Much has been written about nutrition communication, how it should be framed, targeted, structured, and worded for greatest effect. Relatively little has been written about possible pitfalls-errors in communicating that may lead to public confusion instead of understanding. In this article, the authors lay out, in their usual irreverent style, what may be regarded as the 7 greatest errors in nutrition communication, focusing primarily on the last of these, mistiming messages-especially delivering messages too late for them to be effective. Pointing out a gap between expectations of and actual consumer behavior, the article discusses the importance of understanding consumer psychology and of effectively timing communications-both nutrition and food safety messages-so that information is delivered when consumers are ready to receive and use it.

A Bit of Historical Context

To many dietitians and nutrition communicators, it must be a mystery how the public manages to ignore-or at least fail to recognize-sound nutrition advice. Misinformation, especially on the Web, is partly responsible for this perception gap-as a 2002 position paper for the American Dietetic Association points out:

Since that report, misinformation and sometimes commercially motivated disinformation have proliferated on the Internet and have been dutifully initiated or documented by the traditional media. More than a few nutrition professionals regard nutrition misinformation as a form of health fraud and 1 practitioner argues that food faddism fuels the fraud. She asserts that food fads are based on 3 basic, widely circulated, false beliefs:

* Certain foods have special attributes that may cure disease.

* Certain foods should be removed from the diet because they are harmful.

Everything that has been said here so far should come as no surprise to the contemporary nutrition science community. What has been written about too insufficiently is how nutrition communications relate to misinformation. Actually, a fair amount has been written about the subject, especially in Nutrition Today, but in a continuing effort to combat misinformation, this article will explore what may well be the 7 deadly sins in nutrition communication-they will at least be among the deadliest sins!

The Sins

Briefly, the most egregious communication mistakes one can commit, listed in no particular order, are as follows:

dishonesty (or, more bluntly, lying)-communicators who knowingly impart guidance not in accord with the current scientific consensus;

arrogance (disregarding the intelligence of the audience)-writers/presenters who address their readers/viewers with facile or unsupported assertions or talk down to their audience;

deceit (lack of transparency)-those who conceal their biases or financial backers so as to not handicap their credibility;

intransigence (failure to respect opposing views and opinions)-communicators who are dogmatic in their views, not sufficiently deferential to the possibility that future research may contradict their conclusions;

narcissism (failure to respect the current informational environment)-communicators who take no account of their audience's preconceptions and current beliefs;

irresponsibility (failure to take responsibility for how their messages are received)-writers/presenters who choose their words with little regard for their effect on the audience;

temporal obliviousness (the exercise of bad timing)-communicators who answer questions not yet asked, have no answers for questions that are being asked, or, worst, fail to anticipate in a timely fashion questions that ought to have been asked.

"These communication 'sins'[horizontal ellipsis] all have the effect of confusing and/or alienating the public."

Timing Is Everything

A nutrition communicator normally might not even consider the importance of when a message is delivered-nutrition messages are eternal, are they not? They are not. Nutrition messages, even nutrition information in general, are time-bound; there is a time when the public's understanding will resonate to a given message and a time when there will be only confusion or worse. This truth would seem self-evident, but there are some good examples of messages whose time has failed to come. A recent HealthFocus report references a significant public health miscommunication regarding sodium intake:

* consumers say they are healthier but admit to making fewer dietary changes and are less physically active than reported just a year earlier.

* when asked to estimate the number of calories that should be consumed in an average day, one-third of Americans are unaware or unable to provide a response-only 1 in 10 estimates correctly; over half provide a response but estimate incorrectly.

Who in the world would've ever known

What Columbus could do,

If Queen Isabella hadn't hocked her jewels

In 1492?

But she had timin'[horizontal ellipsis]

"Timeliness is the thing-the right message delivered at the right time-or communication fails."

The belief that "consumers care about scientifically proven product effectiveness" Hartman calls a myth.

Criticality of Timeliness

Given the increasing velocity of communication in the Internet age, timing is no longer an option in public/press relations-delivery of reliable information must be as nearly instantaneous as possible or it will be supplanted by some other form of "knowledge." Nutrition and food scientists, used to releasing research results in the standard scientific journals, will be surprised to see media headlines and blog sites applying their own spin to the information before it has even been published in print. Their studies will be competing for public attention with non-peer-reviewed research and, worse, with a myriad of Web sites of widely varying credibility, delivering content to consumers.

The most critical issue in guiding the messages designed to reach the public is timeliness. Hence, we see the rise of online scientific journals, publishing on the Internet weeks and months ahead of their print counterparts. Sometimes, even they may be too slow to control nutrition messages reaching consumers. The ultimate goal is instantaneity-eliminating any gap between arriving at a valid conclusion or crafting a public health message and delivering that information to the public, globally, over the Internet.

These incidents raise an important point: timeliness, although critical, is a 2-edged sword. Mindful that the public needed information quickly in the above-cited food safety outbreaks, communicators rushed to deliver the best available information. Unfortunately, what was available at any given time was not necessarily accurate, and in the cases cited, early information was in fact inaccurate. The rush to judgment, while appropriately informed and transparent, led to public confusion. So there is a corollary to the recommendation to disseminate information as fast as humanly possible: be fast, but be accurate-not an easy assignment.

Researchers winding up their studies and preparing to submit them to peer review in print journals need to be especially aware of timing issues; organizations or groups with a special interest in the subject matter will be anxious to disseminate the findings with their own unique spin on the interpretation, before publication. Similarly, the news media have no interest in delaying their reports until findings have been peer reviewed. At most, they will report interpreted research conclusions as preliminary and then repeat the stories weeks or months later when the findings have finally been peer reviewed. By that time, the public will have received the messages from someone other than the scientists.

The same thing can happen with any nutrition or food safety message. If journalists or bloggers or twitter users have already spread a message of their own-for instance, that the only sure way to lose weight is by avoiding carbohydrates or fats or high/low glycemic index foods-it will be extraordinarily difficult to supplant that message with one that has been carefully worked out by dietitians. If the Internet is already buzzing with an alleged cause of a food safety outbreak, it will be extraordinarily difficult for the Food and Drug Administration or European Food Safety Authority or food scientists in general to supplant that buzz with a carefully worked-out message of their own. It will be too late.

Remedies?

Unfortunately, there is some bad news for scientists hoping to correct this state of affairs: the nature of nutrition or food science is that it must proceed methodically, not hastily. It is, in general, in the nature of careful, thoughtful communicators that they choose their messages carefully, not rushing into the fray recklessly. It is also in the nature of bloggers, tweeters, Web site "auteurs," and mass media reporters that they choose their messages speedily, necessarily without regard for sober facts. The unfortunate state of current affairs is that whoever gets there first has the most influence on the message or its interpretation.

"The unfortunate state of current affairs is that whoever gets there first has the most influence on the message or its interpretation."

Fortunately, this seemingly grim circumstance also affords a great opportunity for nutrition communicators. If they observe the guidelines for timely messaging, by being early in framing a message or early to respond to misinformation, they can truly shape the public dialogue and get truthful, scientific communications back on track. The key is not so much that overused term proactivity as timeliness.