The issue of "junk" food tends to be a political one, just as concerns for the "environment" are often also politically motivated. In both cases the attack is primarily upon globalisation and there is little or no evidence to support the belief that damage is caused in the particular ways that are the subject of concern. It is true that poverty and malnutrition are serious and widespread problems, just as it is true that there is widespread environmental damage but, as Bjorn Lomborg demonstrates conclusively with a wide range of scientific evidence in his book The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge, 2001), the true causes of nutritional and environmental damage are far from what they are commonly made out to be. Education has to be distinguished from propaganda.

The solution to problems of diet, nutrition and body weight in normal society is primarily to eat a normal, healthy, mixed diet, with three regular meals a day and no snacks in between. Spreading one's food intake to include fats, carbohydrates and proteins is essential. One should have whole grains, nuts, fish and white meat in preference to red, and one should have plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. That is really all one needs to know. There is no place for supplements and there is absolutely no place for pharmacological substances to stimulate or reduce the appetite. These substances will inevitably be addictive when they are used in an attempt to influence an emotional problem (an eating disorder as such or, alternatively, simple comfort eating, comfort starving or - believe it or not - comfort vomiting or purging) by treating the end results rather than looking at the cause.