In August of 1967, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article with the headline of: “Dietary fats, carbohydrates and atherosclerotic vascular disease.”
Original Article on sugar from the NEJM
While the headline, and indeed much of the writing, is obtuse and clouded in the dry vernacular of medical research, the impact of that article was massive.
You see, in short what that article said was that sugar wasn’t really as much of a health worry as previously thought. It’s fat in foods that is really the danger.
And that one notion — fat, not sugar, is bad for you — spread throughout society, reaching into government, agriculture, popular culture, and the dining habits of people around the world. Consider:
- The lead author of that article went on to work at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and helped create the governments dietary guidelines that emphasized reducing the intake of fat.
- High Fructose Corn Syrup, first produced only 10 years earlier, ballooned in use until the average American was eating 37.5 pounds of it per year by 1999.
- The doctrine of “low fat” pervaded nearly all of the discussion about food, and yet Americans kept having more and more chronic health problems related to obesity.
It took 50 years for the general public to learn that the very prestigious and influential article in the very prestigious and influential journal was a part of a massive and insidious PR effort by… the sugar industry.
It was those who made money selling sugar that realized that sugar was really bad for people, and it would be bad for business if too much was made of that. Yet, it would be too obvious to come out and say, “Sugar is good for you!”
But they could try a diversion. They could try to find a new bad guy. They could try to create a root cause of health problems that was something other than their own product. And because the human body craves fat as an important source of nutrition, people will seek to fill in that craving with something that hasn’t been vilified in the way that fat had been. People will want more sweet stuff to fill in for their cravings for fat.
Brilliant.
Of course, it would only work if two things were in place:
- There was a nugget of truth in the notion that “fat is bad for you” and,
- They could find some scientists who would be willing to go along.
The first one, of course, is axiomatic. If you eat nothing but bacon and butter, you will not be healthy. Happy, but not healthy.
The second one took a bit of work, but there are always academics who have distinct points of view. A part of how academics can get published, etc., is if they have unique points of view, and with enough academics out there there are enough points of view, someone who has an agenda to push can always find someone to give voice to their commercial interests.
Sugar and Daylight Saving Time
How is this related to the fight to #LockTheClock?
To understand that you first need to understand a bit about me and this effort.
I spend time on this for a couple of reasons. The first is that it’s a topic that interests me. I didn’t really want to be the leader of this movement, but there wasn’t anyone else doing it so I decided that I could step up. I’m a writer and I’ve created three businesses, and so I figured I could make a blog and do some light advocacy on nights and weekends. I’ve been doing that for more than five years now.
I also have some searches set up so that every time there’s a story or a tweet about DST, I get a notification. I don’t read every single thing, but it’s easy to see some trends.
I’ve also seen a lot of efforts come and then fade away. I was the only one pushing the name “Lock the Clock” on the internet. Someone came along and registered locktheclock.com and even made a website. They then lost interest and now the domain sits dormant. I’ve seen reporters and politicians wholesale copy stuff off my website. I’ve seen dozens of different petition efforts, all of which have gone exactly nowhere.
So I really understand this space.
In the last year, however, I saw something that was actually new. It’s a website that’s pushing the point of view that we should switch to Standard Time year round.
The site, and the social media push around it, taken together are slick, much slicker than anything I’ve come up with.
Even more impressive is the collection of people with intimidating-looking academic credentials who pop up to push this particular agenda.
In fact, when taken as a whole, it looks a lot like… well, like the effort from the sugar industry.
I mean, what they have right now is two things:
- A nugget of truth: Permanent Standard Time is likely better for circadian rhythms, and,
- A group of scientists who are active in pushing that particular point of view.
Sound familiar?
Before we get into who is pushing that point of view, let’s dissect it.
As I said, it does have a nugget of truth. On my research page I put a link to a study often cited by these circadian sleep scientists. Especially if you live near the western edge of a time zone, permanent standard time is better for you from the perspective of sleep scientists.
But that is not the only body of science that exists.
- If there was a shadowy, well-funded effort for Permanent DST, it would enable scientists who study health or childhood obesity to promote the studies showing that children and adults spend more time outside exercising if there is more sunlight after school and after work.
- Or those people in the shadows might promote the work of scientists showing that Permanent DST would save lives of people and animals because night-driving is simply more dangerous.
- Perhaps the unseen funders would push the idea that air pollution is worse in Permanent Standard Time.
- Or maybe they would highlight the crime reduction in Permanent DST, or perhaps the improvement in retail sales.
And just to be clear, if any group was dogmatic in pushing that point of view, I would view that group just as suspiciously as I view the group now dogmatically pushing the other point of view.
An actual scientist said this very well in her paper:
While we agree that political actors need scientists’ advice in the DST/ST debate now, this does not justify a one-sided perspective. On the contrary, it underlines the importance of adequately communicating what scientists do (not yet) know. Especially in an emotionally charged debate, where scientists’ recommendations might clash with people’s preferences and perhaps even with the results of a referendum, we otherwise risk squandering scientists’ credibility in the long run.
What is the group in the shadows?
The interesting part for me personally is that I don’t yet know what industry is behind this particular push.
But the strategy, while dated, could be effective, as long as nobody sees who is in the background.
You see, my point of view that I’ve been super consistent on for the last six years is that we should first agree that we need to end the clock changing. After that we can have a discussion about what the right time zone is state by state.
That very notion is getting some serious traction.
That’s what Europe tried to do, and it makes sense. They’ve said that in 2021, the clock-changing will end and each country can make up it’s own mind about what time zone it wants to be in permanently. (Note from Scott in 2021, this didn’t actually happen.)
We could do the same thing. Arizona clearly wants to stay in Mountain Standard time, and that makes sense given the climate, the lifestyle, etc. Massachusetts, which is way east in the Eastern Time Zone, in general would like to be permanently in what’s now DST, or for that state it could be Atlantic Standard Time. The people of Indiana, which is nearly 1,000 miles from Massachusetts, may decide they want to be in the time zone of their neighbors in Illinois.
My point has always been that I shouldn’t decide that, and you shouldn’t decide that, but the people of each of those states should decide that.
If we agree to get rid of the clock changing, then each of the states will figure it out. And then after that we can have the related conversations about things like what time school should start.
So that’s why I have been saying that we should all come together and agree to #LockTheClock first, and then figure out the rest.
But now we have a group trying forcefully to argue the second question first. That has the effect of throwing sand into the gears of the whole #LockTheClock conversation.
Who would do such a thing? Who has a business interest in keeping the status quo.
I Do Not Know.
I guess we could wait 50 years to figure that out, as with the sugar industry, or we could make some guesses right now, and so that’s what I’m going to do here.
My best guess is that the bad guys right now are television executives, especially sportscasters.
In Standard Time, people stop doing stuff outside sooner, and come inside sooner after work and are quicker to get to their couch. A televised sportsball event that starts at 8 p.m. in the East starts at 5 p.m. in California. If it’s light outside, Californians may decide to spend time outside, but if it’s dark they’ll get in and turn on the game.
NFL games that start at 4 p.m. in the East begin during DST when there’s still a couple of hours of sunlight, tempting people to spend their Sunday afternoons outside. During Standard time those 4 p.m games start in the gloaming, the sun telegraphing that it’s time to go inside and get to the couch.
This is conjecture, of course, but based on one thing I know for sure after my visit to Connecticut.
I spent the better part of the day there, a small part testifying and most of the day talking to other legislators. By the time I left it was clear we’d worked out a compromise bill that had the votes needed to not only pass, but to pass with a wide margin.
And then some time went by, and… nothing.
Then came the news: The bill was dead. It didn’t get voted down in what we think of as part of the democratic process we learned about as kids. It died because some unseen hand made sure that it never made it to the floor to get voted on.
How did that happen?
I have some sources in Connecticut who tell me that ESPN, based in Bristol, Conn., along with some other TV Sports lobbyists, killed it.
How? Nobody knows.
We do know from the public records that ESPN spends about a quarter million dollars a year with the lobbying firm of Powers, Brennan & Griffin LLC.
And we know that in addition, ESPN has three in-house lobbyists that work to influence lawmakers in Hartford.
My guess is that someone from that lobbying firm had a quiet meeting with someone from the legislature in some quiet corner, probably of a steak restaurant, and talked about how this bill could be bad for Connecticut. And—just like the hopes and dreams of those of us who believe in democracy—the bill died not with a bang, but a nearly silent pfffffffffffffffffffffft.
But those people behind the scenes in Connecticut, and probably a bunch of others in New York City, I’m guessing, realized that the idea of #LockTheClock was starting to gather strength, and so that idea itself needs to be defeated.
And that’s when they came up with a plan. I’d like to think they called it the Sugar Plan, as a nod to their spiritual forefathers who helped them figure out how to scuttle an idea that’s bad for business.
The result of that plan is a push to keep us in Standard Time. It’s got just a nugget of truth, it’s got some academics willing to put their name on it. It’s perfect.
Who is behind all of this?
Is it the TV industry?
When I got interviewed for the Daily Show, one of the funny bits of back and forth was when I told Desi Lydic that the TV industry was in favor of having it darker earlier, she mocked indignation that anyone would accuse her employers—she called them “TV People”—of doing anything so cynical. I thought it was one of the funniest bits of the interview, and yet it got cut. Maybe the editors just didn’t think it was as funny, but…
If it’s not the TV people, is it someone else? Who is it that has this plan to muddy the #LockTheClock mission?
Will that plan work?
Not while I’m alive.
First I’m going to have some eggs with lots of butter, and then back to work getting one, clear idea out there into the world:
Let’s #LockTheClock!
Postscript: This post has been edited to remove any mention of any individual people. For an explanation, see this post.