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"Food faddism is a dietary practice based upon an exaggerated belief in the effects of food or nutrition
on health and disease."[1]
Highlights of Food Faddism and Nutrition:
- Food faddism is WRONG, because it is an extremist position.
- Good health is about achieving a proper balance in five areas: diet, nutritional supplements, exercise, attitude,
and resilience.
- Every good thing should be done in moderation.
- Don't be a food faddist! Always be careful in all your health endeavors to never take any one aspect of your
health program to an extreme position.
There are two required elements to food faddism.
- Exaggeration: Making wild health claims or having an obsession with only one tiny area of nutrition.
There is a difference between believing that whole grains, for example, are good for your health in general. And,
in making wild health claims about their curing specific diseases. The problem, here, is the lack of moderation.
- Belief: A health claim that cannot be supported by scientific research. There is a difference between
believing that something is true. And, reasonably proving that it is true. The problem, here, is making a therapeutic
claim without any scientific research to back it up with.
"Food faddism derives from these three beliefs:
- That special attributes of a particular food may cure disease.
- That certain foods should be eliminated from the diet because they are harmful.
- That certain foods convey special health benefits.
Food faddists are those who follow a particular nutritional practice with [excessive] zeal and whose claims
for its benefits are substantially more than science has substantiated."[2]
Food faddism is not about having or expressing an interest in using food to improve your health. Accordingly,
we would never claim that wellness pioneers like Sylvester Graham, a back to nature 19th century health reformer,
should be called a food faddist, especially since scientific research as we now know it did not really exist in
his day. Nor, should anybody merely questioning the health value of processed food be called a faddist.
To be a true food faddist you have to be making wild claims that cannot be supported by a reasonable amount
of scientific evidence. Hence, if you believe that certain foods convey special health benefits, such as containing
certain nutrients and vitamins, and can support your position with a reasonable amount of scientific research then
you are not a food faddist. But, you can become a food faddist once you start making wild unsupported claims about
the ability of certain foods to cure disease.
Excessively Restrictive Dietary Practices
On the theme that certain foods should be eliminated from the diet because they are harmful: Sugar, salt, fat,
caffeine, carbohydrates, milk, beans and wheat or, the entire grain food group have been claimed by food faddists
to be responsible for all sorts of ills, amongst the general population. If you keep at it long enough, you will
find that food faddism advocates are suffering from some type of abnormal condition. So, their claims that everyone
should be avoiding these food items is a wild exaggeration of what can be supported by scientific research.
- Diabetics knock sugar in general.
- Persons with high blood pressure knock salt.
- Persons with their cholesterol out of control knock all forms of fat.
- Advocates of 3+ liters of pure water a day, often have a health condition known as psychogenic polydipsia. They like to knock caffeine, as well as healthy 100% purple grape juice,
green tea, and lemonade because these health drinks are NOT pure water.
- Obese persons suffering from Syndrome-X knock carbohydrates.
- Persons who can not digest the casein milk protein knock all dairy products.
- Persons with an abnormal fear of flatulence knock beans, legumes or pulses. Bacteria in the intestines feeds
upon a sugar, called raffinose, found in beans causing gas. These people wrongly claim that beans cause digestion
problems because of this gas. While beans, grains, and starches create higher levels of gas, any plant based diet
will create flatulence since not everything is completely digested. People who suffer from excess flatulence might
also be suffering from excess bacteria and a lack of the proper flora in their intestines. Furthermore, legumes
are very healthy for you and are known as the fourth food group in the Cretan
Mediterranean Diet.
- Persons suffering from celiac disease knock wheat, and other grains. They often use the paleolithic diet as
a cover for their food faddism. They even will point you towards published research to support their claims, which
are little more than wildly speculative essays.
The health concerns of these food faddists simply do not adversely affect most people in general.
In Conclusion: Food faddists have a right to be concerned about these issues. What is wrong with food
faddism is their extremist position. From the Natural
Health Perspective good health is about achieving a proper balance in five areas: diet, nutritional supplements,
exercise, attitude, and resilience. Food faddism is NOT about taking a moderate approach. The lives of food faddists
are out of balance due to their extremist positions that good health is ONLY about their pet issues.
For example, it wont do you any good to take all day to drink the perfect amount of perfectly pure water, if
the rest of your life is totally out of wack. You would be better off taking a reasonable amount of time to drink
a reasonable amount of water so that you could also work on a dozen other aspects of your life. Drinking enough
water is important, but so are a thousand other things. You should always be careful in all your health endeavors
to never take any one aspect of your health program to an extreme position. Every good thing should be done in
moderation.
References
- McBean LD, Speckmann EW. Food faddism: a challenge to nutritionists and dietitians. Am J Clin Nutr. 1974 Oct;27(10):1071-8.
No abstract available. PMID: 4417113
- Jarvis WT. Food faddism, cultism, and quackery. Annu Rev Nutr. 1983;3:35-52. Review. No abstract available.
PMID: 6315036
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