Lecture Quotes

Below are a few of my favorite quotes from the first Nutrition Challenge lecture on Saturday, January 9th:

"Here’s what I’m advising for anyone with young children: eat exactly what your kids are eating. If you can feed your kids junk then you simply don’t get it. I’d rather believe that you love your kids and not yourself than the other way around."

“It's not hard to eat well; it is just way easier to eat poorly. There will always be an easier choice than the healthy choice.”

"We have screwed up this world we live in in a variety of ways, the food supply is just one of them.

Humans have always been hunters and gatherers. Our diet was dictated to us by nature. We ate what was available, when it was available, and what was available for the least energy expended to acquire it. Our choices were few. We didn't always like that arrangement, but it turned out to be mostly nutritionally correct for the species.

The key aspect of this arrangement was that food was strictly about nutrition, never entertainment. There was no obesity; there was no degeneration brought on by poor nutrition.

I’m going to attempt to teach you about that model for diet, not so you can copy it exactly - because I think you can do better. But in order to improve on it, we have to understand the fundamental concepts of nutrition. Ultimately your diet will differ from that model in minor ways, not major ones."

Three problems with consumer diet advice:

1. it has no clear and stated test for efficacy
2. it assumes you don't exercise
3. it assumes that your only goal is weight loss

"And what if we make some positive corrections in our diet, but don't exercise; what have we done? We've controlled our body composition, and given ourselves an advantage over disease. But can we call that outcome "health" when we haven't addressed our physical capacity and quality of life. Can you be healthy without those? No rational person would say the definition of health can exclude physical capacity and quality of life."