Common sense, street smarts, gut feeling. Whatever you want to call it, our ability to understand things rationally is something we as humans are lucky to have. Common sense is nothing glamorous or particularly newsworthy but nevertheless should not be forgotten. When it comes to the hotly discussed obesity epidemic, for example, it’s important not to lose sight of facts that just make plain and simple sense - even amid the diet crazes and the vilification of certain food or beverages.

In a guest blog post in today’s Scientific American, ABA consultant Dr. Richard Adamson serves up a dose of common sense in his commentary on obesity urging calorie balance and perspective. Dr. Adamson writes:

“The risk of singling out certain foods as unique contributors to obesity and then demonizing those foods and advocating punitive (or “militant”) government intervention is that people will tune out the obesity debate at a time when we most need them to listen.”

When it comes to the debate surrounding sugar-sweetened beverages, this sentiment is particularly important. If you are a regular reader of Sip & Savor, you know that soda has been a hot topic during the obesity debate. Dr. Adamson addresses this too:

“Whether it’s soda, butter, cheese, wine or beer, no one food is the cause of obesity. For more than a decade, consumption of full-calorie soda has declined 12.5 percent (Beverage Digest), yet obesity rates have climbed…. So why is soda the target? It’s an easy, well-known target that most Americans enjoy in some amount. But that is not a legitimate reason to try and use it as the lever in the debate over how to reduce our obesity rate.”

We encourage you to read Dr. Adamson’s entire blog post in Scientific American and heed to its advice “’grasp firmly your common sense, and stay grounded.’”