Physics 101 prevails -- Calories do count

Wsj article entitled" "Fat Bounces Back; The FDA Eases Its Stance On Old Nutritional Nemesis;' It Didn't Seem to Work'"

Government nutrition advisers since the early 1990s have conveyed a simple message: Eat less fat. But Americans have steadily gained weight -- lots of it -- making obesity one of the nation's top health concerns.

Now, the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates food labels and health claims on them, is easing its decade-long war on fat, and increasingly taking aim at calories. In an effort to draw attention to foods' overall caloric content, the agency may even change the "Nutrition Facts" box, eliminating the line giving the number of calories from fat, and increasing the type size for overall calories.

"When we emphasized fat in the early '90s, it didn't seem to work," says Lester Crawford, acting commissioner of the FDA. "We've concluded that the emphasis on low fat and no fat obscured the central message that calories are the main thing."

Fat's return to respectability began when researchers started looking into the differences between "bad" fats, such as saturated fats and trans fats, which can raise cholesterol levels and the risk of heart disease, and "good" fats, such as monounsaturated fats, which can help lower "bad" LDL cholesterol. Fat got another boost with the popularity of the Atkins diet and other low-carbohydrate regimens, which advise shedding pounds by sharply limiting starches, not fat.

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