The seventh grade boy who missed the last vocab quiz because of an absence had failed the prior two quizzes - even though the class average on both was an A-minus. When he said he wanted to make up the quiz next period, I offered an alternative.

“Why don’t I give it to you, but let you use your notes? That way, you could make sure you have the right answers, study them, and then take a reworked version of the quiz later.”

He looked at me in the oddest way. Was it because he couldn’t believe a teacher of his could be so magnanimous?

No! It was because he couldn’t believe a teacher of his could be such an absolute ignoramus.

“I don’t need any extra help,” he said slower and louder than he generally speaks - as if I were not only dimwitted but also hard of hearing. “I fail,” he stressed, “because I don’t study.”

Such honesty and awareness is good, especially in someone so young. But the combination doesn’t produce squat without an equal measure of motivation.

I recalled this encounter as I read a particularly appalling part of “A Report Card on the American Diet,” an article published in this month’s issue of the Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter. It’s based on a study published in JAMA from data collected as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and suggests too many American adults are like this student.

In the last 15 years, health organization after health organization has issued warnings about the harm to your health brought on by consuming too many refined grains. During this time, numerous studies have linked diets high in refined grains with obesity, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and even certain cancers.

Concurrently, something has been found to lower the incidence of all the aforementioned ailments: consuming fiber, what’s eliminated from whole grains in the refining process - along with essential vitamins and minerals.

So what have American adults done over the past 15 years? It may be hard to believe, but they have increased their consumption of refined grains.

In fact, because of this increase, the total of overall “bad” carbs - primarily refined grains and added sugars - consumed by the typical adult American daily stands at 42 percent.

Yet the combined average of two of the best “good” carb sources, whole grains and whole fruits, is less than 9 percent.

What are American adults thinking? Or rather, what are they reading? Surely not the report released on Feb. 27 from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on obesity.

The report reveals that in about the last 20 years severe obesity has nearly doubled while the overall increase has jumped 11.9 percent. In other words, in a random grouping of 47 adults, 20 are obese.

Because doctors determine obesity by the body mass index, which is found by a cumbersome and occasionally inaccurate mathematical calculation, the CDC offers a variation of the following example to help you determine your current state. If you are 5-10 and weigh 210 pounds - even if you are carrying the amount of muscle found on someone who lifts weights - you are no longer overweight.

You have become clinically obese.

If you are 5-10 and weigh 280 pounds - regardless of your amount of muscle or percentage of body fat - you are no longer simply obese, but severely so.

So why write an article like this if the average American adult is already aware he or she consumes too many refined grains? Because, as Hannah Moore once said, “The world does not to be informed as much as reminded.”

And now’s the time to remind you of other factors besides refined grains that can lead to serious weight gain - or have someone else do so. Rebecca Stanski, a registered dietitian at Gracie Square Hospital in New York City who was interviewed for a WebMD article about the CDC’s news release, believes sedentary lifestyle, easy access to high-calorie foods, eating in a rush, and failing to pay proper attention to hunger cues are other reasons why there will soon be a day when more than half adults are obese according to the body mass index.

If you fear you’re headed down the path that leads you to becoming part of the more than half, you need to know that there are many typical food choices loaded with things just as bad as refined grains.

Sugar. Solid fats. Processed oils.

Because these provide little or no nutritional value, they are called empty calories.

While empty calories make beverages, cookies, cakes, candy bars, burgers, hot dogs, pizza, and condiments taste better, they do not satisfy your instinctive need for vitamins, minerals, or fiber; therefore, your body gives you the sorts of signals that lead you to eat again.

And if you choose more empty calories when you do, you eventually become the sort of person unknown to this world 100 years ago: One who is overfed yet undernourished.