Vitamin D and Fat

Tara Parker-Pope is, as usual, an idiot. Every time I read one of her articles, I wish I hadn’t. I just can’t resist digging out the nonsense in it and tearing it down. As usual, it’s related to saturated fat, but silently:

Meanwhile, dietary sources of Vitamin D are meager. Cod-liver oil provides a whopping dose. But a glass of fortified milk provides a fraction of what scientists now think we need per day. (A major study published online in the journal Pediatrics last month concluded that more than 60 percent of American children, or almost 51 million kids, have “insufficient” levels of Vitamin D and another 9 percent, or 7.6 million children, are clinically “deficient,” a serious condition. Cases of childhood rickets, a bone disease caused by lack of Vitamin D, have been rising in the U.S. in recent years.)

But without the fat, you aren’t able to absorb the Vitamin D, says James L. Harris III, MS, RD, SCCC (that’s a lot of letters, eh?).

It is well known that Vitamin D enhances the absorption of Calcium but what macronutrient is needed to absorb Vitamin D? The answer is FAT! Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin bound to the milk protein and absorbed in the intestine. When the fat is removed from milk this chain of dependence is broken. Some calcium is still absorbed but simple logic can see the importance of dietary fat during this process.

And what do most kids drink? That’s right, low-fat and skim milk. People are so paranoid about fat that their children are getting *rickets*. This is not helped by the fact that people are also terrified of their child being abducted or exposed to actual sunlight for enough time to get any Vitamin D. The federal government says children over two should not drink whole milk, and many school lunch programs don’t even have it.

Ms. Parker-Pope does not point this out because, horror of horrors, she might be seen as advocating that people (and children, lordy, WHO WILL THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?!) might consume Artery Clogging Saturated Fat. There’s a certain kind of self-designated health nanny that cannot type the words “saturated fat” without putting “artery clogging” in front of it.

Really, the idea that I should take dietary and health advice from a fat woman just rankles. If you’re going to dish it out, you really need to set a good example. We can see where eating her own dog food has gotten *her*. Oh no, we can’t because the NY Times doesn’t put her picture on her articles. The WSJ did. At the NY Times, you have to go to the main blog page:

This is an even less flattering picture than the one the WSJ used to use. If it were me, I would be doing every thing I could to make sure I looked like the, um, picture of good health in my NY Times Blogger Photo, especially if I’m covering the health beat.

Speaking of fat folks dishing out dietary advice, has anyone seen Kelly Brownell lately? Good Lord.

Think that might be old? How about a video from September 18, 2009?

He claims he fattened up writing his book (about how fat Americans are and why), but that was published in 2004. Apparently, the LEARN program isn’t working for him either.