Nutritionists, Leslie explains, had decided that dietary fat was the
enemy of good health, based in large part on a huge Seven Countries
Study, published in 1970, which looked at 12,770 middle-aged men in
countries ranging from the U.S. to Yugoslavia.
"The Seven Countries study had become canonical, and the fat hypothesis was enshrined in official advice," Leslie writes. By 1980,
the U.S. government issued its first Dietary Guidelines telling the
country to cut back on saturated fats and cholesterol, and Americans
dutifully complied.
That's precisely when the nation's obesity rate started to skyrocket.
While the obesity rate barely changed from 1960 to 1980 -- going from
13% to 15% -- over the following two decades – 1980-2000 – the rate
jumped to 35%.
"At best, we can conclude that the official guidelines did not
achieve their objective; at worse, they led to a decades-long health
catastrophe," Leslie writes.
Speaking of 'settled science' asshats.
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