Developing dietary guidelines (DGs) for a country plays a significantly important public health role as it impacts to different population groups of the country. Over the evolvement of dietary guidelines, the emphasis can be seen shifting from prevention of nutrient deficiencies to prevention of chronic diseases (Mozaffarian and Ludwig, 2010), however, evidences suggest that in much of the history DG’s were driven by focusing the nutrients (Webster-Gandy et al., 2011) rather than foods, meals or dietary patterns.
The thrust of this paper is to explore the limitations of such focus and to discuss implications of the practice on dietary guidelines. First, this paper reviews some of the concepts and terminology related to nutrient focus. Second, …show more content…
Foods and diets or eating patterns have a culture on it, ethical social or family aspects inherited with it, whereas single nutrients individually do not have these aspects which are important in shaping nutrition of the public (FAO,n.d.). Cohen and Farley (2008) in the ‘ Eating is an automatic behaviour’ suggest that in nutrition education it is the food environment that is important and should be focused, not the nutrients or the constituents. They further argues that, the amount of food people consumed heavily depends on the environmental factors such as visibility & salience of food, size of the portion and the level of access to the food (availability). One such significant example is the Brazilian guidelines which focuses guidelines in terms of meals and promote people to cook whole meals at home and to reduce marketing of big foods instead of dwelling down the nutrients, calories, pyramids or plates (Brazil has the best FBDGs in the World, 2015).
One of the other main limitations of nutricentric dietary advice is the complicatedness of the messages or the confusion it creates in understanding the messages with the public. For example …show more content…
FBDGs incorporate food groups, meals, dietary patterns and behaviours into the dietary recommendations. Limitations of the nutricentric dietary research has been criticised by many prominent scholars in the field of nutrition widely. Some of the critiques constructed weak arguments while others provided strong opponent arguments. The confusion and complication inherited in the nutrient focus, Difficulty of translating the message to public, can be easily manipulated by the food industry and provide distorted picture in public level are some of the limitations discussed in the paper. As nutrition is a science and it is developed based on scientific knowledge, it is by nature focusing on nutrients or the constituents of the food to lead the role. However, what is more important is how this knowledge is interpreted, generated or translated into dietary guidelines and food regulations
The thrust of this paper is to explore the limitations of such focus and to discuss implications of the practice on dietary guidelines. First, this paper reviews some of the concepts and terminology related to nutrient focus. Second, …show more content…
Foods and diets or eating patterns have a culture on it, ethical social or family aspects inherited with it, whereas single nutrients individually do not have these aspects which are important in shaping nutrition of the public (FAO,n.d.). Cohen and Farley (2008) in the ‘ Eating is an automatic behaviour’ suggest that in nutrition education it is the food environment that is important and should be focused, not the nutrients or the constituents. They further argues that, the amount of food people consumed heavily depends on the environmental factors such as visibility & salience of food, size of the portion and the level of access to the food (availability). One such significant example is the Brazilian guidelines which focuses guidelines in terms of meals and promote people to cook whole meals at home and to reduce marketing of big foods instead of dwelling down the nutrients, calories, pyramids or plates (Brazil has the best FBDGs in the World, 2015).
One of the other main limitations of nutricentric dietary advice is the complicatedness of the messages or the confusion it creates in understanding the messages with the public. For example …show more content…
FBDGs incorporate food groups, meals, dietary patterns and behaviours into the dietary recommendations. Limitations of the nutricentric dietary research has been criticised by many prominent scholars in the field of nutrition widely. Some of the critiques constructed weak arguments while others provided strong opponent arguments. The confusion and complication inherited in the nutrient focus, Difficulty of translating the message to public, can be easily manipulated by the food industry and provide distorted picture in public level are some of the limitations discussed in the paper. As nutrition is a science and it is developed based on scientific knowledge, it is by nature focusing on nutrients or the constituents of the food to lead the role. However, what is more important is how this knowledge is interpreted, generated or translated into dietary guidelines and food regulations