daily calories."

http://www.healthy-eating-politics.com/usda-food-pyramid.htm...

[SomeCallMeTim]

I know, I read the article about sugar as well. And I think there's a good chance it's probably right, and as a result I'm eating less sugar. It was actually when I went from drinking a six-pack of soda a day to none at all that I immediately stopped gaining weight and started losing weight.

My point about trans fats is that it's been known for YEARS that they're bad, and as you point out it's only recent that people have been believing it. I've been avoiding trans fats for over ten years, since well before most people had heard of them, but the original studies showing they were bad news date back to the 50s.

I think you may have misunderstood my point. What I'm saying is that the "it's another health scare meme" is a dangerous concept because it causes people to ignore ALL health advice they hear. Your point about false health claims reinforces my point: Because a lot of "health claims" made in the press are based on a single study (which could be poorly designed or just randomly showing a result), people now ignore all health advice. They've lost faith that any health advice can possibly be useful to them.

That's why I'm saying that it's a dangerous habit to label every new health report as a "health scare meme." On the other hand, it's also important to take pretty much anything you see in the press with a grain of salt. My hope is that, now that we have Google and other online research options, it will be easier to debunk the garbage ("my all protein diet is good for you!") and determine what the studies really show.