I think the very latest I'd put public awareness of the health effects of sugar would be the Atkins diet fad, circa 2004. That diet was a big deal at the time,

I think the very latest I'd put public awareness of the health effects of sugar would be the Atkins diet fad, circa 2004. That diet was a big deal at the time, definitely part of the public discourse, and the premise was that sugar was bad. Note that that book was already 30 years old by then, but something suddenly changed in the culture that made it hit. Then there were things like Paleo (2002-2013, hard to pin down) and The 4-Hour Body (2010), which were even more explicit about sugar being dangerous.