The politics of nutrition and obesity, concerns that have grown to spectacular prominence in the last few years, are the new charges of George A. Bray, MD, obesity researcher and professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine.
Recently appointed nutrition coordinator for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (DHEW), Bray has undertaken to teach the American public how to make prudent dietary choices—a task not only difficult but perhaps impossible in the face of an underfunded research effort in the area of nutrition as well as waning public concern for the serious health consequences of obesity.
"Although nutritional concern seems to have become more prominent in the last 15 years," Bray told JAMA MEDICAL NEWS, "public interest has not truly grown. As a result the average American today is heavier than a person of the same height was ten years ago."
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