Nutrition: Nutritionism

[Explor­ing Life] Nutri­tion­ism is an ide­ol­ogy that pro­motes the belief that essen­tial nutri­ents in food can be iden­ti­fied and taken in rec­om­mended quan­ti­ties in order to main­tain or improve health as well as decrease the prob­a­bil­ity of dis­ease. The beliefs, aims and ideas behind nutri­tion­ism are pro­moted by sci­ence, indus­try and gov­ern­ment health orga­ni­za­tions. How­ever, the beliefs about nutri­tion that have been pro­moted over time have been sub­ject to con­stant revi­sion and con­tra­dic­tion.

Nutri­tion­ism and Confusion-ism

Nutri­tional sci­ence is an inex­act sci­ence that assumes whole food can be reduced to its “essen­tial” com­po­nents. Indus­try, feed­ing off of the con­stant changes in sci­ence, is quick to mar­ket the lat­est nutri­tional ortho­doxy on their own food prod­ucts. Gov­ern­ment food agen­cies are equally quick to pro­mote the lat­est food pyra­mid and sci­en­tific assump­tions in poli­cies that affect what we consume.[1] All three of the groups thrive on con­stant change and con­stantly repo­si­tion­ing them­selves as solu­tions to prob­lems that they may in fact be respon­si­ble for.

Var­i­ous kinds of exper­tise that lay claim to dietary and nutri­tional insight have grown at expo­nen­tial rates and com­pete for our atten­tion in the mar­ket­place. The con­fu­sion that has been cre­ated is near chaotic and eas­ily over­whelms even the most ded­i­cated con­sumer. How can we seek com­mon sense in the midst of con­fused and often myopic waves of expert advice?

To under­stand the essence of nutri­tion­ism places us directly in the chaotic growth of infor­ma­tion. All mar­ket­ing orig­i­nates in the prop­a­ga­tion of con­fu­sion, doubt, uncer­tainty, anx­i­ety, and biased per­spec­tives. Mar­ket­ing is a method­ol­ogy that is designed to cre­ate vic­tims through the manip­u­la­tion of infor­ma­tion. A con­fused, wor­ried, doubt­ful, uncer­tain or anx­ious con­sumer is also an ideal con­sumer to offer appar­ent solu­tions to. Aside from the fact that most mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing treat peo­ple as if they are inept, they inten­tion­ally per­pet­u­ate con­fu­sion and chaos in the mar­ket­place often wrapped in the illu­sion of promise and hope.

The source of con­fu­sion often presents itself in the form of a solu­tion or desir­able state. All solu­tions first require a prob­lem, and it is the mar­keters pri­mary objec­tive to man­u­fac­ture a prob­lem to which a solu­tion can be offered. The prob­lem itself may be real or appar­ent. The intent of the mar­keter may be sin­cere or merely mate­r­ial. Health and well being pro­vides fer­tile ground for man­u­fac­tur­ing prob­lems and solu­tions since it strikes a uni­ver­sal concern.

For exam­ple, lead­ing peo­ple to believe that cer­tain nutri­ents will improve health and offer pro­tec­tion from dis­ease has been the foun­da­tion of nutri­tional sci­ence, food pro­duc­tion and gov­ern­ment pol­icy for many years. How­ever, the advice and prod­ucts being offered have con­stantly shifted ground and in some cases what was once cel­e­brated as a pos­i­tive health ben­e­fit, in the full­ness of time, revealed itself to be detri­men­tal. In this cir­cum­stance the mar­ket­ing strat­egy has been to sweep away the now detri­men­tal advice and prod­uct offer­ings and replace them with the new nutri­tional reli­gion of the day.

The per­pet­u­a­tion of con­fu­sion and infor­ma­tion over­load is the essence of mar­ket­ing and consumerism.

The Myopic Assump­tion of Nutri­tional Science

It is obvi­ous to say that sci­ence is not in itself bad. How­ever, bad sci­ence does exist. In order to deter­mine the util­ity of a sci­en­tific approach it is nec­es­sary to under­stand the assump­tions it rests on. The basic premise of nutri­tional sci­ence is that the right nutri­ents can be iso­lated and iden­ti­fied, and if peo­ple take these nutri­ents in pre­scribed quan­ti­ties that will be health­ier and less prone to dis­ease. Though the intent is obvi­ously good, the assump­tion is bad and mis­guided. Since nutri­tional sci­en­tists work from a foun­da­tion of reduc­tion­ism by being singly focused on reduc­ing food to its com­po­nent parts (nutri­ents), they ignore nutri­tion as a com­plex sys­tem of inter­ac­tion that extends through­out the food chain, the envi­ron­ment and our lifestyle.[1]

For exam­ple, sun­light is a nat­ural source of vit­a­min D. Sun­screen blocks the ultra­vi­o­let rays that cause the skin to pro­duce it. Over-exposure to sun­light may increase the prob­a­bil­ity of skin can­cer. Under-exposure to sun­light may result in a vit­a­min D defi­ciency. The Amer­i­can Pedi­atric Asso­ci­a­tion has recently dou­bled the rec­om­mended daily intake of vit­a­min D as a supplement:

“New evi­dence [also] sup­ports a poten­tial role for vit­a­min D in main­tain­ing innate immu­nity and pre­vent­ing dis­eases such as dia­betes and can­cer,” the new pol­icy reads.

The pol­icy increases the rec­om­mended vit­a­min D intake for chil­dren and ado­les­cents from 200 IU to 400 IU per day.

“The rec­om­men­da­tion is going to be essen­tially a sup­ple­ment for every child and ado­les­cent in the United States,” said co-author Frank R. Greer, a Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin pediatrician.[2]

This is the kind of rec­om­men­da­tion is a mar­keters dream. Fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing the issue is con­fu­sion about whether or not sun­screen actu­ally pro­motes skin can­cer rather than pre­vent­ing it. Han Lar­son con­cludes that “The saga of sun­screens and skin can­cer is far from over. Research is con­tin­u­ing and new find­ings are being pub­lished at an accel­er­ated pace. But until we know the whole story, it would seem pru­dent to take pre­cau­tions based on what we do know.“[3] The prob­lem here is that “what we do know” is incom­plete and poten­tially mis­guided, so it may not in fact “be pru­dent” to “take pre­cau­tions” since they may exac­er­bate the problem.

It is a glar­ingly obvi­ous real­ity that nutri­ents exist in rela­tion­ship to one another and have a vast range of inter­ac­tive prop­er­ties that per­me­ate the food chain, the envi­ron­ment and our lifestyles. To iso­late “good” nutri­ents and pro­pose that a rec­om­mended col­lec­tion of them can be taken in pill or pow­der form is a at best myopic. Detri­men­tal health effects often reveal them­selves slowly over an extended period of time. [4]

The Inter­play of Incompetence

Nutri­tional sci­ence is closely linked to gov­ern­ment pol­icy and quickly brings to mind the notion of a food pyra­mid. The fun­da­men­tal fail­ure of gov­ern­ment pol­icy is its inabil­ity to be for­mu­lated in ways that are free from the influ­ence of indus­try. The food pyra­mid is an inept tool in pro­mot­ing knowl­edge about food and dietary choices. Michele Simon, a pub­lic health attor­ney in the U.S. writes:

The very name MyPyra­mid tells us the gov­ern­ment is squarely plac­ing all respon­si­bil­ity for eat­ing right with you and me. Never mind those pesky gov­ern­ment sub­si­dies and tax breaks to big agribusi­ness and food man­u­fac­tur­ers that make unhealthy food so cheap and ubiquitous…

Now that the pyra­mid has been com­pletely hijacked by the food indus­try and promises to be as use­less an edu­ca­tional tool as it ever was, it’s time to hang up the effort alto­gether. Just think of all the money gov­ern­ment could save in addi­tion to $2.5 mil­lion if it really wanted to improve America’s eat­ing habits: no more pay­ing for expen­sive PR firms, cor­po­rate wel­fare, high health­care costs, or fit­ness bimbos.[5]

Until gov­ern­ments assume a lead­er­ship role in food and food pro­duc­tion their poli­cies and advice will remain inept and mis­guided. Food cor­po­ra­tions exist for profit. The qual­ity of food, or edi­ble food sub­stance, they pro­duce is by default a sec­ondary consideration.

Sum­mary

The ben­e­fit of nutri­tional sci­ence is in its abil­ity to reveal and com­mu­ni­cate infor­ma­tion and advice about food that pro­motes health and well being. The notion of iso­lat­ing nutri­ents and pro­mot­ing one over another is short-sighted and poten­tially harm­ful. Nutri­tional sci­ence will ben­e­fit peo­ple to the extent it can reveal the com­plex inter­play of nutri­ents. How­ever, nutri­tional sci­ence should be inte­grated with envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence since this is the basic source of our food. Both his­tory and anthro­pol­ogy are required to reveal the impact of nutri­tion across time and cul­ture. In other words, the true study of nutri­tion is one that is inher­ently interdisciplinary.

Foot­notes

1. The con­flict of opin­ions and per­spec­tives sur­round­ing nutri­tion and nutri­tion­ism is exten­sive. A good exam­ple of the con­tra­dic­tions found within the sci­en­tific com­mu­nity alone can be found at Prof Patrick Hol­ford makes a basic error about antiox­i­dant side effects.

2. From <a href=“http://www.aap.org/pressroom/nce/nce08vitamind.htm” title=Link to: New Guide­lines Dou­ble the Rec­om­mended Amount of Vit­a­min D”>New Guide­lines Dou­ble the Rec­om­mended Amount of Vit­a­min D

3. Lar­son, Hans. Sun­screens and Skin Can­cer.

4. A good overview of the main issues of nutri­tion­ism is Pol­lan Blasts Low-Carb Bread, Not So Healthy Chips: Book Review.

5. MyPyra­mid Inc. by Michele Simon