From research and education to the advice that informs our food choices, biases are baked into the nutrition industry. Are we missing out on a world of nutrients?
Depending on who you are and where you’re from, food advice can either feel helpful or make you think everything you’ve ever eaten is wrong. Eating well means something different to each of us, and the foods you grew up with play a role in what you want to eat. But when advice makes your favourite foods seem like the enemy – or excludes your heritage entirely – you start to think you’re the problem. You’re not. Experts say biases are baked into nutrition advice. Getting past them can bring a new understanding of food. Is it time to add more foods to the healthy eating menu?
A diverse diet
Nutrition advice has to come from somewhere, so we turn to experts. Yet, 81% of registered dietitians in the UK are white and only 4% are Black, according to the Health and Care Professions Council Diversity Data Report 2021. This can affect both perspective and messaging. ‘The top-down effect contributes to a very narrow definition of what “healthy” means,’ says Laura Iu, owner of Laura Iu Nutrition. ‘The lack of nuance affects policymaking and, on an individual level, sends the message that to be healthy you must look and eat like white women.’
Food scientist and nutrition expert Kera Nyemb-Diop recalls having been one of two Black students in a human nutrition course in which a professor described African food as ‘gross’. In addition to the comment being inappropriate, she also felt that it was uninformed – there’s huge diversity in foods from the continent of Africa. And what’s said in classrooms, she points out, can have a deep impact on perceptions of cultural foods.
‘The gaps are in the people giving the advice, which affects the practical application,’ explains Allyson Johnson, a Black dietitian who’s also the nutrition services manager at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California. When people who give advice lack exposure to – and understanding of – other cultures, they often rely on stereotypes to make suggestions. ‘Society-wide stereotypes – such as Chinese, Indian and soul food being too oily or too salty – grossly misunderstand that our cultural dishes are vast and complex, are rich in vitamins and nutrients, and include whole grains, proteins and vegetables,’ says Iu.
Plate expectations
Many foods from Black and brown cultures have simply not been studied comprehensively, either. ‘Nutrition scientists will say the research is backed by evidencebased practice, but the research is done on Western foods, by white people,’ says Dr Nyemb-Diop, who’s of African and Caribbean descent.
Take a st
