Food misinformation is the hottest nutrition controversy

April 7, 8:42 PMSacramento Nutrition ExaminerAnne Hart

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 What does the average person do when a new study comes out saying that a food has specific genetic, lifestyle, or health benefits, but then soon after, another study is released noting that the same food has negative health consequences?

This type of debate has opened the field of nutrition to debate. What health issues surround studies of soy products, homogenized milk, and margarine?

How does the average consumer with no science training make informed decisions about what foods are healthy for each person or for all individuals? Would the average consumer benefit by a costly test to determine whether one’s genetic signature is helped or harmed by ingestion of a specific food or medicine? Are those tests accurate? Such topics are ripe for debate.

The hottest controversy in nutrition today is food misinformation appearing in various popular media—newspapers, general consumer magazines, and the tabloid press. However, three equally important controversies in nutrition actually are science versus nature, childhood obesity, and the ever-increasing type 2 diabetes epidemic in children and adults.

According to the International Food Information Council (IFIC) nutrition/food safety staff, while there are nutrition controversies almost too numerous to mention, a couple stand out – food ‘myths’ (or misinformation) concerning the safety/health benefits of consuming fish and seafood, especially canned tuna; and continuing misinformation about the safety of low-calorie sweeteners, such as Aspartame.

On the site you can click on links to several IFIC-produced resources examining these controversies in greater depth. If you’re a journalist or other media representative, the current IFIC Foundation Media Guide on Food Safety and Nutrition is available free to credentialed journalists (members of the media). It contains valuable material on the history of nutrition and is a comprehensive resource on a variety of food safety and nutrition topics.

The print edition contains backgrounders, contact information for almost 300 independent, scientific experts, and links to reference materials found on the International Food Information Council (IFIC) site. The new edition brings together, in an easy-to-use reference guide, information journalists need to sort out increasingly complex food safety and nutrition issues.

The controversy asks the question: "Is science better or worse than nature?" What is meant by ‘science’ actually refers to technology—the chemical and mechanical solutions to problems or states found in ‘nature.’

Another question arises: Isn’t science really nature, and isn’t nature science? Three such topics related to the history of nutrition as well as its current state are about the psychology, anthropology, and sociology of eating. The psychology of eating forms the basis of most historical nutrition issues. One area of nutrition called "the psychology of eating" historically has focused on topics such as the study of slow eating, fad diets, and why people eat by habit.

Let’s first take obesity as a nutrition issue. Childhood obesity is the biggest topic facing health professionals. If the most critical issue facing health professionals including nutrition educators is obesity among children and adults in this country. The connection between nutrition and health trends is an area ready for debate.

How do health professionals show consumers how to reverse the trend of increasing overweight? Many obese adolescents become obese adults with a complement of chronic disease risk factors. Halting obesity rates in children is crucial to the long term health of this country What about the rest of the undernourished world? The proliferation of nutrition information changing daily is overwhelming, and that is the biggest issue of keeping up with the times.