Editorial

Citation

Blades, M. (2003), "Editorial", Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 33 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/nfs.2003.01733caa.001

Editorial

There are fashions in clothes, houses, cars and everything, so nutrition and diet are no exception to this situation.

Having worked for over 20 years as a dietitian, it seems that I have seen a number of different trends coming and going.

Initially it seemed that to slim and belong to a slimming group was almost a status symbol. The desire to be slim and then to pay a weekly fee to attend a slimming group was seen as something special. Now slimming clubs are seen to be relatively common and many attend one or another for some time.

Fibre, the new name for roughage coined in the late 1970s, brought a new component of the diet to the attention of the public. Perhaps because of the previous concept of roughage the idea was relatively easy to understand. So popular was this that the book The F Plan Diet by Audrey Eyton entered the bestseller list of books at the time. It was something of a novelty for a book on nutrition and diet and slimming to do this at the time. Nowadays there is almost always a book on an aspect of diet (mainly on slimming diets) in the bestseller lists.

Without really understanding their importance, many started to get worked up about food additives as mysterious E numbers began to appear on food labels. The press compounded this situation to some extent by information about food additives and health. People continue to be interested in food and health and the press and media often feature headlines on the topic.

Having a food intolerance seemed to have been fashionable at one time. Often this was not a genuine intolerance but a way of limiting intake and sometimes gaining attention. It is a shame for those with genuine food intolerances that there are many less well established ones around. For the sufferer it means a denial of all sorts of lovely food.

More recently it seems to be fashionable to "detox" and there are a number of books and articles as well as products for this process around.

No matter what the fashion in diet, the basics – despite all sorts of ideas to the contrary – never seem to change. That is to eat a wide variety of food – not too much fat, salt or sugar, plenty of fruit and vegetables, moderate amounts of milk and meat, fish and alternatives and plenty of starchy carbohydrates. Also to enjoy food and to be active seem to be prime requisites for health.

Mabel Blades