It’s probably this indecision of the Diet Industry that has led to obesity across the world actually doubling instead of reducing. This is in-spite of huge amount of content we get every day on diet, nutrition and tips for healthy living.

Either they say eat more protein to speed up your metabolism or they say too much protein will harm your kidneys. Either they say superfoods are a great source of antioxidants or they turn around and say hey! but superfoods aren’t so good for you at all. Sometimes our Experts say, snacking is bad , it will make you add weight and now that latest breed say you should have regular short snacks, to stop you from over eating. No wonder we are a confused lot.

While  India has not ventured into this debate till now, this confusion is very evident in the way the UK has kept changing its guidelines, from first one launched in 1994 to the latest, more commonly known as the Eatwell Plate, which now recommends more of carbohydrates such as rice, potatoes, bread and pasta along with about five portions of fruits & vegetables, some source for protein, milk, dairy and saturated fat. Now here comes another report from the UK Government that contradicts all this. A Report from UK’s National Obesity Forum along and Public Health Collaboration claims that eating fat is all right, it does not make you fat. It also says that there is no evidence to say saturated fats cause heart disease. It also says lots of calories won’t cause obesity. The report also debunks the theory that exercise can compensate for a bad diet. No it doesn’t. Many prominent Doctors like Dr Aseem Malhotra of the Public Health Collaboration now say these guidelines were a big mistake, probably the biggest in recent times.

So what is the solution. It is moderation in the intake of calories. If  decades of research have taught us any thing it is that calories are important and we should pay good attention to the sizes of the portions we eat.  This approach would take us a long way. While fat and carbohydrates are essential for all our body functions, we must eat everything, but in moderation.