The sensible practice of calorie restriction (CR) - for health and the aim of greater healthy longevity - tends to inspire some merged set of knee-jerk responses drawn from (a) the pool of poorly thought-out objections to enhanced longevity, and (b) the motley collection of ridiculous objections to healthy eating. Human beings - smart creatures, but basically built out of ape - are very normalized; so long as everyone is doing it, any damaging behavior will have its legion of defenders and justifications pulled from thin air. Not to mention the fake array of moral judgements; you'll find every variety of condemnation in the sordid history of "you're not the same as us." It is a pity that we humans haven't moved past that point yet.

So - smoking, empire-building, and so forth; these are norms, and so too with eating more than is good for you in the long term - which is to say, eating ad libitum. Veer from the norm on a better path, and you'll soon be hearing the squawks of outrage. April Smith recently gave a good response to one set of complaints regarding the practice of CR:

Third, you write:

"As far as I can tell, none of these people have children, and they all are fairly well off."

As a union organizer, I am very sensitive to the class implications of most everything. ... I find that my food budget is actually less now than it was before I started CR because while I still enjoy the occasional meal out at one of our fabulous Philly restaurants, I eat out much less, and I never grab fast food takeout. By packing my food for work (often both lunch and dinner, as I work a whole lot of 12 and 16 hour days) and enjoying homecooked meals with my partner, I save a whole lot of money.

...

If we are to conquer the obesity epidemic that is robbing the majority of our citizens of their health, we need to develop attitudes towards food that don't involve moral judgement.

I find class judgements heaped upon people who are making the effort to better manage their health equally annoying, though possibly for different reasons. It is sheer laziness, self-protective delusion, that leads a person to build a construct around skin color, health, lifestyle choices - and then extend it to the alleged cost of goods. It is a vindictive, unpleasant view of the world, as are most such viewpoints when allowed to thrive independent of any factual input.

Ignore people who exhibit a disdain for facts as guidance; they won't know what they're talking about. Instead learn how to productively listen to what the scientists have to say when it comes to health and longevity. You'll do well by that choice.

Technorati tags: calorie restriction, health

Posted by Reason at January 1, 2007 4:52 PM | TrackBack (1)