Watch What You Eat And Say

August 20, 1992|By Steven Pratt.

Despite the profusion of products that have the word emblazoned on their labels and despite the thousands of times it is used by advertisers, spokesmen and pundits to describe a food product or diet, the word ``healthy`` often is misused and might mean something other than what its users intend.

The primary definition of ``healthy`` is ``having good health`` or

``showing or resulting from good health,`` according to Webster`s New World Dictionary. Products such as frozen dinners, pizzas and salad dressings don`t have or show good health. And meat products especially do not have good health: In fact, they are dead. Perhaps the word label writers and others are looking for is ``healthful,`` which means ``helping to produce, promote or retain health`` or ``wholesome.`` For example, a diet is not ``healthy,`` but a person who follows a ``healthful`` diet could be.

But as with other misused words in the language, ``healthy`` rapidly is becoming ambiguous and meaningless. And ``healthful`` may live on only in the conversation of English teachers and recalcitrant food writers. And that, unfortunately, is not a ``healthy`` or a ``healthful`` state of affairs.