WASHINGTON, April 13, 2016 - Nutrition experts at this
year’s Food
Policy Conference sponsored by the Consumer Federation of
America agreed that far too many Americans fail to eat a healthy diet and
placed part of the blame on journalists.
“Americans do not eat a diet that aligns with the Dietary
Guidelines” for Americans (DGA), said Angie
Tagtow, executive director of USDA’s Center for
Nutrition Policy and Promotion. “Although we have seen a slight increase (in
the past 15 years), the Healthy Eating Index for America today is 59 out of 100
points, which quantifies as a very poor diet,” she said.
Another panelist in the “Turning
Nutrition Science into Policy” discussion, Barbara Millen, director of the
Boston Nutrition Foundation, took more of a “glass half full” view of the
situation, saying Americans are “more than half the way there.”
Millen, who chaired
the advisory committee (DGAC) that produced the recommendations for the
DGA, said there needs to be a “paradigm shift” in the public health field
towards prevention, and public health practitioners need to have incentives to
engage with people who need help.
“We need to incentivize prevention and make these services
widely available,” she said. Stakeholders need to focus on a “multi-sectoral”
strategy that includes daycare centers, school and work environments to improve
diets and encourage physical activity.
“Preventable health problems are crippling Americans,” but
the tools exist today to identify “common components of healthy dietary
patterns,” Millen said.
The other members of the panel were Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public
Interest (CSPI), and Maureen
Storey, president and CEO of the Alliance for Potato
Research and Education.
Wootan and the other panelists agreed that education is
crucial to changing things, and not just for the average consumer, but for food
and science journalists. Reporters often focus on the unusual and
controversial, Wootan said, adding that journalists “like that ‘man bites dog’
story.”
“We need to work with journalists and medical journalists so
there are some ethical guidelines in place around transparency and accuracy,”
she said.
Fad diets are another obstacle, Wootan said. “You have all
these diet-book authors getting on talk shows pushing their snake oil,” she
said.
She also slammed the food industry for spending billions in
advertising and “jumping on studies” that benefit their particular product.
“They benefit from consumer confusion. If consumers are confused, they just
throw up their hands and say, I’m going to eat whatever I want.” “If it’s too
good to be true, it probably is,” Wootan said.
“We need to work really hard to make sure the important
message gets out,” Millen said. She reflected on her interactions with
journalists as chair of the DGAC. Reporters told her they “need a hook, need a
controversy. That’s what really sells.”
Food industry scientists also need to be ready for the inevitable
criticism that follows when they publish their research, Storey said. “What do you expect?” the critics say, “It was from the food industry.”
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