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The real guidelines can be found here. The core (for adults):

• All adults should avoid inactivity. Some physical activity is better than none, and adults who participate in any amount of physical activity gain some health benefits.
• For substantial health benefits, adults should do at least 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) a week of moderate-intensity, or 75 minutes (1 hour and 15 minutes) a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, or an equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity aerobic activity. Aerobic activity should be performed in episodes of at least 10 minutes, and preferably, it should be spread throughout the week.
• For additional and more extensive health benefits, adults should increase their aerobic physical activity to 300 minutes (5 hours) a week of moderate-intensity, or 150 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, or an equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity activity. Additional health benefits are gained by engaging in physical activity beyond this amount.
• Adults should also do muscle-strengthening activities that are moderate or high intensity and involve all major muscle groups on 2 or more days a week, as these activities provide additional health benefits.

TL;DR -

If you are completely inactive, change that ASAP. If you can only take 5 steps at a brisk pace, take 5 steps today, then tomorrow try for 6 and keep increasing until you are walking 10 minutes twice each day.

If you are somewhat active, keep track of your time each week and increase it until you reach a minimum of 150 minutes. Then seriously consider increasing it to 300 minutes.

Also, everyone, everyone should lift weights. Do compound lifts (squat, deadlift, bench press, upright press, barbell row, power cleans, etc) using free weights (not machines). If you are an absolute beginner, get a copy of Starting Strength (highly recommended by just about everyone) or google StrongLifts which is possibly a knock-off, and possibly inferior in some trivial way. Go to ExRx right now and bookmark it, you'll refer back to it often, I promise.

Alternative to daily walking (you might need to walk a little once a week to fill in the minutes) - The hacker diet exercise plan (based on 5BX).

Except it doesn't say that? https://health.gov/dietaryguid...

That's pretty rich, given that government guidelines have been saying for years that saturated fat is bad:

Saturated fat can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

The worst part isn't even that they falsely identified saturated fats as bad, but that for years governments told people to eat a low-fat, high-carb diet, which is pretty much a prescription for weight gain and diabetes.

This is another confirmation that the standard American diet puts most people in a situation of not being able to lose stored body fat due to insulin levels being too high in a chronic fashion for large scale fat metabolism to occur. This is why there is an obesity problem and a type 2 diabetes problem in this country.

This is due to the fact that Ancel Keys cherry picked his research data and gave the government the conclusion that saturated fat causes heart disease and to avoid heart disease you need to eat a high carb low fat diet. This advice in retrospect is upside down and backwards to what a heart healthy diet or weight loss actually requires to achieve, that is without excessive exercise (anyone can lose weight by burning 10,000 calories per day, but most people are not physically conditioned to do that and to do that much caloric burn on a daily basis is not practical.)

This is not a big revelation to those of us who have been practicing ketogenic diets, but it is a nice confidence click that we have been doing the right thing all this time despite being criticized for it by the big sugar shills or the clueless doctors who don't know about ketogenic diets.

That's pretty rich, given that government guidelines have been saying for years that saturated fat is bad:

Saturated fat can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

The worst part isn't even that they falsely identified saturated fats as bad, but that for years governments told people to eat a low-fat, high-carb diet, which is pretty much a prescription for weight gain and diabetes.

Considering this new research (not by experts, but singular, one controversial expert shill) is complete bunk, it might have been good thing to advise people to do what is good for them.

That's pretty rich, given that government guidelines have been saying for years that saturated fat is bad:

Saturated fat can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

The worst part isn't even that they falsely identified saturated fats as bad, but that for years governments told people to eat a low-fat, high-carb diet, which is pretty much a prescription for weight gain and diabetes.

But we already know another blatant mistake of the governments, which has lead to the explosion of the obesity epidemics and millions of premature deaths — the War on Fat. And on cholesterol — though manufacturers are still marketing "low cholesterol" foods, the government's current stance is Cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern for overconsumption...

I'm with you so far.

Though Americans — and other nations following America's lead — grew obese, no one was punished for that mistake.

Umm, maybe. Who do you think should be punished? The scientists? They were saying at the beginning of the War on Fat that the science was inconclusive. It was the politicians who said, "We don't have time to wait for facts. We need to act."

Without any accountability for the FDA personnel even when the fault is obvious, what is there to restraint the EPA? What "checks and balances" are there to prevent them from banning anything another "charismatic and confident" doctor suggests to ban without much proof?

I see how you can get there. But as I said, the problem wasn't with the scientists. It was the politicians pushing the agenda, and the sugar industry funding it.

The "Trust Us" science is junk science — and Congress is absolutely right to fight it, even if they are too chicken to abolish the EPA altogether.

And that's where you go off the rails. In the case of fat, there was heavy industry lobbying in favor of a position that scientists said was unsupported by current research. We now know that it wasn't just unsupported; it was wrong.

In the case of environmental regulations, the industry money is all lining up to say we don't need to reduce fossil fuel use. And the vast majority of scientists are saying that the science is settled, and it goes against what industry is pushing.

But my biggest gripe with your solution is the suggestion that if the EPA isn't perfect, the solution is not to fix it but to abolish it. That's a common solution for certain advocacy groups (and political parties) who know that it's a lot easier to destroy programs that benefit society than it is to build them.

All research affected by HIPAA would be banned by this bill.

No. If it is not personally identifiable, you can publish it. EPA could still use a paper, that says, for example, "Of the 5000 people exposed to such-and-such-sulfate, 537 developed such-and-such-iasis." As long as it does not identify the patients.

Indeed, if doing research in the first place and making it available to the EPA was not in violation of HIPAA (or, rather, HITECH) privacy rules, the EPA can publish it further.

To pretend, this is about "privacy" is a gimmick — a spin, employed by people afraid of the sunlight shining on the darker corner of the government.

This is not a fault of people not caring whether or not research is reproducible, but simply of errors

One is still at fault even if his was an honest mistake...

Whether Global Warming is, indeed, a (grave) threat to humanity remains to be seen. But we already know another blatant mistake of the governments, which has lead to the explosion of the obesity epidemics and millions of premature deaths — the War on Fat. And on cholesterol — though manufacturers are still marketing "low cholesterol" foods, the government's current stance is Cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern for overconsumption...

Though Americans — and other nations following America's lead — grew obese, no one was punished for that mistake. Without any accountability for the FDA personnel even when the fault is obvious, what is there to restraint the EPA? What "checks and balances" are there to prevent them from banning anything another "charismatic and confident" doctor suggests to ban without much proof?

The "Trust Us" science is junk science — and Congress is absolutely right to fight it, even if they are too chicken to abolish the EPA altogether.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Appropriate energy intake for critically ill mechanically respirated patients ~1900kcal/day. That is adjusted for the body weights etc.

https://health.gov/dietaryguid...

Shows that 1000kcal is appropriate for a sedentary 3 year old, 2400kcal for an average 18 year male and 2000kcal for average 18 year female. That is for moderately active people, sedentary people need less and those with high activity need more.

No wonder I wax hungry all the time on the 1,200 calorie diets they put me on as a teenager!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Appropriate energy intake for critically ill mechanically respirated patients ~1900kcal/day. That is adjusted for the body weights etc.

https://health.gov/dietaryguid...

Shows that 1000kcal is appropriate for a sedentary 3 year old, 2400kcal for an average 18 year male and 2000kcal for average 18 year female. That is for moderately active people, sedentary people need less and those with high activity need more.

but the fact of the matter is that most animals simply don't get cavities. Seriously! I mean, their teeth are very capable of getting cavities, but haven't you wondered why humans have teeth that "go bad" without regular maintenance? Have you ever known a dog to floss?

Have you ever actually owned a dog or a cat? Every one I've ever had eventually developed problems with their teeth as they aged, usually ending with the tooth in question needing to be pulled. You don't even need my personal anecdote, it's right here at the top of a Google search: While dental caries is not common in the domestic pet, it does occur and should be watched for.

The idea that all calories are equal is a tempting one

I didn't claim that all calories are equal, I said that exercise and flossing are more effective ways to improve health than obsessing about sugar intake.

And for the record, I eat like a pig, am overweight, etc (though I'm working on it now that I have time).

Now that you have time?! Thank you for proving my point that most people just can't be bothered. It's your bloody life we're talking about and your excuse for being a fat ass is "I didn't have the time?" You couldn't find three hours a week to go for a fucking walk? That's only 25 minutes a day. I really hate that weak ass excuse. Blame your proclivity for eating, I'm a foodie, I'd understand that, eating is one of the best pleasures of the flesh.

The time excuse is bogus. I have friends that manage to work full time, raise kids, and train for marathons, a commitment that requires running 15 to 40 miles a week. We've had several athletic presidents, including complete fitness nuts, all of whom found the time to maintain their health despite the office. I highly doubt that your obligations are more time consuming than those of the President of the United States.

But if researchers correct for these factors, and compare whites and blacks in similar socioeconomic circumstances, and look at black children adopted and raised by white families, there is still a variance correlated with race.

Some studies claim that. Other adoption studies have shown that black kids basically do the same as white kids when both are raised by white families. You can argue about which studies are better, but there's not a clear answer, unlike your (pardon the pun) "black-and-white" argument.

Blacks are more exposed to environmental pollutants, are more likely to have deficiencies in micro-nutrients, and are less likely to breastfeed, than whites in similar socioeconomic conditions.

Okay, let's talk about these in turn.

Why do black kids have higher levels of lead in their blood compared to white kids living in the same neighborhood?

Because even if they live in the same neighborhoods, blacks disproportionately end up in worse housing conditions. From that link, which compares randomly sampled groups of Whites and Blacks living in an urban environment in the same city: "Racial disparity in urban children's blood lead levels appears to be due to differences in housing conditions and environmental exposures. While [various factors] contribute to blood lead for both Black and White children, Black children, who in this study were largely impoverished and lived in pooly maintained rental housing, are also exposed to higher levels of lead-contaminated house dust and to painted surfaces and floor that are in poorer condition. Thus, housing condition and exposure to lead-contaminated house dust appear to be major contributors to the racial disparity in children's blood levels.

Next?

Why are poor black kids deficient in folic acid,

Well, we know that black moms are more likely to be deficient in folic acid. Part of it is dietary; from the link: "certain groups, including women of childbearing age and non-Hispanic black women, are at risk of insufficient folate intakes. Even when intake of folic acid from dietary supplements is included, 19% of female adolescents aged 14 to 18 years and 17% of women aged 19 to 30 years do not meet the EAR. Similarly, 23% of non-Hispanic black women have inadequate total intakes, compared with 13% of non-Hispanic white women."

So, diet is a big reason, and if black moms are deficient and feed a similar diet to their kids, well, you might guess that the kids could end up deficient. Other studies have noted that black women are less likely to have access to supplements or pre-natal vitamins that might provide adequate folic acid content.

iodine, and other critical micro-nutrients, when poor white kids are not?

Probably because blacks tend to consume a lot less dairy, which is often known to correlate with iodine deficiencies. From this study, "The NHANES and NCS UI [iodine level] data suggest that non-Hispanic black women have lower UI concentration than other women. Additionally, non-Hispanic black women had lower dairy consumption.... Non-Hispanic black women reporting rates of dairy consumption is consistent with recent data on U.S. population reports of lactose intolerance... among females, 50% were non-Hispanic black, 30% non-Hispanic white, and 20% Hispanic. Self-diagnosed lactose intolerance and consequent avoidance of dairy products may be on the contributing factors in the racial/ethnic differences we have shown in UI concentration."

Tha

If you have to spend two hours in a gym to keep your body "healthy", you're just overloading yourself with exercise, and that's not healthy too.

[citation needed]

The vast majority of people (me definitely included) don't get exercise in going about their daily life, so they "add it in" via a gym or whatever.

Plus, I inferred you meant 2 hours daily. The government guidelines (http://www.health.gov/paguidelines/adultguide/part4.aspx) say 2.5 hours/week of moderate or 1.25 hours/week of vigorous exercise.

Bananas contain lots of potassium.

According to this you need 4,700mg/day of potassium even without the effects of too much soda. At 422mg per banana, that's 11.14 bananas per day.

Am I missing something? It seems you would have to eat a freaking huge amount of any of the listed foods to get your daily amount.

- Eat less, exercise more IS an extreme diet.

well, it seems we have the source of our disagreement. As long as you refrain from equating "eat less" with it doesn't matter what the content of the diet is, then I have no contention.

The origin of eat less, exercise more is the fact that the majority of people that need to lose weight eat an excess calorie diet and/or have a sedentary life style. Those that do not tend to have a higher degree of secondary causes of weight gain requiring medical intervention.

I'll admit I tried to pull a fast one with that article - and I will cede that there is currently contradictory evidence both linking and showing independence of high protein in diets.

Also, can you site where you get this notion that a high sugar diet is being pushed? This is the first I am hearing of this and am genuinely interested on the source of this info. The source for a lot of what I have been taught comes from this site: http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/document/html/AppendixA.htm#appA3
which has a considerable portion of caloric intake coming from carbohydrates, but it doesn't seem to be that extreme to me.

The entire concept of what is healthy is in constant flux due to increasing understanding of metabolism and the acceptance that weight control is not the end all. Most professionals readily acknowledge this and incorporate it into their practice.

As for the food industry, they just push what they can get people to buy, but even here, I am not sure what you are getting at. Any citations/references would be useful for me.

MCS is kind of aligned with the same people who feel that radio waves harm them.

Now, allergies to about everything, individually, _are_ considered medically viable and clinically verifiable. But MCS, which proposes that one disease makes you allergic to almost all chemicals, doesn't seem to pass muster.

Here is a compilation of views of medical associations towards MCS. Nobody says it is complete bunk, but everybody agrees that there aren't any good studies that proves it does exist.

I am sure that the correct title should be Humans with Pig Genes. The US Government has already done a study proving this a long time ago. So americans should be prety to take advantage of organ transplants from pigs any day now.

Canada Food Guide says eat whole grain foods more often

USDA Food Pyramid says eat more whole grains.

Seriously, where do these stories come from?

Low fat diets do not eliminate fats - it is recommended you that 30% of your calories come from fat by the USDA and Health Canada. They call it low fat because people usually eat >40% fat and that pushes our caloric intake too high.

Skinless chicken, baked potatoes with the skin still on, brown rice That's what both guides recommend - whole grains, lean meats - what's the problem?

Refined grains are mostly a problem because they are more calorically dense and lack vitamins, nutrients, and protein (I get 10-15% of my needed protein from whole grain bread).

Hell's bells man, you speak of conspiracy theories - what about the vegans that (often correctly) say we don't need milk or meat for protein - soy and peanuts would work just as well.

So who's really pulling the strings? The dairy and beef council or the cereal council?