Question: Is the research community offering any useful directions for us?īrilliant behavioral research is coming from experimental behaviorists and economists who are looking at environmental cues and triggers for overeating. We need to change the environment so the default is to make healthier choices-offering smaller portions, for example. But the current food environment promotes unhealthful eating as the default. But to do so, you need to make food choices. And no government or health agency is helping them to put all the information together to demonstrate that precisely the same diet can be appropriate for almost all of those diet-related conditions, or explaining that you really don't have to worry much about individual nutrients or foods if you're eating halfway decently. They're confused about vitamins, transfats, low fat, Atkins diet, the glycemic index, and their effects on all the different diseases.

People see the health claims and are deeply, profoundly confused. The labels proclaim about vitamins, or heart disease, or cancer, or immune system function. We noticed that practically every single product has a health message on it of one kind or another. I recently spent some time with a reporter from Time Magazine at a local Safeway supermarket where we went up and down the aisles looking at products. Obviously, health claims on package labels work splendidly. Question: What are the messages that seem to be getting through to consumers? What works?

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