January, 2005:
Even jaded nutritionists, long inured to the public’s atrocious dining habits, were taken aback by the study. “The dose really does make the poison,” says epidemiologist Gladys Block, the study’s lead author. “We knew people ate a lot of this stuff. But that much?”
Not only do these foods fuel the nation’s obesity epidemic, says Block, they are displacing the nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables necessary to fend off disease. The result, Block says, is an unappetizing paradox: a nation of people simultaneously overfed and undernourished.
Under pressure from food manufacturers, health officials have hesitated to demonize particular foods as junk and instead proffer general advice about good nutrition. Block says it’s time to tell Americans to eat more foods that matter—and to say aloud that, nutritionally speaking, some foods do not.
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