DISinformation - No wonder America is fat

Off Topic
1

You know, I can usually ignore the blatant stupidity around me whenever the topic turns to nutrition since your average Joe isn’t overly bright on the topic, but something I saw today has me irked. There is a little break room adjacent to the women’s restroom that’ll have a stack of magazines piled on one of the tables. A cover on SHAPE magazine caught my eye with it’s proclamation of a revised food pyramid.

“Hooray!”, I thought, “Finally frickin’ time a woman’s mag started giving sound nutritional advice.”

So I picked up the mag, sat down and started reading. Well, lo and behold, the Weider rag indeed had a revised pyramid. In fact, it has two! One is dietary, the other exercise. Check this out:

Vegetables and Fruit (including juices) - 8 or more servings per day.
Water - 8 or more serving per day (Nice to see it have a level of it’s own).
Milk, yogurt, cheese, soy milk - 3 servings per day.
Legumes - 1-2 servings per day.
Fish/walnuts/flaxseeds - 3-4 servings per week (Nice to see Omega-3’s mentioned).
Olive oil, nuts, avocados, olives - 1-2 servings per day.

 So far, I'm thinking this ain't half bad.  At least it's an improvement over the old one.  But then the fun stuff....   There's a dotted line drawn across the pyramid and everything above the line is OPTIONAL.

Eggs - No more than 4-5 eggs per week.
Skinless poultry breast - No more than 4-5 (3oz) servings per week.
Refined, low-fat grains - No more than 4-5 servings per week.
Salad dressings/mayo (Yes, they got their own category) - No more than 4-5 servings per week.
Red meat/other than breast portions of poultry - No more than 3-4 (3oz) servings a month.

Along with this OPTIONAL allowance for eggs, poultry and red meat, was the OPTIONAL exercise pyramid. Those recommendations:
Walking - 30 min per day.
Stretching - 10 min per day.
Resistance training - 1 set of 8-12 reps per bodypart, No more than twice a week.

According to these guidlines, in yesterday alone I met my maximum monthly allowance for red meat (mmm, filet mignon), maximum weekly allowance for poultry breast, half my weekly allowance for eggs and exceeded my weekly allowance for resistance training by 250%! Well, I cetainly better not eat the other 12oz of filet that I brought for lunch then, eh? And I sure as hell need to start catching up on my weekly recommendations for mayo, salad dressing, soy milk and olive oil.

Included in the article was a 7 day menu suggestion with a daily caloric intake of 1951-2059 and a macro breakdown of roughly 20P/60C/20F.

I found myself staring at the page in horror. No fucking wonder America is fat and poor general health! If a “reputable” magazine, from a well-known bodybuilding/fitness giant like Weider, is aimed at women who are/getting in shape and promotes shit like this… I… I’m speechless. I guess I hadn’t realized how spoiled I’d become. What can I say but a huge “Thank You” to the search engine gods that brought me to T-mag, and a huge “Thank You” to the fine folks here dedicated to turning out a quality product.

2

Well…that’s pretty typical of those mags. I don’t really pay attention to them much. I read them for RECREATIONAL purposes, to laugh at their stupidity.

Anyways…protein should be at the bottom of the pyramid…or almost at the bottom (if you prefer to put fibrous vegetables – not starchy kinds like potatoes – at the very bottom). JMHO.

3

Yea, they have got to be full of shit. I don’t see beer in any of the lists optional or otherwise. What a bunch of dumb pussies.

4

Years ago. While in college I wrote a few articles for “Joe WheatGerm’s” rags. They were published under other peoples names, but the main direction was to use flashy words and push product.
Best of Luck.

5

Stella: I haven’t spent any time reading fitness/bodybuilding mags in over 10 years. I just relied on previous experience when I started lifting again about a year ago. I had gone as far as that knowledge could take me when I found T-mag. And yeah, I know it’s “normal” for mags like Cosmo or whatever to have bullshit info but it surprised me that a fitness-type mag would go through the trouble of redoing the pyramid thing only for it to be soo off-base.

6

Woah there, Missy. Just a minute.

Sounds like you’re on an out-of-control diet and nutritional freight-train!

12oz of red meat in one day! gasp

You definately should’ve cut that thing in half and garnished it with a little nutritious, wonderful mayo.

I’ll hold onto that other steak for you. For your health, of course!

7

Gosh, Ike. I didn’t know you cared… But since you do, you’ll be greatly saddened to learn that I just couldn’t keep myself from that filet. I tried. I really did. I drank a glass of water first - that’s what they say to do when you crave foods that are bad for you. Then I took a brisk walk. But no! That evil slab of dead (barely ;-)) flesh was just too tempting. I couldn’t help myself! I guess it’s just fate, just “karma”, that I eat the way I do…

:wink:

8

~karma~, they only printed that shit because Joe Weider sold that magazine along with M&F.

Yeah, right.

I am surprised that that garbage was in Shape, of all mags. The saddest part is that there are millions out there who really take that stuff to heart and believe it in it’s entirety.

Is it plain ignorance, stupidity, or some sort of conspiracy on the part of the authors? Why put out hogwash that flies in the face of current research and experience? Who cares. All I know is it’s bad advice.

Of course, maybe we’re the idiots and we’re all gonna die an early death due to our lethal eating habits.

I doubt it.

9

Just when you think things are getting better, it doesn’t!

Misinformation runs rampant regarding training and nutrition. It’s too bad some of the mainstream bodybuilding/fitness rags perpetuate such misinformation.

I doubt any T-magges follow the food pyramid guideline recommendations. Which is good for us, but bad for those who are new to training and nutrition and looking for some help/insight.

10

The goal of this for women is to take that cottage cheese ass and make it a slightly smaller cottage cheese ass. The way I see it, let misinformation go. It gives the informed an edge. As people do their pussy walks, and flax-farting toe-touches, we can be confident that we will always look better than those people from a physique standpoint. Let’s face it, workingout for true results is hard, most people are not interested in the hard work. It’s just to —hard. These wussy workouts give people the feeling of doing something without requiring effort. That’s what most folks want. As for me, if it doesn’t make me hurt, it’s not hard enough. I like the pain, I am sure most everybody here likes it too. I still say the post-work out beer is the most critical element to the transformation.

11

Yes, Shape is trash, and my girlfriend finally realized it. She is new to fitness and she has turned a new leaf, I couldn’t believe it. She “woke” up to this trash when SHAPE published an article on sugar and didn’t contain anything on Splenda, she totally lost it, and I was in heaven!!!

12

Whoa… correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this an INCREASE in carbs and a DECREASE in exercise from the “classic” pyramid that is responsible for the obesity epidemic in this country?

Somebody once told me that these anti-fat diets were actually part of a conspiracy against the beef industry. Makes more sense than most explanations I’ve heard.