Science Confirms The Obvious: Fast Food Is Pretty Bad For You
Gross Big Mac Wikimedia Commons Over the past 14 years, fast food has gone from "awful, health-wise" to "awful, health-wise." A new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine takes a look at a host of popular American fast-food establishments to see if they've improved, nutritionally, in the past decade and a half. They have! Technically! Also technically: they are still way below average. The team used the Healthy Eating Index, a tool created by the US Department of Agriculture that essentially measures how well a given diet matches up with a list of dietary guidelines, also created by the Department of Agriculture. The HEI, as it's usually called, awards points for a diet that includes more of certain items (dark green vegetables, whole grains, seafood) and also points for less of other items (refined grains, sodium, and the vague "empty calories"). The average American diet scores in the low 50s,...