The Covid-19 pandemic presents the government with the perfect opportunity to re-examine its dietary guidelines. Evidence from a growing number of scientific studies shows its recommendations are not preventing or reducing obesity and could be having the opposite effect. The findings reveal high-carbohydrate diets lead to insulin resistance and the resulting inflammation in the body is a major factor in diseases like obesity and Type 2 diabetes. Questions have also arisen about the efficacy of scientific data the UK based its dietary guidelines on when adopting them from the United States in 1983. Nutritional science has evolved but the government recommendations have yet to catch up. This could explain why in the last 40 years as highly processed carbohydrates have become the major source of food in the UK that the nation has been gripped by life-shortening conditions such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes. Prior to 1983 government advice was to “avoid fattening starchy foods”. Scientists say reducing insulin resistance helps strengthen people‚’s immune systems against Covid-19 ‚’ something the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has identified as being key to fighting the virus. Whilst how much the influence the government‚’s dietary guidelines have on consumer choices is debatable, there is little doubt they control the narratives around what is healthy eating. They guide what food companies produce, what is stocked in our supermarkets and shape messages delivered in the health, education, sport and hospitality sectors and in workplaces and the media. Changing the guidelines could help to tackle our obesity problem, which the DHSC says is ‚’one of the biggest health crises the country faces‚’ and save the NHS ¬£6 billion a year. Adopting a more ancestral way of eating our bodies are metabolically designed for would not only benefit people‚’s health but also the environment.
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