Expert criticises UK dietary recommendations

A dietary expert has criticised the UK’s Eatwell Guide — a visual representation of the government’s recommendations on food groups for a ‘healthy, balanced diet’ — saying it is not evidence based and has been formulated by too many people with industry ties.

In an editorial published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Dr Zoe Harcombe of the Institute of Clinical Exercise and Health Science, University of West of Scotland, points out that the continuation of the high-carb, low-fat approach purveyed by the recommendations has been accompanied by continuing rises in obesity and diabetes.

In its latest release, published in March 2016, segment proportions in the Eatwell Guide have changed, with starchy foods rising from 33% to 38% and fruit and veg up from 33% to 40%, while milk and dairy have almost halved from 15% to 8%. The previous segment of foods high in fat and sugar has morphed into unsaturated oils and spreads.

Dr Harcombe says the primary flaw of the Eatwell Guide, “as with its predecessors, is that it is not evidence based. There has been no randomised controlled trial of a diet based on the Eatwell Plate or Guide, let alone one large enough, long enough, with whole-population generalisability.”

She says the high-carb, low-fat diet has been tested on the UK population but with negative impact, as the rates of obesity and diabetes have soared since the ’70s and ’80s.

“The association between the introduction of the dietary guidelines, and concomitant increases in obesity and diabetes, deserves examination,” particularly as several recent reviews have suggested a causal relationship between the two, she suggests.

“The greatest flaw of the latest public health dietary advice might be the missed opportunity to deliver a simple and powerful message to return people to the diets we enjoyed before carbohydrate conditions convened. But when the who’s who of the food industry were represented on the group, ‘eat real food!’ was never a likely outcome,” she concludes.