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One of the tools essential to the nutritionist's science is the measurement of food intake. However, this is an extremely difficult measurement to make. Garrow has made an analogy with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in quantum mechanics. If you try to estimate the position of a particle precisely, it is not possible to measure its velocity with the same degree of accuracy, and vice versa; if you precisely measure its velocity you can be less certain about its exact position. The same is true of food intake; you cannot measure habitual behaviour accurately. You either have to measure habitual behaviour with a high degree of inaccuracy or make accurate measurements of food intake which may interfere with habitual behaviour. Any system which purports to be non‐invasive and does not disturb the subjects' lifestyle will be prone to errors of memory, recording or judgement of portion size and content.

Drawing on the notion of imprinting, we develop a framework for understanding category emergence and durability by suggesting that the durability of a category reflects its emergence conditions. We propose four ideal-typical mechanisms – consensus, proof, fiat, and truce – that arise from differences in the degree of agreement and the centralization of the authority regarding category definitions. Our framework not only relates category durability to emergence but also highlights the role of category promoters and constituencies in an ongoing process of category maintenance. We discuss implications for understanding the dynamics of the categorization process in various social and product market contexts.

Highlights the prevalence, causes and health risks of obesity. Then continues by looking at the health incentives of weight loss through commercial weight‐reducing diets and the health problems incurred during such a diet in respect of reduced energy intake and reduction of non‐starch polysaccharides which can lead to constipation and associated bowel diseases. Tips to increase the intake of non‐starch polysaccharides are given in the context of weight‐reduction programmes.

With approximately 60 per cent of the adult female population in the UK (14.2 million women) slimming either seriously or as a token gesture, a survey of the attitudes of 200 women to slimming and slimming foods was conducted between October and December 1991 by either face‐to‐face interview or questionnaire in several East Midlands towns in England. Responses to questions were obtained on reasons for weight loss, whether medical advice was sought, how many calories gave steady weight loss, whether dieting took place at certain times of the year, whether women were satisfied with weight loss achieved, and reasons for dissatisfaction with weight loss. Further studies on attitudes to foods used in dieting were measured, in particular the use of “meal replacements”. Using rating scales the various meal replacements were categorized on the basis of cost, nutritional quality, ease of preparation, taste, satiety, variety and overall satisfaction. The study has shown the profile of the “typical” female dieter and her concerns about the foods available to help her “slim” effectively.

You probably think that the slimming market is something which belongs to the latter half of the twentieth century. Yet Allan's Anti‐Fat was advertised to our fat predecessors as long ago as 1878. It was a ‘concentrated fluid extract of sea lichens’ that prevented the body from converting food into fat. This was an American concoction, but we British were no better. Dr. Grey's Electric Fat Reducing Pills were advertised in the ‘Illustrated Sporting and Drama News’ of 1893. These were capable of ‘rapidly and quite safely dissolving superfluous fat, permanently curing corpulency, and improving the general health and figure’. He even kept a ‘special preparation for Army, Naval and Hunting Men, Farmers Jockeys and stubborn cases that have resisted other treatment’. It almost sounds as if the upper classes were ‘allowed’ to have a better class of fat! Leeches were once the doctor's stand by for most diseases and obesity was an obvious case for their use. The leeches got fatter while the patient got thinner!

In this shortened version of Dr. Ashwell's paper, evidence that a genetic ‘tendency to fatness’ could exist is examined and possibilities which might account for the weight gaining potential of an individual are suggested

The study of nutrition is one of the few areas in which ideas and concepts formulated by scientists and clinicians may have immediate impact, through the media, upon the knowledge, behaviour and habits of the populace. This effect has been evident recently in the gradual rediscovery of the advantages of breast‐feeding, dietary fibre and in the possible problems of overfeeding young infants. The resurgence of interest in the possible importance of thermogenic mechanisms in regulating energy balance may have similar impact in forthcoming years.

In the past medical undergraduates have received nutrition education piecemeal – as part of courses in biochemistry, pharmacology, physiology, gastroenterology, etc. In clinical medicine doctors need to show understanding of nutrition in the following areas: diseases caused by unsuitable diet; nutrition in groups with special needs; and public health nutrition. A recent innovation is the allotment of seven teaching days at the end of the preclinical courses to nutrition, and the inclusion of a nutrition section in the second MB exam.

Many committees have commented on the role of diet and health, but in the last 15 years there has been an upsurge of these publications. One of the first reports in 1974 from the committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy (COMA) made very little reference to fruits and vegetables and did not have any specific recommendations to increase their consumption. Yet the World Health Organisation Expert Committee in 1982 published a report Prevention of CHD that recommended increasing ‘appropriately combined foods of plant origin’. The discussion paper Proposals for Nutritional Guidelines for Health Education in Britain' prepared by a working party of the National Advisory Committee of Nutrition Education (NACNE) stated, ‘… health educators should encourage the consumption of fruits and vegetables as well as cereals …’

Physical activity can cause a greater change in the metabolic rate of an individual than any other factor. This is also the case for two people of the same sex and identical age, weight, height and body composition. However, many people spend a large proportion of the day in sedentary activities and it is then that factors other than physical activity become important in determining the energy expenditure of an individual.