I don't normally blog about nutrition, but today I just wanted to put something out there. Something that I saw and really bugged me, as a future RD. I was at the gym today and Dr. Oz was on TV. It is hard to change the channels so I kept watching, even though Dr. Oz isn't my favorite. He has said a few things related to nutrition that I don't agree with and that are not backed up by good science, which we rely heavily on in dietetics.
This particular episode was called "Slowing Aging and Preventing Disease". Part of the segment involved what Dr. Oz called his four "superfoods". They were salmon, sweet potatoes, white kidney (cannellini) beans and kale. Now don't get me wrong, there are great things about each of those foods and I would encourage anyone to include them in their normal diet. However, the way Dr. Oz portrayed it was "Add these foods to your diet to age slowly and prevent disease". This bothers me because these four foods are not magic answers to nutrition-related health problems. Simply adding these four foods to an already poor diet won't do very much. For these foods to make a difference, they need to be combined with a balanced diet, exercise, no smoking and many other factors. The key to disease prevention is lifestyle change and what we refer to as "maintenance". That is the ability to practice those healthy lifestyle habits on a daily basis. In my opinion, it isn't enough to just add those four foods.
Part of the problem with nutrition in this country is the millions of messages we get from the media every single day related to food and what we should be putting into our bodies. What people like Dr. Oz need to promote are not just "superfoods" but an overall healthy lifestyle, including foods from all of the food groups. Just for fun, here is the new MyPlate icon, that I love so much.
PS For the few of you that read this, thanks for letting me vent.
