Mountains, Prairies, Oceans, and Diets

 In Preventive Medicine Column

Mountains, Prairies, Oceans, and Diets

The United States is beautiful, from its mountains, to its prairies, to its oceans, whether placid on a given day, or white with foam. It’s timely to recall that as we celebrate our day of independence. Kate Smith reminds us routinely, of course, in God Bless America.

Personal preference being what it is, many among us likely have a favorite among the diverse landscapes comprising the bounty of our common home. Skiers and climbers, for instance, might be forgiven for favoring mountains; divers, for favoring the oceans, and so on.

These are just opinions, but it wouldn’t be too surprising to learn that similar thinking extended itself into the realm of actual expertise. Environmental sciences are specialized like all others. A degree in forestry leads to very different places than a degree in oceanography. Scientists devoting their careers to the wonders of a given ecosystem could similarly be forgiven for singing its preferential praises.

But we all know, just the same, that there is no objective ‘best’ place. Is the most majestic mountain pass more or less beautiful than the most vital coral reef? That’s a subjective matter best consigned to the eye of the beholder, and everybody understands that. We also understand that the range of entries most of us would consider defensible is bounded. An alpine meadow versus a forest stream might be a tough call, but either compared to a patch of suburban sprawl or a parking lot would not be for most of us. There is a clear theme for the beauty of places, with room for ample, but not endless, variations.

What a beautiful thing it would be if we could acknowledge the same about diet for health, as a global coalition of us has done. Bickering and arguing over whose diet is best could end, and we could all move on to celebrating the stunning advantages of the theme, and making actual use of what we know.

Alas, we are not there yet. I write this as the Fourth of July looms, obviously, and so am prodded to think of the natural beauty of our country, and the opinions we share about it.

But I also write it from the city of Prague in the Czech Republic- another beautiful place- where I just spoke at a health conference. Even as I convene here with diverse experts in diet and health from around the world, with a notable contingent addressing the Mediterranean diet, I read a pop culture column by a colleague at home, inveighing against the health benefits of olive oil.

I disagree with this perspective on the weight of evidence. When some of the world’s leading experts on the Mediterranean diet carefully examined the components most reliably associated with health benefits, a generous intake of olive oil made the short list.

The more important issue, however, is not the particular pros and cons of olive oil, but the general principle of conflating personal preference for objective fact. As noted, even experts are prone to the tendency, and it’s most pernicious when they indulge in it.

The trouble in presenting a personal perspective or preference to the public as fact is that you won’t be the only one to do it. Others with credentials as good or better will do the same. The result is confusion at best, as experts clash, placing expertise itself into question and fomenting distrust. At worst, the bickering engenders outright disgust, so that the public just tunes out the debate altogether.

All of this matters enormously, and now more than ever given the profound implications of human dietary patterns not just for our own health, but also for that of the very planet. We are not clueless about the basic care and feeding of Homo sapiens. Science, sense, the weight of evidence and the global consensus of experts favor the reasonable broad, but well-defined expanse of a theme. The rest is just opinion, although arguments for ever greater shifts to plant-based eating are fully justified by matters of environment and ethics if less so by data strictly in the realm of human health.

On the Fourth of July, we don’t have arguments and battles over what is better: mountains, prairies, or oceans. We celebrate the common expanse. If we take a page from that playbook and apply it to diet, as a global coalition of us has banded together to do, we will have something to celebrate all year long: the burgeoning opportunity to apply what we commonly know to the addition of years to lives, and life to years, around the globe. A much increased chance for independence from chronic disease, from sea to shining sea. And, into the bargain, a much improved likelihood of keeping those mountains, prairies, and oceans vital and biodiverse.

That would be beautiful, with or without fireworks. If there’s a picnic to celebrate, I’ll bring the olive oil.

-fin Dr. David L. Katz;www.davidkatzmd.com; author, Disease Proof; founder, True Health Initiative

Dr. David L. Katz
DAVID L. KATZ MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, FACLM, is the founding director (1998) of Yale University's Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, and current President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. He earned his BA degree from Dartmouth College (1984); his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1988); and his MPH from the Yale University School of Public Health (1993). He completed sequential residency training in Internal Medicine, and Preventive Medicine/Public Health. He is a two-time diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine, and a board-certified specialist in Preventive Medicine/Public Health. He has received two Honorary Doctorates. Dr. Katz has published roughly 200 scientific articles and textbook chapters, and 15 books to date, including multiple editions of leading textbooks in both Preventive Medicine, and nutrition. Recognized globally for expertise in nutrition, weight management and the prevention of chronic disease, he has a social media following of well over half a million. In 2015, Dr. Katz established the True Health Initiative to help convert what we know about lifestyle as medicine into what we do about it, in the service of adding years to lives and life to years around the globe.
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