Nutrition efforts questioned

This AP story by Martha Mendoza questions the effectiveness of nutrition education in the U.S.


From the story:

PANORAMA CITY, Calif. -- The federal government will spend more than $1 billion this year on nutrition education -- fresh carrot and celery snacks, videos of dancing fruit, hundreds of hours of lively lessons about how great you will feel if you eat well.But an Associated Press review of scientific studies examining 57 such programs found mostly failure. Just four showed any real success in changing the way children eat -- or promise as weapons against childhood obesity

TK: The story even notes the fruit and vegetable program is not an unblemished success. But can "nutrition education" be faulted considering, as the story also notes, the pervasiveness of advertising for other junk foods? From the story:

Children age 8 to 12 see an average of 21 television ads each day for candy, snacks, cereal and fast food -- more than 7,600 a year, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study. Not one of the 8,854 ads reviewed promoted fruits or vegetables.


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