What are the Variances Between Public Health and Personal Health?

Recently, USDA announced a revised version of Dietary Guideline for Americans (DGA).  Normally, DGA updates go unnoticed but recent updates are catching public attention largely due to recommendation to decrease animal-based proteins (meat, poultry, eggs, etc) and replace with plant-based protein sources such as beans, peas, lentils.

This is not the first time that the benefit of meat has been overlooked and DGA have recommended limiting the intake of red meat starting in 2015.  In recent 2025, guideline recommends cutting back on meat in general including eggs except for seafood.  This includes chicken breast and ground turkey which earlier version supported the consumption of these meats.

Why Was Change Needed?

Update to the DGA doesn’t come from nowhere.  There is a upward trend of both U.S. population is getting unhealthy, and cost of U.S. Healthcare System is increasing.

In the U.S. 75% of 25 years and older are either overweight or obese with significant increase in both men and women.  Medical cost of obesity in the U.S. is estimated nearly $173 billion annually.

As of 2021 11.6% of adults in the U.S. have diabetes and costing U.S. healthcare system $400 billion annually.

Heart disease is remaining the leading cause of death in the U.S. and 1 in 5 Americans have some form of heart disease.  In 2021, over 690,000 Americans died from heart disease and costing U.S. healthcare system over $350 billion annually.

Because of these statistics, an advisory committee of nutrition experts analyzed up-to-date research to form a scientific report which serves foundation of the dietary guideline.  However, the only time committee to make a change in their original recommendations is when there is a mountain of evidence that seems to be supporting the change.  For example, DGA started in 1980 but not considered reducing of sugar intake, although we had increasing cases of insulin resistance and diabetes, until 2015. 

So, was the evidence of meat consumption strong enough to make the recommendation changed?

Flaws in Studies

When you look at studies, it may seem that consuming animal protein-based has correlation with cardiovascular disease, metabolic diseases and so on.  And other studies suggest inverse relationship with plant-based protein and risk of health problems.  However, when you take a closer look into those studies, the evidence becomes questionable.  Most questionable portion of evidence is majority of the studies are observational studies where they take one factor from their overall lifestyle of participants.  In addition, when someone is on vegetable based diet, they are typically are health conscious and care about sleep, managing stress, does some sort of exercise.

Another problem. Let’s say for example that the person who are involved in the studies has 4 hours of sleep every night, no physical activities, and snacks all day with one or two meals per day.  What is the chance of this person having health issues?  Quite a lot. Even those two meals were plant-based or animal-based there is high chance of the person having a health problems. Looking at the data shared above, vast majority of U.S. population falls into this category. If that is the case, how can any observational studies give proper input on what animal-based or plant-based diet influence health?

Public Health and Personal Health

With said that health of U.S. population is declining as the statistics shows.  What DGA provide is guideline for improving public health.  Which means, they are addressing the guideline to follow for those who are not sure of what to do or where to start by looking at what they have observed in last several years.

However, personal health is different from public health. What health condition you currently have may be different from everybody else. If that is the case, you may need to take a different approach. This is why blood testing, suggested by your physician, becomes important because you will need to know where you are by knowing your blood sugar, cholesterol, liver function, kidney function, insulin level and so on.  If your cholesterol level is too high, you may need to change your diet to more plant based.  If blood sugar and insulin level are high, you may need to lower your sugar intake.  You insulin level may be high due to high stress. The game plan will vary from person to person (hence personal health).

Bottom Line

Understanding the difference between public health and personal health is very important, especially when all kinds of health, fitness, medical information are available everywhere.

DGA provides valuable information on what needs to be done in order to improve the national health. However, this can be misleading to those who are already improving their health by implementing quality habits including exercise, nutrition and sleep.

Optimizing personal health does require understanding of yourself more and need sophisticated approach to appreciate the improvement.

In my personal training practice, I have seen clients seeing weight loss, strength increase, muscle growth, and blood profile optimizing with both plant-based and animal-based diet. Both seem to have a health benefit.

Kota Shimada