Encouraging people to eat a wide variety of foods to ensure they meet all their dietary needs may backfire, according to a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association (AHA) that provides an overview of recent scientific studies.
“Eating a more diverse diet might be associated with eating a greater variety of both healthy and unhealthy foods” said Marcia C. de Oliveira Otto, Ph.D., lead author of the statement published in the AHA journal Circulation. “Combined, such an eating pattern may lead to increased food consumption and obesity.