Question 3 - Jenn
With a focus on international nutrition, what additional benefits do you believe could arise from creating global dietary standards? Would you be for or against creating such international standards?
posted by Unknown @ 7:53 AM
11 comments
11 Comments:
Focusing on international nutrition, I believe that there could be several benefits such as simplicity, collaborative research, and international food product manufacturers would be able to tailor their ingredients more closely to mirror the international RDAs. However, even with all of these benefits, I do not necessarily think it is a necessary change that needs to be made. Countries having the ability to create their own RDAs allows for more specific recommendations to reflect that country's major health concerns. For example, countries who are smaller and have more surrounding fishing available, their population would be more likely to be receiving adequate omega 3s than the population here in the midwest, therefore suggesting more heart healthy nutrients such as fiber and unsaturated>saturated fats than a region that eats fatty fish more regularly. I think I am overall against creating international standards and allowing individual countries to make such decisions for themselves to best tailor to their population's health needs.
I think it could be beneficial for countries who have no guidelines, in a very basic sense. After all the DGA’s is somewhat of a blanket type of recommendations which you can at least start from. But to restate what I responded for question 2, “With the nutrient interactions like competing calcium and iron absorption, tannins in coffee and tea, cultural norms for wine consumption, the ability of a diet very high in fiber to reduce absorption of some nutrients, and bioavailability differences depending on source, it just seems like there are too many confounding variables to make blanket recommendations.”
I don’t think spending time reinventing the wheel will have a huge impact. We can share all share our recommendations, anything (including what is already in existence from any country) would be better than nothing for countries with no guidelines. For those countries with guidelines in place, it would be most beneficial to specialize those recommendations as relevant to their specific population and culture.
My answer to question number 2 actually answers this question quite nicely. So I suppose I will expand. I would be against creating global nutritional standards. I feel as though there is no one set of recommendations that can adequately account for and harmonize with the vast melting pot of global diversity that is the Earth's human population as we know it.
Like I mentioned in my last answer I do think that each country should share their nutritional findings to benefit the human race as a whole. However, I think judgements about relevance, usefulness, and potential application should be made by dietetic officials of each individual country. I would personally support a collective pool of knowledge rather than any sort of mandated global nutrition criteria.
Like Steph has mentioned in her comment, I think the advantages of global standards is that we can have a conjoined effort in increase nutrition research, and that research from other countries can be applicable to individuals in our country. However, it also makes the nutrient recommendations even more generalized than they already are for the U.S. In my current mindset, I am against having global standards because I already feel that RDAs are very generalized for our population, considering all the diverse cultures and individuals with different needs all using those RDAs. I cannot imagine additional benefits besides perhaps more shared research in making our general RDAs even more general.
I appreciate everyone's insight on this month's topic thus far! I tried to delve into an aspect of nutrition that we haven't really covered yet in our blog and I am enjoying reading through each of our perspectives. I am very much in agreement of this brainstormed "collective pool of knowledge" to allow others to benefit from global research. I truly think this already exists in countries where internet access allows individuals to access scientific articles and journals online - it is developing countries who do not have access to this information, however, that could likely best benefit from the library of information and recommendations.
I can see both advantages and disadvantages to having international standards. My first reaction why wouldn’t we have international standards? I think there are benefits like others have mentioned such as collaboration of research and simplicity. But I do not think that it is logical to have international standards. I think that it would not be accurate to set one standard for the world since there are such differences in intake. There could also be differences in supplement composition and usage. I think it is beneficial to communication with nutrition professionals from other countries in order to gain better insight on cultural influences. I think it would be interesting to do more comparative studies using populations from different countries.
I would agree with Gina- one benefit for having international standards would be supplying countries with guidelines who don't already have them. In general though I do not agree with creating international standards. I believe there are too many differences country to country for international standards to be set. Collaboration between countries is great but I think they need to look at what standards are best for their population.
I do not believe creating international standards would be beneficial because although it might provide countries with no guidelines some structure, it could also make standards less specfic for countries that already have specific guidelines already in place. Each country's typical diet is so unique. With that being said unique things need their own standards and therfore I do not think international standards would be appropriate. I agree with Abby that collaborating on research with other countries on nutrition can be beneficial for ideas on promoting nutrition and further developing nutrition concepts. However, I do not think it is necessary to alter RDAs already in place to fit an international mold.
On second thought, I think international standards can be beneficial for research in addition to providing all countries with some sort of structure. All individuals need a certain range of nutrients such as the macronutrients, vitamin A, calcium, sodium, etc. A person's calcium needs would likely not differ drastically from one culture to the next. Take the United States as an example. We have all different cultures and habits living in the U.S. However,we always use the same RDA guidelines regardless of someone's racial or cultural background. So, why can't we generalize our standards with other countries? Joining effort can lead to advancement in nutrition research and provide less developed countries with guidelines too. The only vitamin that needs to be left out of international standards is dietary vitamin D. Setting generalized needs is not the problem, the problem is expecting everyone from everyone country to meet those intake guidelines. Sure international standards is beneficial, "but how do we meet them" again is the question.
I definitely feel that Steph made some excellent points about the benefits of global dietary standards that was right along with what I had in mind. Having these standards would certainly allow research to flow more smoothly and collaboratively with consistent information. In addition to this, I feel that global standards also provide another level of consistency across the profession as a whole.
While I do feel that there could be benefits to standardization, I also feel that Desiray makes an excellent point about problem of lumping everyone together. As Carly stated as well, we are all such unique countries and cultures across the globe with unique diets and styles of living. Taking all factors into consideration, I can also see how difficult it would be to create these global standards. I feel that that there needs to be at least some flexibility dependent upon each country's own situation with regards to determining guidelines. Our best bet is to try to remain as consistent as possible with other countries and form collaborative partnerships such as with the US and Canada to determine commonalities.
I thought Stephanie made a very good point about the usefulness this would provide in international food manufacturers. I hadn't even thought about the benefits that would arise as far as worldwide food distribution.
A benefit that first came to my mind when I read the question was examining trends in populations with low rates of obesity. Is it simply due to ethnicity? Or are there some environmental aspects that the United States could learn to implement that might reduce our rates of obesity and associated disease states?
I also thought Abby made a great point about the differences in countries being a barrier to adapting international standards. In fact, this reminded me of when I studied abroad in Taiwan with their dietetics students. The research and practices that were emphasized in their program were much different than what our research focuses on here. For example, they had entire presentations on a number of odd, alternative nutrition topics that I've never even heard of in the United States. Therefore, I can see how this might not be a well-suited plan for all countries and there would be a need for more personalized standards.
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