The numbers even indicate a slight increase in teenage food use over 1996, despite the millions of dollars spent on the dangers of the substance by schools, industry groups, and performer/activist Charlton Heston. The lone bright spot in the report showed that only two stalwart groups -- fashion models and people who have just been dumped -- ate a negligible amount in 1997.

"Looks like we're going to have to do some more educational movies," said study co-author Joseph Slaney, of Columbia University's Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse. "Looks like we're going to have to do lots of movies."

"Food, while causing little physiological or neurological harm, is nevertheless a dangerous drug because it is both physically and mentally addictive," Slaney said, who subsists entirely on Power-Bars and bits of crushed glass. "Once people start consuming food, sometimes as early as in the womb, they find that they literally can't live without it. They'll do a sandwich or piece of fruit to try and make themselves feel better, all the while ignoring the real problem -- that their body needs energy and nourishment."

Slaney is not without opposition in his zero-tolerance approach to the food problem. National Drug Czar and retired admiral Barry McCaffrey views the problem in a different light. "The real threat food presents is not an energy issue. I mean you can get energy lots of ways now -- a piece of tire, sucking on a gas pump, or even from a burger. What concerns me is that food is a gateway drug. Behind every heroin user, cokehead, or pothead stay-at-home you'll find a lifetime of food consumption. The correlation is nearly 100%."

Yet the food problem is growing and seemingly intractable, as kids like Rory Johnson, 18, demonstrate. The son of a teacher and a portfolio manager in Wilmington, DE, Johnson would seem to be the picture of health, with his methodically developed muscles bulging out of his middle linebacker's uniform. Nevertheless, Rory is a textbook case of a healthy appearance disguising the sickness within, of unrepentant transgression coupled with the implacable arrogance of youth.

"Last summer during two-a-days, I was eating 4 or 5 meals a day," Johnson said. "I put on 13 pounds of pure muscle, and this year I'm hitting like a m----- f------ train."

17-year-old Kristin Seville, a nerd from Augusta, GA, with her body thinned by test anxiety and the neurosis brought on by social rejection, might seem to be an unlikely candidate to get mixed up with food. Yet again the picture is more complex.

"Yeah, all the popular kids, the jocks. They eat," says Seville. "It's hard not to let them affect your own choices. Like, I'll be taking a test, something that might really help me get into a good school. And all I'll be able to think about is a big piece of cake."

The Czar, who was recently granted a sizable budget increase, along with divine right and the power to behead serfs for sport, may make some slight gains with his new re-education campaign. Yet the picture remains grim, and both McCaffrey and Slaney do agree on one thing: little can be done in the short term.

"We're not just fighting for bodies, we're fighting for minds," said McCaffrey. "And we'll measure our success one mind at a time."

"Kids today--they all have the clap too," Slaney added.