Maintaining a Healthy Diet

This book is a focus on the USDA and other public health agencies that have a long history of disseminating information about why and how to make food choices that promote health and prevent disease. Since 1980, recommendations on attaining adequate nutrition also include information about the benefits of maintaining a healthy body weight and limiting consumption of nutrients linked to chronic diseases. On the other side of the table, food manufacturers and marketers have discovered that certain psychological cues, such as packaging and presentation, are efficient ways to increase consumption of their products. These approaches have not been widely used in public health efforts aimed at improving diet quality and reducing body weight. The sharp increase in overweight and obesity among Americans has occurred concurrently with increased awareness and publicity regarding the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. Examining this phenomenon provides an opportunity to incorporate elements of behavioural economics into consumer food choice analysis. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.