Nutrition: A Medical, Political, and Public Issue
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Excerpt
The past year witnessed advances in nutritional management of clinically stressed patients and erosion of public confidence in the safety and quality of our food supply. Not since the hunger and malnutrition alarms of the late 1960s and early 1970s has nutrition attracted so much public and political attention, ranging from consternation over the possible loss of saccharin to condemnation of the American way of eating. Nearly every aspect of food production, marketing, and consumption came under attack of one kind or another. Food and nutrition are prominent political issues. Food and nutrition scientists must exert themselves to be effective so that reason can prevail over political expediency.
Nutrition in Medicine Perspectives of nutrition in medicine are changing. The clinical nutritionist now uses such terms as "marasmus" and "kwashiorkor," traditionally used to designate extreme malnutrition in children in marginally nourished third-world populations, to characterize protein-calorie malnutrition in debilitated hospitalized adults.
Footnotes
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Prepared by Philip L. White, ScD, Director, and Nancy Selvey, RD, Nutritionist, American Medical Association's Department of Foods and Nutrition. For additional information or copies of this article, write directly to the Department of Foods and Nutrition, American Medical Association, 535 N Dearborn St, Chicago, IL 60610.
