Abstract
It is the position of the American Dietetic Association (ADA) that food and nutrition
misinformation can have harmful effects on the health, well-being, and economic status
of consumers. Nationally credentialed dietetics professionals working in health care,
academia, public health, the media, government, and the food industry are uniquely
qualified to advocate for and promote science-based nutrition information to the public,
function as primary nutrition educators to health professionals, and actively correct
food and nutrition misinformation. Enormous scientific advances have been made in
the area of food and nutrition, leading to a fine-tuning of recommendations about
healthful eating. Consumers have become increasingly aware of the nutrition–health
link and reliant on nutrition information to base their decisions, and have assumed
partial responsibility for changing their eating behaviors. Unfortunately, these same
trends also create opportunities for food and nutrition misinformation to flourish.
News reports rarely provide enough context for consumers to interpret or apply the
advice given, and preliminary findings often attract unmerited and misleading attention.
Effective nutrition communication must be consumer-friendly and contain sufficient
context to allow consumers to consider the information and determine whether it applies
to their unique health and nutritional needs. Consistent with ADA’s organizational
vision that members “are the leading source of nutrition expertise,” ADA recognizes
its responsibility to help consumers identify food and nutrition misinformation in
the following ways: (a) ADA members should provide consumers with sound, science-based
nutrition information and help them to recognize misinformation; (b) ADA members need
to be the primary source of sound, science-based nutrition information for the media
and to inform them when misinformation is presented; and (c) ADA members should continue
to diligently work with other health care practitioners, educators, policy makers,
and food and dietary supplement industry representatives to responsibly address the
health and psychological, physiological, and economic effects of nutrition-related
misinformation.
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© 2006 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
