OPINION: Making a meal of nutrition

We trust lawyers with our legal matters, mechanics with our cars and plumbers with our plumbing, but when it comes to nutritional advice we seem sucked in by charisma and shirk the qualified experts.

Australians are lapping up celebrity nutritional advice (and associated cookbooks, paid diet programs and appearance fees).

Sarah Wilson, a journalist and television presenter, has become a guru for "quitting sugar". Michelle Bridges, a celebrity personal trainer, sells a superfoods cookbook, and Pete Evans, a trained chef, is leading the Paleo "tribe" with his television program The Paleo Way.

There are obvious problems with what these people are selling. No, you didn't "quit sugar", you quit refined cane sugar and replaced it with different (more expensive!) sugar.

"Superfoods" are just an expensive marketing ploy.

And as for Paleo, well, let's just say that it's lucky for cavemen that they didn't live long enough to have to worry about colon cancer or osteoporosis.

There is also growing concern about "orthorexia" - an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. But why are the experts with the facts and qualifications losing the battle against the celebrities and their fad diets?

Is it just the celebrity charisma? Charismatic people are surely going to be more successful in selling themselves and their products. Does this mean nutrition professionals should get better at selling themselves? Maybe, but is "showiness" really what you look for in an expert? Isn't the lack of self-promotion a sign that they are focused on the facts and in the industry for the right reasons?

Everyone eats food. On one hand this make nutrition science really easy to communicate, because everyone can see how it fits in their lives. On the other hand, this means that everyone has an opinion and feels empowered as an expert. Anecdotes seem to have more power than scientific evidence. Does this problem need a bigger-picture solution? Is it time to stop just listing facts, figures and recommendations and get better at explaining why scientific evidence differs from anecdotes?

The rise of the internet and social media is also partially to blame. Spruikers can easily reach punters, and followers of each fad can share their success stories. Do we let down our guard in the more casual social media environment? Are we drawn to the sense of community that is fostered by taking up an extreme diet lifestyle?

It's worth remembering that social media can be used as a marketing tool and are not as free and transparent as they might appear. How do you know your guru is not leaving the success stories in full view and deleting comments from people who have had failures or bad experiences? Should we trust them just because they are famous? The Facebook group "Blocked by Pete Evans" has over 7000 followers, many of whom have been kicked off Paleo pages for voicing concerns about the diet, their comments deleted without a trace.

The argument has become adversarial and full of flawed logic. Try to tell a Paleo follower that all foods can be enjoyed in moderation and you get a response along the lines of "so you want cancer in moderation?" Tell the anti-sugar team that you don't have to (and couldn't possibly) cut out all sugars and you get "So you just want us all to eat fast foods and drink soda, do you?"

Three traditional diets stand out in the scientific literature as promoting long life and good health: the Nordic, Japanese and Mediterranean diets. What do they all have in common? They are low on processed foods and high in variety - no food groups are forbidden.

Celebrity diets sell short-term results. Weight loss and "health" seem to have become confused. If you lose weight, a diet is said to work. But nutrition is about health for life. A diet that makes you slim now does not guarantee long-term health. In an ageing society, are we trading our short-term goals for problems in later life?

Dietary insufficiencies might take years to manifest. Gwyneth Paltrow (movie star) who promoted and followed the macrobiotic diet (which avoids animal products, including dairy) since 1999 revealed in 2010 that she had been diagnosed with osteopenia (low bone density). Many have questioned whether this was a result of her extreme diet.

One really important thing you should know, is that anyone in Australia can call themselves a "nutritionist" or a "dietitian" - they are not protected terms. This might be giving good dietitians a bad name.

If you want to know you are getting advice from a qualified professional, who is held to professional standards and has a relevant academic degree, look for one who is registered with the Dietitians Association of Australia or the Nutrition Society of Australia, which keeps a register of qualified nutritionists.

 Emma Beckett is a PhD Candidate in Food Science (Human Nutrition) at the University of Newcastle and has a degree in Biomedical Science