A User-Friendly Tool for Navigating the Nutrition Noise (Part 2 of 2)

A table to help assess quality of nutrition information

In my last newsletter, I discussed why nutrition recommendations seem to constantly change and conflict. Today, I want to share a visual tool to help you assess the vast nutrition information you encounter. I’ve made both this and my previous newsletters fully available to all readers (free and paying). I would love for you to share it widely if you think it is helpful. I hope it might help you navigate nutrition information with confidence.

If you’re already a subscriber, I can’t thank you enough for your support. If you’re not yet a subscriber, I’d love for you to subscribe (whether free or paid!). I love being able to connect and serve through my writing as a complement to my one-on-one nutrition work.

Ok, let’s dig into today’s newsletter and tool:

While the messaging around diets and nutrition seem to change constantly (social media is a cesspool of questionable or even harmful dietary and nutrition advice), formal recommendations—from academic institutions, professional organizations, and the government—tend to change at a snail’s pace, if they ever change at all. This is where a critical eye for the information you’re consuming is increasingly important.

One way to think about this issue is to notice where or who the information is coming from. Is it from your social circle, like a family member, friend, or a parent you shared the bleachers with at your kid’s basketball game? Is it a professional, like your doctor, dietitian, or a researcher? An organization, like the The American Heart Association or American Cancer Society? The local or federal government? Is it from an influencer, like Kim Kardashian? Nutrition messaging from each of these will vary in accuracy, nuance, and bias.

The tool (table) below shows various factors to consider when consuming nutrition information. I’ve listed various information sources with examples, the speed at which they might change their nutrition recommendations, how carefully (or carelessly) they may change their recommendations (level of intentionality), the scale of their impact (reach), the level of personalization of their recommendations, and each source’s risk of bias.

Sources of Nutrition Information and Recommendations: Speed, Intentionality, Reach, Personalization, and Risk of Bias.

Color coding: The color coding in the table represents my interpretation of whether the level intentionality, level of personalization, and risk of bias might be beneficial or positive (green), of variable benefit or risk (yellow), risky or negative (red). I left two of the columns without color (speed of change and scale of reach) because their benefit or risk would vary based on the other categories. For example, if intentionality is erratic but scale of reach is low, then that wouldn’t be as risky/negative (e.g. your brother telling you about his diet at a family holiday) versus a scenario where intentionality is erratic, personalization is poor but reach is high (e.g. a random social media influencer telling millions of followers to buy a “metabolism booster” supplement).

How to use this visual: At a glance, you can see that none of the rows is all green. There isn’t a perfect outlet for nutrition information, but you can see a general “grade” of various sources of nutrition information. Sources of nutrition information that are more red/yellow would be less reputable for nutrition information, while the categories that are more green/yellow might be more trustworthy. Some sources have more or less risk of bias, some are more or less intentional, some are better trained to personalize their recommendations to you (clinician) versus information for the general population (public health professional).

Nuance, caveats and assumptions: Of course, I can’t know every single researcher or clinician in the world. While there is standardization in medical and dietetic training, each program will vary on what is taught and/or the elective courses offered at a school or taken by an individual clinician or researcher. I also can’t say that every credentialed clinician will be careful about how they make changes to their nutrition recommendations. However, I’m going to make the assumption that professionals within each category of nutrition information are doing the best they can and are well-trained. I’m also assuming that each of the professional categories are generally trying to make the best decisions for the people they work with or the work they do and uphold integrity in their work.

I’m considering the news media on the spectrum of bias. Here’s an excellent table of the visual of bias in media from All Sides Now regarding politics. While I’m unaware of a comparable graphic showing bias of nutrition information, you can see how different news outlets are plotted along the spectrum of bias from left, center, and right. Different news outlets use more or less editorial language to change the interpretation or meaning of facts based on their bias (or management of their bias). This can also happen when communicating nutrition information.

An exception to these categories would be if your interpersonal community has a lot of healthcare providers or researchers. Within a family, you might find several doctors, nurses, or generations of researchers. With those scenarios, the level of intentionality may be more deliberate because these people are likely better trained than your uncle who has a business degree or cousin who is a 3rd grade teacher (who each may be experts in their field, but not in nutrition). These different scenarios would impact how you might look at this table and interpret the color coding.

Another example would be if a social media influencer has—for example—a master of public health (MPH) degree. This would increase the rating of intentionality from “erratic” to “deliberate”, and risk of bias from “high” to “low”. Within the table, I made the assumption that a social media personality has no professional training .

Final thoughts and disclaimers: I created this table based on my experience, interpretation, and view of the increasingly noisy nutrition and diet landscape. With that, my bias is inherently built into the table. I am a conventionally trained dietitian (RDN) with research background (master of science and PhD), and I have practiced nutrition for 14 years (outpatient) and have additional training and practice experience using principles of integrative and functional medicine. This is my first attempt at creating this table, so it isn’t perfect (and never will be). I hope it serves as a user-friendly tool to give structure to your interpretation of nutrition information.

Please share your feedback! I would love to hear what you think about the tool or ideas to improve it.