What to expect and why you should only trust a Registered Nutritionist for your nutrition advice.
One of the reasons I wanted to renew my website was so I could blog, enabling me to regularly post interesting and useful nutrition information to a wider audience.
One of the issues with #nutrition is that there is a lot of information about it on the internet, a lot of which is mis-information. This is the difficulty facing people who are desperately trying to find an answer. It appears that everyone has an opinion. Unfortunately, it is not always coming from the right source, or even from someone with the right training, such as a #nutritionprofessional, or a #registerednutritionist like myself.
Most of the diet advice found on the net is of a 'one size fits all' approach that doesn't take into account the individual nature of our biochemistries and lifestyles, which is especially true of fitness advice. Our bodies can react differently to many factors, such as exercise, stress, dietary intake and supplements and it is important that these factors are taken into consideration.
So where does the other mis-information come from?
The UK Government.
The UK Government basically sit on the fence of nutrition, offer weak and outdated advice and are in the pockets of the food industry, which is why representatives of Unilever, Nestle, Kellogg's, McDonalds and PepsiCo, etc were sat around the table helping Public Health England create what nutritionists call, the 'Eat Badly Plate!' How did that happen? How can suppliers of junk food be allowed to influence a supposed guide to improving the nation's health? Furthermore, the dietary advice the Government offer is antiquated at the least. They are telling us our maximum daily Vitamin C intake should be 40mg/daily, which is all very well if you are trying to avoid getting scurvy, a disease from the 16th Century! The USA RDI is twice this! The Government's 5-a-day scheme from yesteryear is also woefully short of the 7-10 a-day we actually need to also combat stress, pollution and poor diets - to support and maintain health, and to prevent illness..
The Government is in the pockets of the food industry and offer nutrition advice that is weak and outdated.
Sensational press headlines.
The press makes the job of finding the right nutrition advice even harder, by their confusing and sensationalist headlines, as they cherry pick poorly researched and statistically insignificant scientific trials to blare out rubbish headlines such as 'FISH OILS DON'T WORK!', 'VITAMIN D SUPPLEMENTS AREN'T ABSORBED BY THE BODY!' and so on... Remember they are selling newspapers and rely on their headlines to do this. All it does is to confuse the consumer even more. It is important to dig a little deeper into the sources of such articles.
Don't trust the sensationalist nutrition headlines by the press - do your own research!
So, who do you trust?
Lastly there are a lot of people out there on social media who are pretending to be nutritionists. It is easy to do a weekend course and call yourself one, but it is not likely that these people will have the skills to properly advise people on health and wellbeing. The wrong advice could seriously harm someone. I am a registered nutritionist because I spent four years studying a degree, so I have a comprehensive understanding of nutritional biochemistry and clinical practice and I am able to critically evaluate scientific literature. I have also met the National Occupational Standards and the Nutritional Therapy Core Curriculum set by the The Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC) who check the details of practitioners' training, insurance and experience and confirms whether they are eligible for CNHC registration. Only Dieticians and Registered Nutritional Therapists are trained in clinical practice to give one-on-one personal health advice. There are no sour grapes here, it is about the safety of the public.
Help is here.
So, I do understand how difficult it can be to sort through this quagmire of information to try and find the answers you need, so please get in touch if need any help. I will also be trying to help by regularly posting information on the ever-changing world of nutrition and offering health and wellbeing advice that is backed up by scientific research and of course some delicious, healthy recipes, so please check back regularly.
I will be regularly posting information on the ever-changing world of nutrition, wellbeing advice and some delicious, healthy recipes, so please check back.
Comments