No matter where you stand politically, the return of Donald Trump to the White House presents a chance to reshape America's approach to health and nutrition. His administration will have the opportunity to overhaul outdated federal dietary guidelines, which lack scientific rigor and have long contributed to our country's chronic disease epidemic.
For about 44 years, our federal government has been fattening us up like livestock — literally.
Every five years since 1980, the government has published its Dietary Guidelines for Americans, advising people to get 52 percent to 56 percent of their calories from grains and other carbohydrate-rich foods, while largely avoiding the natural saturated fats found in whole milk, butter, and meat.
Grain mixed with skim milk is a well-known formula for fattening pigs — and it turns out that it fattens humans, too. In 23 states, the adult obesity rate now meets or exceeds 35 percent. Zero states had an obesity rate that high as recently as 2012.
It's not just our collective waistlines that have expanded. Rates of nearly every chronic disease have also soared in recent decades. More than half of adults now have diabetes or prediabetes. Up to 10 percent of kids currently suffer from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease — a condition that used to be so rare, the first pediatric case wasn't even recorded until 1983. Just 12 percent of Americans are in "optimal" metabolic health, according to a recent University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill........