for me perhaps the most important point you raised was how, despite the good-hearted intentions of Mrs. Obama to use her role to take on the very real problem of childhood obesity, because of her position in the government her ultimate recommendations will be inevitably watered down to something like “make more healthy food choices” as the very well-organized food industry lobbies will not (and, for all practical purposes, should not) allow the government to mandate anything that will adversely affect their material interests.

as part of this, you also made a really good point about the dilution of ideas that occurs whenever they are made by committee, which is why the dilution of effective dietary and fitness recommendation coming out of government agencies does not even require a food industry conspiracy theory. just getting enough well-intentioned but different-opinioned people together to produce a comprehensive policy is usually enough in and of itself to produce ineffective recommendations. on top of that throw in industry lobbies just trying to protect their interests – which they should, right? – and the outcomes are easily explained.

what this all boils down to for me is the necessity of a) becoming our own fitness and health experiments of one, and b) starting from the simplest and most basic principles first, and only then adding complexity as it is needed.

for the reasons you discuss, looking to outside groups – and maybe particularly the government with all its competing interests and responsibilities – to define what is best for us is likely to be ineffective (at best), especially when we can find out what works best for ourselves through trial and error. at the same time, for these experiments of one to be effective we need to start as simply as possible so as to be able to more clearly see what is working and what isn’t (the fewer moving parts, the easier the mechanisms are to see). in other words, for diet: calories in vs. calories out, for training: progressive weight resistance…combine and then stir.