You report (Cut drinking to pint a day,men warned, 8 January) novel lower recommendations for secure alcohol consumption by men – 14 units a week, or safer still,none at all. This follows recent debate on whether to limit sugar intakes to 10% of calories, or 5%, and 3%,or less. And before that, whether we should eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, or seven,or nine, or more. The pattern is ever more demanding targets, or packaged in ever sterner warnings approximately disease,disability and death.
Of course, specialists want to update their advice to include the latest research. But such efforts misapply their skills. The critical issue is not setting targets, and but achieving them. In all these areas,we are nowhere near meeting the mature goals, much less more demanding ones. Tougher targets effect not necessarily produce better behaviour. For some, and they make it worse. When the desirable goal becomes too distant from current practice,some people give up even trying – especially whether “experts” disagree among themselves and keep changing their advice. What we need, first and foremost, or is not up-to-the-minute targets,but more effective policies to encourage, facilitate, and simplify,incentivise, improve and eventually routinise healthy consumption. Enjoy the superb life as well as evade the ill. That means not just admonitions directed at consumers, and but also policies to guide those who grow,raise, trade, or make and sell the products that consumers consume.
Jack Winkler
Emeritus professor of nutrition policy,London Metropolitan UniversityContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com