THE different language used around the concepts of food and health is confusing the public about what makes up a nutritionally balanced diet, a new study has found.
Academics from the University of Glasgow have found that different language used across food and diet campaigns is confusing to consumers.
Some of this language has also been "hijacked by the food industry" leading to a desensitisation and despondency to some of the terms they use.
The researchers, who are part of the university's School of Medicine, tested participants' understanding of four terms which were commonly used in health promotion campaigns: 'healthy eating', 'eating for health', 'balanced diet' and 'nutritional balance'.
They found that almost 90 per cent of those in the study associated the terms with the idea of different food being either 'good' or 'bad', particularly in relation to the amount of calories and fat content.
But there was confusion and low awareness about how different foods can provide a mix of nutrients and what a 'nutritionally balanced' or nutritionally complete diet was.
Dr Emilie Combet, who led the project, said: "Members of the public are exposed, daily, to a large volume of messages related to food and health from multiple sources with varying reliability and consistency.
"Our study shows limited understanding of the concepts, and alarmingly, a lot of despondence too."
Some 270 adults across Glasgow and Edinburgh were chosen to take part in the study, which was published in the journal BMC Public Health.
Those that took part had no background in nutrition or healthcare and were selected to represent a range of socio-economic areas.
They were asked to identify the words they most associated with the terms 'healthy eating', 'eating for health', 'balanced diet' and 'nutritional balance'.
According to Dr Combet, said the problem stemmed from a lack of consensus in the terminology used within nutritional science and their wider use.
The term she and her university colleagues prefer to use is 'nutritional balance' which is the biological nutritional requirements of a healthy human which must be provided from a mix of foods but without exceeding their daily calorie intake. A diet which does that is said to be 'nutritionally balanced'.
The other four terms used in the study not have a clear definition or have no meaning within nutritional science, though they are often used in public health strategies to improve eating habits.
A plethora of similar messages can be found across a range of sources, such as public health agencies, the media and the food industry, which often uses this healthy eating terminology to promote weight management and diet products.
Most of the people in the study believed these terms meant 'foods considered to be healthy' and 'foods to avoid', and that 'healthy eating' was synonymous to 'dieting for weight loss or management'.
Professor Mike Lean, a co-author on the study, said: "The popular term 'healthy eating' has been hijacked by the food industry and used to sell low calorie products; it no longer conveys the notion of long-term influence on health and has become synonymous with dieting for weight loss.
"The word 'healthy' is commonly applied to foods and ingredients which can have no impact on health unless built into a nutritionally balanced overall diet.
"The simplest way to do that is to have meals which are nutritionally balanced."
The study also found that participants how a low perception of the usefulness of government tools, such as the Food Standard Agency's Eatwell plate, which aims to highlight the different types of food that makes up our diet.
The researchers concluded that to change eating habits in the long term, public health campaigns need to be strengthened and potentially target groups which may be put-off or desensitised to healthy promotion campaigns.
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