this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
207 points (99.5% liked)
News
76 readers
2 users here now
Breaking news and current events worldwide.
founded 1 year ago
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Also without even reading any of the related research, I know they didn't take things like poverty and marginalisation that many of the people eating "ultra processed" (the new meaningless buzz-phrase) foods deal with, and the impact those have on the body and mind (I guarantee their impact overshadows that of the food by multiple factors, never mind that multiple millions of people also struggle to access healthcare), as well as why those circumstances might leave people very little choice but to eat this kind of food, not to mention the government policies (and lobbying profits) that (quite intentionally) created this whole mess in the first place (from labour laws to education to economy to food and even media regulations).
I'm so sick of this bullshit where every few months there's a new media campaign to blame those at the very bottom for all of the ills of the world (many of which we will be the first victims of and most impacted by) instead of on the actions and profiteering of those at the very top. I know it's a feature of the system not a bug, but I wish more people were aware of just how they're being manipulated to maintain the status quo by those exploiting us all.
I support and agree with criticisms about food deserts and how often lower income people who have the system stacked against them are most often blamed for the poor outcomes of bad nutrition.
There is an article someone copy and pasted from another news source above though, that shows this study was an experimental design in which test subjects weren't asked to self report their food intake, they were provided prepared meals from the research team and observed for two weeks.
None of the conclusions drawn were about sociological questions, but merely about the impact on a few health metrics for the test subjects such as caloric intake and the resulting weight loss/gain. In reality, a study like this can be in major support of advocates who want to demonstrate that food deserts and the negative health outcomes from only having ultra processed food will lead to greater health disparities cross-population. I don't think this study was trying to finger wag at consumers.
I didn't say the research was trying to finger wag consumers.
I did say they didn't take in to account significant parameters (and the excerpt of research/article that provides the details of the experiment supports this), so their research is lacking at best.
And even if their intentions were to support the kind of agenda you mentioned (and they might have been, I don't know), it doesn't matter, their research is still (and was always going to) be used by those in power to create a new scapegoat to victim blame and punch down at instead of addressing the actual causes of poor health as it relates to poor diet - capitalism and those who benefit from it.
Either way - research about the harms of poor diet that ignores both the circumstances and environment that leads to the poor diet, and the impacts said circumstances and environment have on health before you even look at the food aspect of it, isn't good research, no matter what you intend to do with it.
You can't research in to a problem that stems pretty much exclusively from how our society is designed and functions without looking at the sociological aspects of it. (E: well, clearly you can, but it's an exercise in futility at best)
Yes!!!!!! I find it hard to generalize ANY scientific study to a population. All of the factors cannot be considered in a lab setting. And a lot of the time, the context of capitalism, white supremacy, and imperialism is not mentioned. The opposite of the diet talk is the conversation about food access. Detroit and so many cities like it are a food dessert. There will always be organizations and farmers who can change that, but you won’t see a Kroger open in Detroit. Eating food is always better than not eating food. I believe it doesn’t matter what you eat.