If there’s anything in abundance this time of year, it’s the list of foods to lose ten pounds, improve cholesterol, lose your belly, snuff out the excesses of Christmas, or starve outright and call it “detox.” We list foods that we eat, that we stoically submit to to transform our bodies or improve our health. At this point I think it is not necessary to say that they do not work, they are pretentious lists and with little scientific evidence, but we still find it difficult to make ourselves aware that health is not just food. In fact, the WHO defines health as “a person’s complete state of physical and social well-being” and not just the absence of disease.
Nutrition is a relatively new science and the training most dieticians and nutritionists have received is based on weight loss, restriction and a weight-based model. We leave the module or course with little clinical nutrition aimed almost exclusively at weight loss, without associated or very basic pathologies and with few resources to adapt to patient needs. I myself have changed a lot since graduating, it has nothing to do with how I started working and how I work now. In my case, I found that the offer was archaic, outdated and only focused on losing weight. The patient had a passive role based on obeying my instructions without really being the protagonist of his health.
This way of working just creates an unequal relationship between patient and nutritionist where I, in my role as health worker, know more about their hunger, tastes or habits than they do. And on the other hand, the patient transfers all the responsibility and trust in me, and sometimes they even go to the clinic with fear or with the idea that I will judge them in order to set their actions in order. They act as a retaining wall rather than a guiding lighthouse.
The moral categorization of food is a common practice that gives us guidelines for what is and is not recommended to eat. It’s a way of positioning ourselves at the extremes, going from white to black without even tiptoeing through the grays. Traditionally, and sadly it’s still current, it was a way of informing health workers and non-health workers (that social media intrusion is now brutal) and gaining control over patients or users: if you choose these foods, good do and you are on the path to health, but if you choose these others you will become ill, you will not take care of yourself and you will have no willpower.
In this dichotomy, it is very easy to “teach” or spread nutrition to patients. There is either “yes” or “no”, there are no half measures, there are no personal circumstances, no different stages of development, no age, gender or diseases. I’ll give you a list of allowed foods, another one free to eat and that’s what you eat and if you can’t keep going it’s because you’re not trying too hard or because you’re not taking responsibility for yourself.
This kind of “informing” implies the promise that if you work hard enough you can get the body you want, with a healthy diet and exercise, you can be Beyoncé. And look, no, these promises of an ideal body only lead to failure, to frustration.
And on top of all that, are there good foods and bad foods? I think we all know that there are foods that are more nutritious than others that are more nutritious and for this reason regular consumption is recommended, while there are others that are less nutritious and therefore consumed sporadically. In addition, if we classify foods in this way, we will feel weak or guilty if we consume one of the “bad” foods when there is room for everything in a healthy and flexible diet, depending on the amount, frequency and the rest of the diet.
No food, no matter how healthy, will significantly improve our health, since health is a set of factors that are not only related to food. For the same reason, not so nutritious food will not worsen our health. Everything is much more complex, it requires flexibility and balance.
It is very strange that there are foods that are better never to be eaten, but healthy foods are also full of myths and eating rules. For example: the banana makes you very fat, it is better to only use half; Eggs produce cholesterol; Pasta, rice and carbohydrates in general should not be eaten at night; Fruit after six in the evening is not recommended; Water should not be drunk with meals, only before or after; Olives are very fattening, milk is important for bones and at the same time it is not recommended after lactation as we are the only omnivores who drink them after that time… and I could go on with a thousand examples, all myths, that they are repeated and end up appearing as an axiom.
So instead of focusing on foods that do and foods that don’t, let’s evaluate our diet as a whole, in addition to sleep quality, physical activity, and stress levels, and stop living in black and white, life and the diets are in technicolor.
NUTRITION WITH SCIENCE It is a section on nutrition based on scientific evidence and expert juxtaposed knowledge. Eating is much more than a pleasure and a necessity: diet and eating habits are currently the public health factor that can help us the most to prevent numerous diseases, from many types of cancer to diabetes. A team of dieticians and nutritionists will help us to better understand the importance of food and, thanks to science, to shatter the myths that lead us to eat poorly.
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