Consumers' appetite for food news seems nearly insatiable. At the same time, consumer confusion is rampant in today's fast-paced, multimedia environment. Whether speaking with colleagues, the journalist from the local paper, or family and friends at social gatherings, health professionals are often charged with understanding and translating scientific findings into layman's terms for "public consumption." Basically, we are all communicators of food and nutrition information and its application to health.
In recent years, scientific evidence has revealed that bioactive dietary components may benefit health in ways that extend beyond meeting basic nutritional needs. Some components, when consumed often enough and in sufficient quantities, may help reduce risk for chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or obesity. In addition, scientists are equipped with new knowledge and technologies that allow them to better identify these functional dietary components, incorporate them into various foods and dietary supplements, evaluate their potential health effects, and understand the impact of genetic variances among individuals.
The Challenge of Communicating the Emerging Science of Functional Foods
The evolving research into how whole foods, food components, and dietary supplements may promote health and reduce disease risk is creating an increasing stream of information that flows fast enough to keep the most motivated scientist on his or her toes. However, dietary recommendations from established scientific authorities change little over time because of the need for a strong, consensus-based body of evidence before dietary advice for the public is changed. This contrast presents challenges to those who strive to responsibly relay new findings to the public amid established dietary guidance.
One of several broad challenges is to communicate emerging science as part of a continuum. Conclusions should be based on the strength and consistency of the overall evidence rather than the findings from isolated studies. One can argue that science is continually "emerging" because answers to research questions are not definitive. Science evolves as more well-designed studies confirm, add to, or contradict previous findings.
Positioning beneficial dietary components as one part of a healthful diet and lifestyle rather than as "magic bullets" is a unique challenge to the "functional foods" discussion. Relaying the concept of "caloric displacement," that is, when consumption of foods containing a specific dietary component is increased in the diet, the level of consumption of other foods may need to decrease to maintain a healthy weight is also challenging. Individualization, i.e., identifying specific population groups that would likely benefit from the increased or decreased consumption of a given component, should be clearly communicated. Finally, informing the public regarding completely new research findings or technologies, such as the concept of "nutrigenomics" and "personalized nutrition," before the area is fully understood, is an additional challenge.
Communication Solutions: The Guidelines
The International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation and the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), along with journalism and health professionals at Purdue University, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Missouri, Columbia, have collaborated to develop Guidelines for Communicating the Emerging Science of Dietary Components for Health. The Guidelines, which include seven "guiding principles" for improved communication, are designed to address the challenges listed above and are intended to be versatile tools that all food and nutrition communicators, health professionals, journalists, and food scientists can use.
The Essence of the Guidelines
The following principles can be used to enhance communications and empower consumers to choose health-promoting components as part of an overall healthful lifestyle.
1. Enhance public understanding of foods, food components, and dietary supplements and their roles in a healthful lifestyle. Serve up plain talk about food and health. Advise consumers that dietary components are not magic bullets that work alone, but may promote good health when they are included as part of a healthful diet and lifestyle.
2. Clearly convey the differences between emerging and consensus science. Scientific research is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Tell consumers where new findings fall on the research continuum and within the overall body of evidence.
3. Communicate with accuracy and balance. Carefully craft your communications. Advise a healthy skepticism for potentially misleading headlines, such as "medical miracle" or "scientific breakthrough." Suggest looking beyond dramatic language to get the full story. Explain that facts are facts, but that experts may have different opinions on how to interpret those facts. Present a complete picture of a study's results, rather than select findings of a study.
4. Put new findings into the context needed for an individual to make dietary decisions. Make your messages meaningful. Translate the latest research into what is on the consumer's dinner plate. Spell out to whom new findings apply and what impact, if any, the findings should have on eating habits.
5. Disclose all key details about a particular study. Cite the specifics. Discuss the study design (such as the characteristics of the participants and the quantity of food consumed) to help the public understand research results and their validity.
6. Consider peer-review status. Point out if a study has been peer reviewed as a key measure of its credibility, although it is not the only measure. Peer review is not a guarantee of conclusive results - it is but one piece of a larger puzzle made up by the overall body of evidence.
7. Assess the objectivity of research. When assessing a study's objectivity, consider the full facts—including not only disclosure of the study's funding sources, but also whether the study has gone through a peer-review process, the study's methodology, and its conclusions.
Health professionals and other communicators have the opportunity to bridge the gap between science and the consumer by using guidelines to translate emerging research findings into understandable and actionable messages for consumers. As health professionals, we can tell consumers what is known about food and nutrition science; as communicators, we can help lead them to better health.
For more information, please visit the IFIC Foundation Web site at: http://www.ific.org/nutrition/functional/guidelines.
