Food and health education content

Dietary health education is not a unified recipe or list of taboos uploaded online at all, but a practical knowledge system covering the three-level logic of "public consensus on basic nutrition, individual differentiated adaptation, and long-term healthy behavior development." There is no absolutely correct dietary standard. All content must be adjusted according to the user's physical condition, living habits, and dietary preferences to be truly useful.

Let’s start with the most universal basic consensus, which is actually the content of the dietary guidelines officially released by various countries. For example, the 2022 Dietary Guidelines for Residents in our country recommends mainly cereals and potatoes, vegetables in meals, eating fruits every day, giving priority to high-quality protein, and less salt, oil, and sugar. These are all conclusions drawn from decades of large-scale clinical data. It is equivalent to a universal route map for public transportation. More than 90% of healthy ordinary people follow it, and basically there is no big mistake. After all, the current common problems among residents in our country are that the intake of whole grains is less than half of the recommended amount, the sodium intake is more than double the recommended amount, and the per capita intake of added sugar is still rising every year. These consensuses are based on the common problems of most people. Of course, there are many people who complain. The fitness circle says that the protein in the guideline is too little and the proportion of carbohydrates is too high. Vegans feel that the recommendations for eggs and milk are completely inappropriate. In fact, they are all right - the dietary guideline is originally a "passing line" for the general public, not an "optimal solution" for specific groups of people. If it is really used as a golden rule and applied to everyone, it will be easy to become accustomed to it.

Don’t tell me that I have really encountered this kind of thing. When I was doing nutrition consultation in the community last year, a 62-year-old aunt with chronic gastritis held up her mobile phone to show me the content of the health care account. She said that they were required to eat 1 pound of green leafy vegetables and three kinds of whole grains every day. Later, her diet was adjusted to include soft boiled green leafy vegetables and whole grains accounting for only one-fifth of the staple food. The symptoms disappeared within a week. You see, the consensus is that people are alive and dead. This is also the most controversial part of dietary health education.

Take the most controversial issue right now, carbohydrate intake, for example. The traditional nutrition community recommends that carbohydrates account for 50%-65% of total daily calories. However, supporters of low-carb and ketogenic diets claim that high-carbohydrates are the culprit of obesity and diabetes. Each side has its own research data to support it. A study published in The Lancet in 2023 that tracked 100,000 people has actually made it very clear: long-term carbohydrate proportions below 40% or above 70% will increase all-cause mortality, and it is not cost-effective to go to extremes. I have a friend who has been a fitness coach for 7 years. He used to do mild ketosis for pre-diabetic clients for 3 months, and his fasting blood sugar did drop from 6.8 to 5.4. However, in order to prepare for the competition, he went very low-carbohydrate for 3 months. His hair fell out in handfuls. During training, he could not even lift half of the usual weight until he was out of breath. Later, he only recovered after bringing the carbohydrate ratio back to 45%. Now when he makes plans for clients, his first priority is to check glucose tolerance. He will never tell everyone to give up rice and noodles.

Oh, by the way, there is another point that is easily overlooked: food and health education must also consider economic conditions. It is simply unrealistic to ask people with a monthly salary of 3,000 to eat avocados and salmon every day. Using affordable eggs, tofu, and ordinary green leafy vegetables can still achieve nutritional balance. This is also the least down-to-earth aspect of many Internet celebrity recipes.

Going a step further, many current diet and health education contents lack the aspect of "behavior development". They only list "what you should and shouldn't eat", regardless of whether people can do it or not. I once met a little girl who works in Internet operations. She must order a cup of full-sugar milk tea every afternoon. If you don't let her drink it, she will break down and can't even write a weekly report. If I ask her to give up milk tea completely, she will definitely lose her power within a week, and she will also become overeating due to guilt. Later, I changed the rules for her: she can drink a cup of full sugar every Wednesday and Friday, and replace it with sugar-free oolong tea and half a carton of pure milk the rest of the time. After two months, she felt that the full-sugar milk tea was too greasy, so she took the initiative to change it to three-thirds of sugar. She lost 8 pounds in 3 months and did not regain it. There are also many people who have emotional eating problems. It’s not that they don’t know that fried chicken is unhealthy, but that they want to eat something high in oil and sugar to relieve themselves when they are stressed. At this time, if you talk to them about the calories and dangers, it is purely to teach them how to control the frequency. It would be more useful to teach them how to control the frequency and how to adjust the structure of the next meal after eating.

I have been doing nutrition consulting for almost 8 years, and my biggest feeling is that diet and health education never draws a box for you to crawl into. I once met a Tibetan young man who lives in a pastoral area all year round. He eats yak meat and drinks butter tea every meal. His blood lipid level is normal compared to many mainlanders who eat boiled vegetables every meal. If you insist on changing him to a light diet, he can't even eat. How can he be healthy? To put it bluntly, these knowledges are all tools. You can choose what you can use. It is comfortable to eat, can persist for a long time, and the physical examination indicators are normal. It is better than any "standard answer".