Nina Teicholz

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Nina Teicholz
Nina Teicholz.jpg
Born (1965-05-07) May 7, 1965 (age 59)
Alma mater Stanford University
Oxford University (M.Phil.)

Nina Teicholz (born May 7, 1965) is an American journalist who advocates for the consumption of saturated fat, dairy products and meat. Her works include the 2014 book The Big Fat Surprise. She is the head of the Nutrition Coalition, a dietary advocacy group. Teicholz's work has been supported and financed by John D. Arnold and his Arnold Ventures group. Teicholz's views and assertions regarding the consumption of saturated fat and meat have been contested by scientists.

Contents

Education and early life

Teicholz grew up in Berkeley, California. [1]

She earned a degree in American Studies at Stanford University, and completed her master's in Latin American Studies at Oxford University. [2] [3] In 2024, she received a Ph.D. in nutrition focused on evidence-based nutrition policy from the University of Reading. [4]

Career

Teicholz worked as a reporter for National Public Radio [5] and became a freelancer, contributing to publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Gourmet, The New Yorker, The Economist, Salon, and Men's Health. [2]

She said that she became interested in dietary fats while doing a series of stories investigating food for Gourmet, and was assigned a story on trans fat that was published in 2004. [6] For many years prior to this initial assignment on trans fats she had been a vegetarian. [7] Her 2014 book, The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet, traced the history of US diet guidelines; in the book she discussed the science behind the guidelines and the influence of industry lobbying on them, and also questioned the emphasis on avoiding saturated fat. She advised readers to "eat butter; drink milk whole, and feed it to the whole family. Stock up on creamy cheeses, offal, and sausage, and yes, bacon". [8] [9] The book made The New York Times Best Seller list that year, [10] and was named one of the Top 10 Non-Fiction Books of 2014 by The Wall Street Journal [11] and one of the year's best science books by The Economist. [12] The book was criticized by nutritionists including Marion Nestle. [13] [14]

Teicholz authored an opinion piece with similar themes in The Wall Street Journal in October 2014 that caught the attention of hedge fund founder John Arnold, who recruited her to join the efforts funded through his Laura and John Arnold Foundation to fight obesity, namely through the Nutrition Science Initiative, which does research, the Action Now Initiative, a lobbying group, and the Nutrition Coalition, which is aimed at improving dietary guidelines. [15]

In February 2015, the US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) released its report, written to provide a foundation for the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and The New York Times published an op-ed by Teicholz criticizing the committee and its work. [16] The Arnold Foundation funded further work by Teicholz on the DGAC report, which was published in the British Medical Journal in September 2015. [15] [17] In that article, Teicholz continued the themes of her book and her February op-ed, and wrote that the DGAC showed bias against fat and meat and did not use all the available evidence, and that members had undisclosed conflicts of interest. [13] [18] The BMJ circulated a preprint of the article with a press release, and Teicholz' claims were widely covered in the media. [15] [18] [19] [20]

The DGAC, the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and others, including a petition signed by 180 scientists harshly criticized Teicholz' claims, and they called for the BMJ to retract the article or issue corrections. [13] [15] [18] [21] [22] The BMJ issued a correction in October 2015 and another in December 2016, the latter with a statement that after an independent review of the paper, it had decided not to retract it. [23] [24] [25] [26]

Meanwhile, the Arnold Foundation had been pressing for Congressional hearings about the DGAC report and attempted to block the release of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans; its lobbying group arranged meetings for Teicholz with members of Congress and White House staff. [13] [15] Teicholz and the Foundation were criticized at the time for being allies of the meat and dairy industries in their lobbying and other public relations efforts to maintain high levels of meat and dairy consumption by US consumers. [27] [28]

Teicholz' advocacy has been criticized by nutritionist Marion Nestle for making strong claims about the benefits of a low-carb, high-risk diet that go beyond what the science can support; [13] Nestle wrote of Teicholz' advocacy: "It does little to foster the health of the public to make nutrition science appear more controversial than it really is." [16]

Teicholz is an advocate of beef consumption. [29] Beef industry leader Amanda Radke has written in Beef Daily that "Today's best beef advocates wear a variety of hats [...] like Nina Teicholz or Gary Taubes who turn against conventional health advice to promote diets rich in animal fats and proteins". [29]

In 2017, Salim Yusuf stated that Teicholz "shook up the nutrition world but she got it right", [30] a statement for which he was criticized. [31]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fat</span> Esters of fatty acid or triglycerides

In nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Food pyramid (nutrition)</span> Visual representation of optimal servings from basic groups

A food pyramid is a representation of the optimal number of servings to be eaten each day from each of the basic food groups. The first pyramid was published in Sweden in 1974. The 1992 pyramid introduced by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was called the "Food Guide Pyramid" or "Eating Right Pyramid". It was updated in 2005 to "MyPyramid", and then it was replaced by "MyPlate" in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paleolithic diet</span> Fad diet based on the presumed diet of Paleolithic humans

The Paleolithic diet, Paleo diet, caveman diet, or Stone Age diet is a modern fad diet consisting of foods thought by its proponents to mirror those eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era.

A saturated fat is a type of fat in which the fatty acid chains have all single bonds between the carbon atoms. A fat known as a glyceride is made of two kinds of smaller molecules: a short glycerol backbone and fatty acids that each contain a long linear or branched chain of carbon (C) atoms. Along the chain, some carbon atoms are linked by single bonds (-C-C-) and others are linked by double bonds (-C=C-). A double bond along the carbon chain can react with a pair of hydrogen atoms to change into a single -C-C- bond, with each H atom now bonded to one of the two C atoms. Glyceride fats without any carbon chain double bonds are called saturated because they are "saturated with" hydrogen atoms, having no double bonds available to react with more hydrogen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mediterranean diet</span> Diet inspired by the Mediterranean region

The Mediterranean diet is a concept first invented in 1975 by the American biologist Ancel Keys and chemist Margaret Keys. The diet took inspiration from the supposed eating habits and traditional food typical of Crete, much of the rest of Greece, and southern Italy, and formulated in the early 1960s. It is distinct from Mediterranean cuisine, which covers the actual cuisines of the Mediterranean countries, and from the Atlantic diet of northwestern Spain and Portugal. While inspired by a specific time and place, the "Mediterranean diet" was later refined based on the results of multiple scientific studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weston A. Price Foundation</span> Organization

The Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF), co-founded in 1999 by Sally Fallon (Morell) and nutritionist Mary G. Enig, is a U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to "restoring nutrient-dense foods to the American diet through education, research and activism".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plant-based diet</span> Diet consisting mostly or entirely of plant-based foods

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The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is a non-profit research and advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. According to Charity Navigator, the organization works for "compassionate and effective medical practice, research, and health promotion."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Healthy diet</span> Type of diet

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<i>The China Study</i> 2005 book by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Nutrition Foundation</span> British food industry lobby group, company, and registered charity

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western pattern diet</span> Modern dietary pattern

The Western pattern diet is a modern dietary pattern that is generally characterized by high intakes of pre-packaged foods, refined grains, red meat, processed meat, high-sugar drinks, candy and sweets, fried foods, industrially produced animal products, butter and other high-fat dairy products, eggs, potatoes, corn, and low intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, pasture-raised animal products, fish, nuts, and seeds.

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Dariush Mozaffarian is a cardiologist, Jean Mayer Professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, Professor of Medicine at Tufts School of Medicine, and an attending physician at Tufts Medical Center. His work aims to create the science and translation for a food system that is nutritious, equitable, and sustainable. Dr. Mozaffarian has authored more than 500 scientific publications on dietary priorities for obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, and on evidence-based policy approaches and innovations to reduce diet-related diseases and improve health equity in the US and globally. Some of his areas of interest include healthy diet patterns, nutritional biomarkers, Food is Medicine interventions in healthcare, nutrition innovation and entrepreneurship, and food policy. He is one of the top cited researchers in medicine globally, he has served in numerous advisory roles, and his work has been featured in an array of media outlets.

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The planetary health diet, also called a planetary diet or planetarian diet, is a flexitarian diet created by the EAT-Lancet commission as part of a report released in The Lancet on 16 January 2019. The aim of the report and the diet it developed is to create dietary paradigms that have the following aims:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trans fat</span> Type of unsaturated fat

Trans fat, also called trans-unsaturated fatty acids, or trans fatty acids, is a type of unsaturated fat that occurs in foods. Small amounts of trans fats occur naturally, but large amounts are found in some processed foods. Since consumption of trans fats is unhealthy, artificial trans fats are highly regulated or banned in many nations. However, they are still widely consumed in developing nations, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. The World Health Organization (WHO) had set a goal to make the world free from industrially produced trans fat by the end of 2023. The goal was not met, and the WHO announced another goal "for accelerated action till 2025 to complete this effort" along with associated support on 1 February 2024.

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