When will nutrition courses actually teach proper nutrition?

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Singher25

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Hi, i recently just entered university and for my human kinetics degree i have to take this well and fitness course which is an exercise and nutrition course. Everything they teach in this class is pretty much wrong in one way or another. The teacher has so far stated that we should have no fats in our diets other then taking fish oil capsules and that carbs should be our primary food nutrient. She said we should eat 400g's of carbs a day...Idk about you guys but this seems a little crazy. It seems stupid that i have to write an exam that is based on misinformation.

Anyone else had this experience.
 
Get used to it dude. This shit doesn't look likely to end anytime soon.
 
I'm also in a nutrition class at my university. It's pretty annoying to sit in there for 4 hours a week hearing how red meat causes cancer and everyone would be healthier following a vegetarian diet.
 
When large corporations and lobby groups start caring about people not profits....so never. Lucky charms are low in fat! and have vitamins!!!
 
It will end when someone finally gets the funding to do a nice RCT with various diets over a few month term that justifies them to say in their conclusion "f*ck you old timers running the food pyramid based off the 80's info, look what I found!"

So in other words, a long time. =)

But in reality, it's all based off research I think. Back in the day they did a lot of shit off correlational data and what they knew at the time. It was etched in people's heads. They righted their own wrongs so firmly, they all but drew it in stone. It will take a series of nice "experimental" studies to show that the old way is wrong, and that we should move away from it. At least in my opinion.

I mean, when did all the hype come out about cigarrettes being bad for you and that you should NOT smoke while pregnant? I'd say only in the last 10-15 years did smoking become an "acceptable" taboo. And 50 years ago doctors were recommending one type of cigarette or the other. So shit, I'll be lucky in my lifetime to see the FDA recommend me eat eggs with the yolk, then yank their approval off Cheerios boxes!!!


Rant over. =)
 
Sigh

The worst part about it are that the students whole heartedly believe that the teacher is right. I tried telling this one girl that fats namely saturated fats aren't that bad for you and she refused to believe me even when i told her i can find a number scientific sources.
 
Best nutrition seminar I've ever been to was from Robb Wolf. Worst? Can-Fit Pro nutrition certification. One is recognized in the health/fitness industry, one isn't. Take a guess at which one.
 
I think schools have to go by the USDA or whatever regulations. I believe in a year or 2 they are going to revise them.

Maybe then will they be set to what is actually healthier and better for us humans
 
couldn't agree more with this. I love having discussions about nutrition after class and being the only one that isn't 100% set on what the lecturer says! I don't get it though!?! . . .even without seeing scientific studies etc, just listening to the shit they spew should tell anyone with even a tiny bit of sense that it's mostly BS
 
cheath said:
It will end when someone finally gets the funding to do a nice RCT with various diets over a few month term that justifies them to say in their conclusion "f*ck you old timers running the food pyramid based off the 80's info, look what I found!"

So in other words, a long time. =)

But in reality, it's all based off research I think. Back in the day they did a lot of shit off correlational data and what they knew at the time. It was etched in people's heads. They righted their own wrongs so firmly, they all but drew it in stone. It will take a series of nice "experimental" studies to show that the old way is wrong, and that we should move away from it. At least in my opinion.

I mean, when did all the hype come out about cigarrettes being bad for you and that you should NOT smoke while pregnant? I'd say only in the last 10-15 years did smoking become an "acceptable" taboo. And 50 years ago doctors were recommending one type of cigarette or the other. So shit, I'll be lucky in my lifetime to see the FDA recommend me eat eggs with the yolk, then yank their approval off Cheerios boxes!!!


Rant over. =)
Click to expand...

To be fair, it's not from the 80's, most of this stems from the McGovern Committee and their subsequent literature on nutrition, which if memory serves me, was written by a group of lawyers who bought into certain unproven schools of thought on the subject. Most of the information depicted in "Dietary Guidelines For Americans" (I think was the Title) came from pretty much one or two medical/scientific sources.

Also, the FDA, AMA, and other groups are not non-biased agencies. In fact they're some of the most biased if you look at where THEY'RE money comes from. They're private organizations, who absolutely have agendas. We just like to believe those agendas are in our best interest. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't.

That said, a friend of mine just began a biology course at UNLV, and within the first couple of weeks his Professor was talking about lipid metabolism and said "oh and on a sidenote, if you're ever stuck on a deserted island with a year's supply of bread and a year's supply of lard, eat the lard." So there's hope yet.
 
My nutrition professor two years ago stated that 55% of our diet should come from carbohydrates. 25-30% should be fats and 15% should be protein.

But from what i've read high carbohydrate diets arent ideal.

Is my professor an idiot? Or is he right?
 
Well, I think that's a bit harsh Mike. Sure it sucks when you have to sit through classes that teach you wrong shit, just to have a piece of paper, but imagine how much it sucks to really want to help people and buy into that shit.

That's where a lot of people are. This misinformation became so ingrained into American thinking that it got solidified in all the textbooks, and filtered-down to every level of society. For a long time, there was also no reason to think otherwise, especially when people used the qualifiers of "well if you're unhealthy, you're doing it wrong, you have to be because I went to school for this and know for a fact that I'm right, so if you're telling me you did what I said and you're still unhealthy, then that means you're lying."

It's much easier to say that to the uneducated, than it is for the educated to consider that part of their education was incorrect. Especially once one has that piece of paper. I recall an incident where a guy was talking to me about whey protein messing up his hormone output and he tossed the old "I went to Med school, I know about these things." So I genuinely asked "Really? What's your field?" He got a bit bashful and said "oh, I'm a dentist." Alright, so you had some basic schooling on nutrition that equate to prerequisites, and you're gonna throw that out there as a point of knowledge? Needless to say he was interested in learning more about the biology of protein synthesis.

The kind of change that needs to happen is pretty revolutionary, and it'll be SLOW-moving...especially in America. But recently I've also been seeing television commercials mentioning triglycerides instead of LDL cholesterol, so there's hope yet.

Meh, then again Chantix is still on the market.
 
I agree thats harsh, but the real point is that it shouldnt really matter to you in real life.

uppercuts21 said:
My nutrition professor two years ago stated that 55% of our diet should come from carbohydrates. 25-30% should be fats and 15% should be protein.

But from what i've read high carbohydrate diets arent ideal.
Click to expand...

yeah, neither are high protein diets. and neither are high fat diets. all three are toxic believe it or not. that is why the life extension people eat as little of everything as possible. oh yeah and by the way, fedor and gsp eat cheeseburgers. what now?

come on. you have to separate theory from reality. there is probably a study saying the first ratio is good, another saying a different ratio is good, and another saying cheese burgers are bad. and they could all be RIGHT.

if you want to talk about studies, lets talk about studies. but diet in real life isn't like diet in studies. If you ask me, the consistent advice across all this crap is just listen to your body and eat from the land. you will be happy and healthy as a result.

PS:

the percentage of dietary energy from macro nutrients thing is like the BMI. it is a small and granular measurement for experiments. you should consider its application in the real world to be very limited.
 
Yeah, get used to it, I am now listening to the same stuff you don't want to.
 
It's a problem hardly limited to nutrition courses. So far, my classes such as economics have been fine, because a lot of it strictly math-based, and models are understood to be merely theories, and we routinely discuss the weaknesses of theories. Foreign languages aren't problematic either.

Other than that, most of my professors have participated in a strange, liberal (in the perverted contemporary, not the classic, sense of the word) "groupthink" that is hard to define. On nearly any issue, I can tell you exactly how it will be presented and what the discussions will be premised on. We are rarely taught to question their premises: It's almost like they're saying, "Well, if most of academia agrees with us, we must be right, and who are you to say otherwise?"

So, you get the same problems that come up in nutrition course: Basically a bunch of people who are wrong, or at least have gone unchallenged, back each other up without ever really proving anything, and questioning them leads to an ad populum counterargument.
 
Loomy said:
I agree thats harsh, but the real point is that it shouldnt really matter to you in real life.



yeah, neither are high protein diets. and neither are high fat diets. all three are toxic believe it or not. that is why the life extension people eat as little of everything as possible. oh yeah and by the way, fedor and gsp eat cheeseburgers. what now?

come on. you have to separate theory from reality. there is probably a study saying the first ratio is good, another saying a different ratio is good, and another saying cheese burgers are bad. and they could all be RIGHT.

if you want to talk about studies, lets talk about studies. but diet in real life isn't like diet in studies. If you ask me, the consistent advice across all this crap is just listen to your body and eat from the land. you will be happy and healthy as a result.

PS:

the percentage of dietary energy from macro nutrients thing is like the BMI. it is a small and granular measurement for experiments. you should consider its application in the real world to be very limited.
Click to expand...

For what it's worth, you're insinuating a gross misinterpretation of the purposes of studies. There's nothing mythical about human physiology. We're pretty aware of what the body does with a wide spectrum of nutrients and how that can apply to real-world function. Sure the messages don't get communicated down the ladder to Joe Everyman, but that's not really an implication that the faultiness is in the science itself. Miscommunication is the problem, not ignorance.
 
MikeMartial said:
He's an idiot.
Click to expand...

That's a little harsh. I always hated blanket statements, and no teacher should give one. It all depends; in my sports nutrition class, my professor goes over different calorie needs as with what the sport demands. It an alright class. She herself preaches a 45-65%C/20-25%F/20-25%P, and for many active persons with no underlying problems, that is fine.

Professors usually (from what they have told me) base their upper division courses off of a tangent that they did research on in graduate school. I am lucky in the fact that my exercise physiology and biochemistry professors still do active research and are always continuing education.

Point is, your professor is obviously not an idiot if he has a PhD and is running your class at a university. Realize that you are in basic nutrition; so guess what you will learn?
 
StrikerStatus said:
Point is, your professor is obviously not an idiot if he has a PhD and is running your class at a university. Realize that you are in basic nutrition; so guess what you will learn?
Click to expand...

False. There are many PhDs running around who hold prestigious positions and yet are most certainly idiots.
 
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