After graduating from Tufts with a double major in mathematics and English, I took a job working as an Operations Research Analyst for the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT). Underworked and painfully bored, I generally hated my time there, but I did work on some interesting projects during my three years. Once I pivoted and went back to school to study nutrition, I realized in hindsight that working at the USDOT had taught me more about nutrition than I ever would have expected.
The USDOT assigned me to the economics analysis division, a group in which I felt very much out of place because I had no background in economics. My father half-jokingly suggested that I just imagine sticking a dollar sign in front of every figure to make the projects feel more relatable to what I was already familiar with, as statistical analyses and mathematical modeling were already in my wheelhouse.
One of the first projects that I worked on was in the realm of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). An example of such a system is a traffic light that senses an oncoming car and changes to green, as opposed to a system in which the lights change according to a timer regardless of the cars in the vicinity. Back in high school, one of my friends was sure that some of the lights in town would turn green for him if he flashed his high beams at them, but that is not how the technology worked, at least not back then. Rather, ITS in those days utilized sensors embedded in the road which cars would trigger as they approached an intersection. My friend correctly noticed that the light quickly turned green as he approached, but he misunderstood the mechanism, and all his high beaming was for nothing. A parallel exists between that and the gluten-free diet that was so popular when I first began working as a dietitian. Sure, some people genuinely must avoid gluten, but back then the diet’s popularity far outpaced its legitimate need. Yet we had people swearing that they felt better, particularly with gastrointestinal distress symptoms, once they eliminated gluten. Some of that was unquestionably a placebo effect, but some of it was a misunderstanding of the mechanisms at play. We now understand that for many sufferers, the trigger is not gluten, but rather FODMAPs, which are subsets of carbohydrates that can cause issues for some people. Gluten-containing foods, it turns out, tend to be high in FODMAPS, so following a gluten-free diet can help people to feel better, but the culprit is not the gluten itself, but rather the FODMAPs that come along for the ride.
Some of our work focused on mathematical modeling of the trucking industry and specifically looked at driver and company violations. It was during this project that I learned that approximately 20% of truck drivers randomly tested at weigh stations were driving under the influence, a horrifying statistic that crosses my mind pretty much every time I see a truck on the highway. We also learned that many companies knowingly command their drivers to intentionally exceed the volume of hours that they are legally allowed to drive continuously, as it is more financially favorable to pay the fines for such violations (that is, if they even get caught) than it is to obey the law. In essence, knowingly keeping drowsy drivers out on the road and flaunting the law is good business. Remember this the next time you are in the grocery store and notice an influx of products geared towards whatever diet fad is hip and trendy at the moment. Some consumers take prevalence as validation that the fad must have sound evidence supporting it, but such an assumption could easily be – and probably is – false. Food manufacturers are trying to make money, and they are happy to capitalize on a trendy demand to increase profits regardless of the science behind such a demand. They are not looking out for our health any more than the trucking companies that keep sleepy drivers out on the road.
Even though I spent the entirety of my time at the USDOT housed in the economics analysis division, eventually managers from other divisions began using me for their projects, including a few that were working on a mathematical model of the alternative fuels industry. Going into the project, I knew very little about alternative fuels, but I picked up knowledge as I went. Much of what I learned involved the downsides of these fuels and the problems that had not yet been solved. For example, one fuel was so unstable that a fender bender could cause a vehicle to explode. Another fuel was so expensive that hardly anybody would be able to afford it. Another would save tailpipe emissions but cause massive pollution at the plant where it was made. Decades later, we have seemingly solved or mitigated some of these issues, as we have electric cars all over the place now, but as one of my colleagues said to me at the time, “Alternative fuels are alternative for a reason.” Keep that in mind when it comes to alternative, functional, or holistic medicine, including the approaches to nutrition that they tout. If their guidance was as safe and effective as they want you to believe, it would not be alternative; it would be mainstream.
Earlier I mentioned that I was underworked. One of the problems that the USDOT faced was that tasks were unevenly distributed, so while some people sat at their desks reading the newspaper, others stayed late and came in on weekends to meet deadlines. My sense was that some of the middle managers overseeing me were still developing their delegation skills, and to be candid, I – a young guy fresh out of college – probably did not do enough to earn their trust. Finding time for lunch was rarely a problem for me, as I had an abundance of time on my hands, but some of my colleagues struggled to even utilize the brief lunch break to which they were legally entitled. The experience gave me an appreciation for how practicing self-care (finding time for lunch, physical activity, adequate sleep, etc.) can be a significant challenge for people who work demanding jobs and perhaps have long commutes and other obligations besides their occupations.
One particular colleague who fit the above description told me that he took a multivitamin to make up for the convenience foods upon which he heavily relied. No judgment whatsoever, as I know he was up against a lot and doing his best to take care of himself in challenging conditions, but I remember how confidently he erroneously believed that a little pill was making up for everything that was missing from the rest of his diet. Fast forward to the present days of biohacking and supposedly “nutritionally complete” food products like Huel, and I see people making the same mistake. Just as my co-worker’s multivitamin lacked sufficient nutrients, such as fiber and phytochemicals, to make up for what his dietary pattern was missing, a bottled meal replacement product is not going to cover all the bases that a wide variety of actual food would touch. As I said though, no judgment; we are all doing the best we can.
When I decided to change careers and wrote the personal statement for my nutrition school application, I only briefly touched on my experience at the USDOT before quickly adding, “I do not believe that anybody is hard-wired for any specific field or career . . .” and continuing on to other topics. Had I realized at the time how much I had already learned about nutrition by working at the USDOT, I certainly would have said more.