The nutritional advice and information spread throughout University Dining ranges from pointless and unnecessary to downright harmful, an example of this would be the fatphobia persistent in all their posters. I had hoped that students actually majoring in nutritional sciences would be above this kind of thing by looking beyond the typical media’s BS, pardon my language, and approach nutrition in a scientific sense, but my hopes were dashed after reading “Club to serve up nutrition awareness” in Thursday’s Technician.   

The quotes from two of the Nutrition Club’s members Todd and Dabbs condemn foods such as pizza, hamburgers, ice cream and French fries for no specified reason, when in reality there is absolutely nothing wrong with those foods. They suffer from the fallacy of trying to pinpoint specific foods as “unhealthy” or “healthy,” when those terms are not only grammatically incorrect in that context, but also meaningless as only taken in the context of an entire diet can something be referred to as “healthful.” In fact, a diet entirely composed of pizza or hamburgers would be superior to one composed entirely of fruit, as the former would actually provide the body with the two essential macronutrients: protein and fat.

Again, if I had more space I’d expound on the other issues I have with some of the statements and advice given, but I assure you this kind of talk is not an isolated incident. I implore those going into a career in nutrition to update themselves on current research and to attempt to separate common misconceptions form truth.

Sean Ressler

junior, applied mathematics