Nutritionism

Nutritionism is a term sometimes used to describe the dominant ideology or paradigm that has framed nutrition science and dietary advice in the United States and in many other countries. Nutritionism—or nutritional reductionism—is characterized by the reductive focus on, and interpretation of, nutrients within scientific research, dietary guidelines, food labeling, and marketing practices.

In nutrition science research, nutritionism is evident in the attempt to explain the healthfulness of foods primarily on the basis of the current understanding of the role of particular nutrients and other food components, such as vitamins, fats, and cholesterol. There is often a further reductive focus on single nutrients. This nutritional knowledge is reductive to the extent that it takes nutrients out of the context of the particular foods and dietary patterns in which they’re consumed; ignores interactions between nutrients; exaggerates and simplifies the role of these nutrients in health; and exaggerates the degree of precision and certainty of scientists’ knowledge. The vilification of fat, saturated fat and cholesterol, and the celebration of protein, carbohydrates, omega-3 fats, and fiber, represent aspects of this reductive interpretation of nutrients over the past century.