Lies, damned lies, and the media

Report from the ‘Paleo vs Plant Based? Tackling Current Controversies in Nutrition’ seminar – Part 3

On Wednesday 11 February I attended the ‘Paleo vs Plant Based? Tackling Current Controversies in Nutrition’ seminar at Sydney Adventist Hospital, featuring the renowned Canadian dietitian and author Brenda Davis; the grande dame of the Australian nutrition scene, Rosemary Stanton; and diabetes and PCOS expert, Kate Marsh.

In the last 2 posts I summarised Kate Marsh’s lecture, titled ‘Plant-based Diets and Chronic Disease’; and Brenda Davis’ lecture, ‘The Paleo Phenomenon: Facing Facts’.

In the final part of the seminar wrap-up, I’ll be covering Rosemary Stanton’s lecture, Why so many controversies in nutrition?’

Rosemary Stanton has written 33 books on food and nutrition, had over 3,500 articles published in magazines and newspapers, authored many scientific papers, and helped write the National Health and Medical Research Council’s Dietary Guidelines for Australians. As the go-to ‘source’ for the Australian media on any matter relating to nutrition, she has appeared regularly on television and radio over the last 45 years. Although she is forthright about not being a vegetarian herself, she now promotes a nationwide transition to more plant-based diets, and is an ambassador for Meat Free Mondays Australia.

I must confess, I haven’t always been particularly keen on Rosemary Stanton. Earlier in her career, her overly-close relationship with what was then the Australian Dairy Corporation (now Dairy Australia) gave me serious misgivings about the risk of bias in her dietary recommendations.

But my opinion of her took a turn for the better when too a strong stand against the CSIRO’s meat-based ‘Total Wellbeing Diet’, pointing out that the ‘science’ it was based on was dodgy, to say the least. Sadly, very few other nutrition professionals in Australia had the courage to publicly criticise the CSIRO’s best-selling behemoth, which rapidly became the darling of the popular media.

The media’s role in disseminating misinformation, distorting scientific findings, acting as a mouthpiece for commercial interests, and creating a sense of confusion in the public about nutrition, occupied much of Rosemary’s presentation. She was particularly scathing about the 2014 Catalyst 2-part program which exonerated saturated fat intake as a contributing cause of heart disease (since pulled from the ABC’s website) for its incredibly sloppy journalism.

As she pointed out, it took her less than 30 seconds to google Jonny Bowden, who was positioned in this program as a ‘nutrition expert’, and discover that his ‘PhD’ came from the notorious Clayton College of Natural Health, an institution which was never been accredited by any agency recognised by the U.S. Department of Education or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. People holding qualifications from Clayton and other non-accredited colleges are not eligible to use their degree titles in certain jurisdictions in the US. When there is such a wealth of experienced nutrition professionals who hold qualifications from reputable institutions, and have published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, what on earth was our national broadcaster doing, giving air time to Jonny Bowden?

Rosemary lamented the fact that medical journals, which used to hold themselves aloof from the popular press, now court media attention like a Hollywood B-grader. When an article is published, the journal will send out press releases and lead authors must make themselves available to the media for interviews. Unfortunately, these generally consist of nothing more than trawling for sound-bites, preferably ones that sound controversial. Researchers, who are trained to couch their conclusions tentatively and avoid categorical statements, are generally ill-prepared for this media circus. As a result, those who are more ‘media-savvy’ get more coverage for their articles, regardless of their scientific merit.

A case in point was an opinion piece (NOT a study) published in the British Medical Journal by Dr Aseem Malhotra, a cardiology registrar, who claimed – against the substantial weight of evidence – that

“advice [to reduce cholesterol] has, paradoxically, increased our cardiovascular risks”

and that

“saturated fat is not the major issue for cardiovascular disease”.

Despite its glaring inaccuracies, this opinion piece received wide coverage in the media, which – to paraphrase Dr John McDougall – are always eager to give the public good news about their bad habits.

Equally disturbing was the media reaction to the much-touted paper now known simply as ‘the Chowdhury meta-analysis’, which claimed that previous advice to limit saturated fat intake in order to reduce cardiovascular disease was not grounded in solid science. Despite numerous controversies surrounding this paper, including errors in calculation and the omission of several relevant, high-quality studies which contradicted Chowdhury’s position, the media had a field day. Time Magazine ran a cover story titled ‘We Were Wrong About Saturated Fats’; The New York Times’ food writer, Mark Bittman, boasted ‘Butter Is Back’; and countless bloggers trumpeted the news that saturated fat was good for us, after all.

Yet media coverage of the subsequent hailstorm of criticism of the paper by eminent nutrition researchers including Harvard University’s Walter Willett, lead investigator of the long-running Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study; and David Katz, editor of the journal Childhood Obesity, and President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, was notable by its absence. If you were relying on the popular media for your information about nutrition (which is highly inadvisable, in any circumstances), you would think that this flawed paper represented the final word on the healthfulness of saturated fat. It did no such thing.

Rosemary was also highly critical of the corporate partnerships formed by the Dietitians’ Association of Australia, emphasising the massive potential for conflict of interest that exists when the peak body for nutrition professionals receives sponsorship money from, among others, Meat & Livestock Australia, Dairy Australia, the Egg Nutrition Council, Jalna Dairy Foods, Campbell Arnotts and Nestle… and promotes these partnerships to corporations by explicitly promoting the fact that they offer  

“A range of advertising opportunities… to help you communicate with [i.e. influence] our members [i.e. dietitians].”

In a presentation filled with unsavoury information about the unprofessional behaviour of journalists and many researchers and health professionals, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Rosemary Stanton is actually really funny! Her description of the method she and gastroenterologist Terry Bolan used to measure the amount of flatus (that’s farts, for the uninitiated) passed by the average Australian, had the audience in stitches (hint: it involves a novel use of an over counter customarily used by cricket umpires ;-)).

On a more serious note, she lamented that many people avoid eating nutritious high-fibre foods such as cruciferous vegetables, legumes and whole grains because they claim to feel ‘bloated’ by them. On closer questioning, most reveal that by ‘bloating’ they mean ‘these foods make me fart’. But breaking wind is a universal human function, not a pathology, and only social convention decrees it unacceptable. It’s tragic that so many people are avoiding foods that reduce their risk of bowel cancer, heart disease, stroke and diabetes, just because they’re afraid to pop off in public.

She concluded with a plea for the audience of nutrition professionals to do all they can to stop the catastrophic decline in the Australian public’s eating habits. With the most recent national nutrition survey finding that only 5.5% of Australian adults eat the recommended 2 serves of fruit and 5 of vegetables per day (which is, quite frankly, a pretty low standard) and junk food provides about 36% of the average adult’s daily kilojoule intake, and over 40% of the average child’s, her message could not be more timely.

I’m on it, Rosemary.


Need help with planning an optimally healthy plant-based diet? Become an EmpowerEd member today!

Leave your comments below:

Leave A Response

* Denotes Required Field