cross-posted from: https://ttrpg.network/post/20725905
When looking for nutritional information, 2 doctors guys always show up in Youtube searches: KenDBerryMD and Dr. Eric Berg.
I don’t know much about either, but a cursory search shows Berg is a quack and it looks like Ken promotes nonsense like the carnivore diet.
Why are these two so prevalent on youtube? Neither of them are actual nutritionists, but they’re everywhere when searching for nutrition information.
Where are the real nutritionists? Why aren’t they putting forth more effort to make sure nutrition knowledge is accessible and accurate?
Part of me is genuinely thinking it’s because of money. They’d rather only share their knowledge in secret with the people paying them because if more people knew about nutrition, then they wouldn’t be as necessary.
YouTube simply doesn’t reward boring but factual content.
Hi. This is my area. I’m about six months away from finishing a postgrad nutrition degree. While I’m not in the States so I can’t speak to how things work there, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it’s probably similar to where I am.
Firstly, “nutritionist” isn’t really a title that’s protected in anyway like “doctor” – you don’t need any qualification to call yourself a nutritionist. There are usually professional bodies you can register with that have various requirements. You can put those on a resume and anyone who knows what they’re talking about will recognise them, but the general public doesn’t really know the difference between a Registered Nutritionist and someone who’s just calling themselves a nutritionist.
Secondly, the field of capital-N Nutrition is generally very concerned with public health. It’s a more population-level, research focused field than dietetics, which is more about individual cases. Not so much that one is more qualified than the other, more like the difference between psychology and psychiatry. Dietitians tend to be clinical and will develop meal plans for people with specific issues (dysphagia from cancer treatment, for example). Nutritionists are the ones developing the healthy eating guidelines, contributing to labelling regulations, building evidence bases for policy, designing food literacy courses for schools, that kind of thing. Unfortunately, rampant corruption and regulatory capture means when they do that, they have to sit down at the table with industry, which tends to lead to very watered-down public health advice.
Personally, I tend to stay away from mainstream socmed so I don’t really have any recommendations. But the field as a whole is very aware that disinfo is a real problem. Unfortunately, bullshit asymmetry principle means it’s very hard to get a signal through the (sponsored) noise, and socmed is notoriously poorly regulated wrt disinformation. It doesn’t help that real nutrition advice doesn’t tend to make for “fun” content. It’s the same shit you’ve been hearing since you were a kid; eat more vegetables. Drink less soda. Nobody wants to watch that, it doesn’t attract sponsors, and it doesn’t feed the algorithm.
I think a dietitian is considered to be more qualified than nutritionist.
Thanks. The question can also apply to dieticians.
I don’t think either of the people mentioned are dieticians.
They all got ran off by omnivores
Eric Berg is a quack. Michael Gregor (nutrition facts.org) is borderline quackery but solidly grounded and features nutrition research. Abby Sharp is good but embraces the algorithm too much. Molly Pelletier is good for GERD treatment. Nutrition made simple is a good one by a PhD in nutrition I believe.
Look for dietitians not nutritionists because any quack can claim to be a nutritionist but RD/RDN/dietitians is a licensed professional.
The truth is YouTube isn’t a great primary source it’s probably best to set up an appointment with a health care provider to see a dietician, it’s probably not super expensive per apppointment especially with insurance