Indirectly anyhow.
You see most people have no idea what a Food Guide "serving" is and most of those who do probably don't pay them too much attention.
Health Canada actually did some research that suggested that the majority of Canadians didn't know what a "serving" was and that many simply thought it was whatever amount they put on their plates. While that research may no longer be found on their site (gone since roughly the time I started pointing it out) I did find this statement from a summary of regional meetings Health Canada held during the consultation phase of designing the new Food Guide,
"Confusion about serving sizes and serving ranges was identified most often as the concept that consumers have difficulty grasping."And this one from the executive summary of the 2007 Food Guide coast-to-coast consultation,
"Survey results reveal that most respondents agree with the idea of removing the term “serving” from the Guide. Sixty-two per cent of respondents agreed that not using the term “serving” will help Canadians understand the difference between the amounts they eat and those shown in the Food Guide, and only 25 per cent disagreed (13 per cent were unsure)."A shame that Health Canada didn't bother paying attention to their own research and surveys as it seems pretty clear - Canadians don't understand what "servings" are and the allied health professionals consulted coast-to-coast gave them a big thumbs down.
Well yesterday in the Hamilton Spectator Registered Dietitian Vicki Edwards explained the challenges of the Food Guide's rather arbitrarily sized "servings" by explaining to her readers why in fact it's easier to get those 7-10 servings of fruits and vegetables each day than they might think,
"often a single piece of produce is larger than one Food Guide serving, and just a few items can quickly add up over the day."And that can be said to be true about all the categories in the Food Guide - really unless you're actually weighing and measuring everything, if you're aiming for the minimums, you're liable to be getting far too much.
Vicki rightly notes,
"If you are eating a large fruit such as a Mutsu apple, you may be having two to three servings in that one piece of fruit.Easy-peasy, right?
A medium potato can be compared in size to a small computer mouse. Some baking potatoes would count as two or more servings.
One Food Guide serving of salad or leafy greens is 250 mL or one cup. Visualize an open hand for each serving amount. A plateful could count as several servings
A Food Guide serving of juice or fresh apple cider is 125 mL or half a cup. That hot mug may give you two or more servings."
What I'm getting at is that if someone were to pick up the Food Guide and try to get minimums, putting aside all of my other concerns regarding the obesigenicity of the Food Guide, if that person hits their minimums, without actually weighing and measuring every single thing that they eat, they're probably going to eat far too much.
Doesn't strike me as a particularly great plan in a country where obesity is a major public health concern. You think maybe it's even a stupid one?
Posts
Great post. I heard it mentioned by a colleague recently that dietitians are one of the least evidence-based health professions. I didn't think much of it at the time, but increasingly I'm starting to agree. This isn't to knock dietitians - I think all health professions are facing this dilemma at the moment. However, when it comes to eating, we have all accepted many 'truths' that may or may not actually be true and public health initiatives like the food guide really demonstrate that we need to be deliberate and evidence based when talking about the lifestyles of the public. Looking at serving sizes is just the dietary tip of the iceberg.
ReplyDeleteHi Accidental Pharmacist,
ReplyDeleteIf you've got a few hours to kill, I've got the iceberg covered too.
Click here for my series on the Food Guide.
Dietitians are one of the least evidence-based professions? Oh please. Clearly you have never looked into the practices, beliefs, and philosophies of naturopaths, chiropractors or homeopaths.
ReplyDeleteHmm. Based on weight, the average Mutsu apple I've seen is probably closer to 4 fruit exchanges -- and if I'm to believe the nutrition labels, 1 vegetable exchange of salad greens works out to something more like a quart volume. That said, I don't trust volume measurement any more.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure for what percentage of the population the "imported/European food" version (nutritional information per 100 g product) is any more useful...
Canadians DO know what a serving is - it's what you put on your plate!
ReplyDeleteI bet the term "serving" was in use by the general population of Canada to mean what you put on your plate, or what your mom put on your plate, or what the restaurant put on your plate, long BEFORE the dietitians at the food guide decided that they would take this commonly used word and give it a different meaning.
The dietitians wanted a label for a precisely measured amount of food. They should not have used the word "serving" because that word was already commonly in use with a different meaning - ie what was on your plate. The serving size varied according to how hungry you were, whether or not you liked the food, how expensive the food was, whether granny(generous) or aunt(stingy) was putting the food on your plate, how many people were sharing the food, how plentiful the food was (like a big bowl of strawberries in season), whether this was an ordinary meal or a festive feast. The exact size of a serving would only be measured in restaurants for cost control, but even that would vary from one restaurant to another, and in one restaurant may vary by the cost of the ingredients.
When the dietitians wanted a label for a precisely measured amount of food they could have avoided confusion by calling that precisely measured amount of food a "dose" or a "unit" or a "measure" or some other term that isn't in conflict with the everyday understanding and usage of the word "serving".
Maybe someone who studies the development of words can confirm or refute my contention that "serving" has had a popular usage as I described since long before the food guide tried to change its meaning.
Hi there Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure who to blame regarding "servings" but certainly with regards to the Food Guide it would be a whole host of folks and it wouldn't be fair to lay blame solely at the feet of dietitians.
There are plenty of dietitians out there who believe that the concept of "servings" in the Food Guide is confusing to their clients.
One thing's for certain though, the definition you mention, the "what you put on your plate" definition, is the one most folks relate to.
Dr F:
ReplyDeleteYes, I certainly didn't mean all dietitians, I meant those making the Food Guide, along with whoever else was involved in the guide.
However, it bothers me that ordinary people are berated for not understanding the food guide, when it is the guide's own misuse of the word "serving" that's a problem.
As a kid, I remember being completely stumped by the Food Guide when we were shown it in school (which was often). I had no idea how on earth I could ever eat as much as it said I should, and I worried I must be terribly unhealthy.
ReplyDeleteNow I realize just how ridiculous and unrealistic it is.
Brenda indirectly brings up a good point - Canada's Food Guide and the diabetic exchange system are completely different. The foods aren't grouped the same way and the serving sizes are different. On that note, I do prefer the diabetes exchange system just because the groups and serving sizes are based on calories and macronutrients whereas the food guide is pretty willy-nilly.
ReplyDelete