Both, of course, are important. You will not be very healthy eating only a wide variety of candies, snack cakes, dried meats and soft drinks.
Agreed, but I will submit for clarity that I do in fact consume devilish amounts of junk (generally high-quality baked goods rather than 7/11 crap).
I don't see your peer reviewed research.
Which point would you like me to justify with peer-reviewed research? I think it's empirical enough as is that strict "health" food diets don't work for the majority of the Western population or pretty much anywhere that has access to cheap food, as evidenced by the abundance of people who've tried them and failed vs. those testifying to their long-term success. Most people want tasty, enjoyable food on a fairly regular basis, or they start to feel deprived and "cheat" on their diets.
I didn't say food had no psychological impact. That's all that junk food has.
They also have lots of muscle-fueling calories which can in many circumstances be utilized just as effectively if not more so than the calories consumed from fruits and veggies. There's absolutely no need to eliminate this stuff from your diet if you find it enjoyable and balance it out with your nutritional requirements and restrictions on the whole, as I seem to have been doing successfully for the last 4 years thus far.
I said that it's BS that eating cake is just as important as eating vegetables. You seem to be on a rant against an invisible opponent.
I'm only saying that cake isn't in any way unhealthy if consumed in moderation; it can in fact serve as perfectly good nutrition for certain needs. Not really any worse than rice and butter if you already have a good supply of vitamins and minerals (arguably in fact, some would say it beats things like whole wheat and brown rice due to the toxins commonly found therein).
Eating a healthy diet and then having a piece of cake is not what anyone is talking about. That's not why we have an obesity epidemic.
In your opinion, why are we having an obesity epidemic?
I believe it's a simple matter of cheap food being supplied in ready abundance and convenience, unmasking the typical human being's lack of learned self-discipline in modern society, combined with the ease of living a comfortable, sedentary life while machines and a small proportion of the population take care of most physical labour. Even the "healthy" juice stores make it worse by serving up fruits, vegetables and protein in a vastly more quickly-digested, less satiating form, while making their customers feel like they're making a wise nutritional decision and hyping all sorts of miscellaneous nutritional supplements that virtually no one actually needs or benefits from in practice.
The skinny kids I grew up with had all their meals planned and served by their schools and parents which made portion controls easy, while my own dad was giving stupid advice about how you can eat all the sugar you want as long as you avoid combining it with certain things, and my parents were watching me drink regular Coca Cola by the gallon with no clue how much a difference it would have made there alone just switching to Diet. Oh sure, they did push alternatives such as orange juice which has virtually the same amount of sugar and calories as Coke, just as all sorts of morons push terrible diet advice all over the web up to this very day which only compounds the problem.
Then there's things like the genetic excuse which has no scientific or physical basis but is nonetheless pushed by so many "authorities" on the subject, making people think their butts and bellies can simply generate fat straight out of the quantum vacuum, that there's nothing to be done about the problem except to enjoy being whatever they are and continue contentedly indulging. The biggest difference genetics could possibly make would be in appetite control and the athleticism which leads to burning lots of calories, but even in this case the nature vs. nurture argument is hardly settled, and I'm one of countless examples of people who've beat out their old lifestyle habits with reasonable measures of long-term success simply through determination, hard work, and having a clue about what I'm doing.
My (partial) solution to the epidemic is for society as a whole, led by medical and political administrators, to increase the level and quality of nutrition education and information. Most people don't seem to realize just how fattening a typical muffin or croissant is, that all starches turn to sugar once absorbed into the body, or that you can get fat eating apples or any other food with calories just as readily as you can with cookies, if you don't control the portions. Most people have no idea what kinds of foods have what sorts of nutritional contents and effects, let alone the ability to plan their daily meals and activities with this knowledge in hand.
Most people don't even realize how much power they have to shape their own bodies, let alone the know-how and dedication to put the knowledge into practice. The "best" these folks can often do is to eat/drink at some stoned hippy juice restaurant pushing un-needed and poorly specified "anti-oxidants" and whatnot to justify jacking the price up, then they happily go through their 600 calorie cups of mostly liquid sugar thinking it's doing them nothing but good and that it would be even better to have another serving, if only they had the time, money and appetite for it. For my own part, as a teen I used to hit the gym 4 or 5 times weekly, usually after school, desperate to slim down and completely 100% unaware how counterproductive and destructive it was to be downing big sugary slurpees as my post-workout reward.
