Have you noticed how many diet and nutrition books there are in the bookshops these days?

It seems that the areas of weight control and nutrition are amongst the most popular of all reading materials, with many well-known stores stocking no fewer than 80 different dietary plans espousing the various virtues of high fat vs low fat, high protein vs low protein and high carb vs low carb. There quite simply has never been a time in history when so much information has been made readily available to us in the fields of human nutrition and biochemistry. As fitness professionals we should be jumping for joy!

Yet, before we pat ourselves on the back and congratulate ourselves for a job well done we would do well consider the fruits of our collective labour.

Despite (or perhaps because of) our increasing knowledge of the chemical qualities of foods, it is a sad fact that there are currently more clinically and morbidly obese people on the planet than at any other point in history, with statisticians from many first world countries predicting worse yet to come. And it