Every five years, the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture release updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans based on the latest nutrition science. The Brigham’s Deirdre Tobias, ScD, is one of 20 experts appointed to the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.
An obesity and nutritional epidemiologist in the Division of Preventive Medicine, Tobias notes the food industry has modified products to be more attractive to consumers based on past guidelines.
“In the 1990s, after the dietary guidelines advised to lower fat intake, manufacturers created low-fat versions of the same crackers, ice creams, and cookies,” Tobias says. “People could do the same grocery shopping and eat many of the same products, but switch to a low-fat version thinking, ‘I’m being healthy.’”
As assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and academic editor for the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Tobias recognizes the public is bombarded with nutritional information, from marketing to news reports to social media, making it difficult to distinguish accurate information from sensationalized semi-truths.
“Headlines may be flashy and misleading,” she says. “Websites and media platforms love to highlight diet—it’s easy clickbait.”
Tobias advises, “On social media or online in general, many health and wellness practitioners are looking to sell something. If you have to pay to access their content or purchase supplements, detoxes, or cleanses, that is a red flag to avoid it. There should never be an eating pattern that requires you to purchase something other than food at the grocery store.”