Harvard Healthy Eating Plate (29 languages, + kids' version)

[jimmylegs]

excellent evidence-based self care info. not following these guidelines doesn't show up in standard bloodwork until there is a serious problem.
if you need help evaluating your day to day routine, a registered professional dietitian* can help you assess whether you are on track, or off the mark.

main HHEP page
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritions ... ing-plate/

"The Healthy Eating Plate, created by nutrition experts at Harvard School of Public Health and editors at Harvard Health Publications, was designed to address deficiencies in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s MyPlate. The Healthy Eating Plate provides detailed guidance, in a simple format, to help people make the best eating choices...

"Use The Healthy Eating Plate as a guide for creating healthy, balanced meals—whether served on a plate or packed in a lunch box. Put a copy on the refrigerator as a daily reminder to create healthy, balanced meals!...

"The main message of the Healthy Eating Plate is to focus on diet quality..."



(the canadian version treats top level whole grain info better though - imho)

kids' version
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritions ... ing-plate/

kids' lunchbox version (*almost* just in time for back to school!)
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritions ... hool-fuel/
(as a one-time outdoor educator who has seen a *lot* of lunchboxes, please please embrace this info, parents!)

not a huge fan of canada's version https://bit.ly/1SzUlxl
info provided via category mouseover is okay, but in some cases it still leaves room for willful misinterpretation (no veg/fruit ratio for example)
for the most part - except re whole grains - i like HHP better because the flyout info is just there to read
i think the interactivity for the cdn version may be linked to govt style guide requirements for accessible text
from my able-biased perspective, more clicks create an extra barrier between the user and important health info!

*smug footnote: recently sent a friend to a dietitian. after the appointment, she reported back that i'm 'better' ;)

[ElliotB]

If these nutrition experts at Harvard School of Public Health are so smart, why are there so many sick people (the majority of Americans have something that ails them) and why have more and more people gotten sick over the 50+ years these types of recommendations have been made?

A brief 'Google' history on the topic:

The first pyramid was published in Sweden in 1974. The 1992 pyramid introduced by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was called the "Food Guide Pyramid". It was updated in 2005, and then it was replaced by MyPlate in 2011.

[jimmylegs]

might be worth a review of correlation and causation. aside: i'm happy if everyone thinks HHEP has replaced the USDA's version.

HHEP is going by statistically powerful evidence (does this improve over time? certainly).
in contrast, observing that ice cream is associated with drowning just means it's summertime.

as stated front and centre above,

not following these guidelines doesn't show up in standard bloodwork until there is a serious problem.

also: city planning which concentrates unhealthy choices in areas with poor socioeconomic status ie poor capacity to take the healthy high road.

not fair to some cool ecosystems but these undesirable conditions are known as "food deserts" and "food swamps".

related: societal convenience addition, which plays out in more ways than i could count. cutting corners across the board.

No, Congress did not declare pizza a vegetable
https://wapo.st/2M8Q1EL
"Just 20 percent of schools served meals that met federal guidelines for fat content, according to a 2007 USDA audit."

Socio-economic status of the patient and doctor–patient communication: does it make a difference?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 9104000990
coles notes: yes, suck it poor ppl

Patient recall of receiving lifestyle advice for overweight and hypertension from their General Practitioner
https://bmcfampract.biomedcentral.com/a ... -2296-11-8
coles notes: 60% of opportunities missed

i could go on but it would be info posted previously here at TiMS and i should be working on something else right now.

[ElliotB]

What is so amazing is that even with reasonably advanced science and ultra smart researchers, it is still not known what is truly 'healthy'. Experts are all over the place and certainly in conflict with one another.

And ultimately, even if we did know for sure, many people would ignore the info anyway because taste and 'ease' is more important than nutrition to those that are not ill and even many that are.

Perhaps someday we will have some definitive answers!

[jimmylegs]

fad diets don't rest upon the powerful statistical foundation enjoyed by the HHEP. we certainly have room to improve on our characterizations of health, which in nutritional terms seek only to exclude outright deficiency. 'subclinical' will remain mysterious until we tighten up those reference ranges such that regular bloodwork catches the problems in good time.

we already know that blanket diet recommendations aren't universally helpful for ms. everyone knows that this ms diet might work for some and that ms diet might work for others. i've been repeating for ages that these various diets move adherents from one unhealthy extreme or another, to a more moderate, known, healthy centre. like the public health recommendations that have been there all along (which have improved over time given the available evidence, and will continue to do so).

it makes sense that swank's approach works for more people, because more people start with status quo lifestyles that would clearly benefit from putting the brakes on fat.
it also makes sense that wahls' approach would work for fewer people because far fewer ms patients will have vegetarianism in their personal back stories, which is the case for wahls herself.

related: one of my recent attempts to examine quite current (and yet heavily flawed) diet research design http://www.thisisms.com/forum/diet-f9/t ... ml#p254513