Find an article that makes a dietary or nutritional claim (e.g. “lose weight while you sleep with ‘x’ diet pillâ€, “gain muscle fast and with ‘x’ supplementâ€, “follow this diet plan to detox your bodyâ€, “add ‘x’ super vitamin to your diet to prevent illnessâ€).
The article can be from a magazine, newspaper, advertising pamphlet or the Internet. The article is to be from the popular press (directed at consumers) not from scientific literature.
A scanned or saved copy of the article must be submitted with your assignment via D2L dropbox. If you provide only the URL you will not receive full marks. [1 mark]
Write a critique (in point form) on this article. Include the following information:
a.Identify the topic of your article (this is not always the title of the article) and where it was published (i.e. where you found the article). [2 marks].
b.Describe the dietary or nutritional claim made in your article [2 marks].
c.Discuss whether or not this article has the characteristics of valid nutrition information or whether it has the characteristics of nutrition quackery based on the information learned in Chapter 1 [6 marks – 1 mark per characteristic]. (e.g. The claim is “too good to be trueâ€: promises weight loss while you sleep).
Consult Chapter 1 of your textbook for the characteristics to consider:
Reading Nutrition News with an Educated Eye
Controversy 1: Sorting the Imposters from the Real Nutrition Experts
Figure C1-1 Earmarks of Nutrition Quackery
Table C1-3 Is this Site Reliable?
d.In your summary, clearly state your conclusion. In other words, is your article an example of valid nutrition information or does it have the characteristics of nutrition quackery?
Sample Solution