The Biggest Food Myths On Social Media That Annoy Nutrition Science Experts
From left, clockwise: Megan Rossi, Alan Flanagan, Dr. Michael Greger, Tim Spector, Dr. Idrees Mughal.Nutrition influencers run the gamut, from conspiracy theorists convinced that grocery shopping is the delicate act of dodging disease to the licensed nutritionist who shares debunking posts. Accounts and opinions proliferate by the hour, all equally earnest and legitimate-seeming. It’s harder and harder to differentiate between the tedious combativeness of science deniers and ethical fact-first takedowns.The trends that unchecked nutrition influencers set can quickly go viral and correspond to nearly every broad category of nutrition pseudoscience infesting the present-day internet. Arranged on a credibility spectrum that goes from science-adjacent to totally unscientific, these are:“Scienceploitation.”Canadian health law and policy expert Timothy Caulfield coined this term to explain the enthusiastic adoption and breakneck mainstreaming of legitimate but emergent research for profit. I
