Five Warning Signs to Keep an Eye Out for in Nutrition Documentaries

Streaming services popularized nutrition documentaries.

These nutrition documentaries—What the Health, The Game Changers, Seaspiracy, and You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment—raise similar warning flags.

Yes, understanding how to eat healthy is wise. Visitors should be wary of where and who they acquire their information.

Unfortunately, too many of these movies recommend the “best” way to eat based on biased experts, inadequate evidence, and fear-based justifications.

I check for these 5 warning signs in nutrition documentaries:

Warning #1: One-sided film

Everyone has prejudices, and nutrition films frequently express a director’s view on a topic. This is OK, but when a film shows only one side of a debate, viewers can’t make an informed choice.

Knowing who made and funded the film you’re viewing and their prejudice is crucial. Before you radically modify your diet after viewing one of these movies, do some research.

You Are What You Eat and The Game Changers were partially financed by the Vogt Foundation. Vogt Foundation promotes plant-based nutrition and animal welfare. Though the charity is acknowledged in the credits, neither documentary mentions that disclosure.

Warning #2 : No Dissenting Experts

Like finding out who made these films, explore the actors’ backgrounds. (And examine who isn’t in them.)

Most You Are What You Eat gurus are vegan or plant-based advocates.

The video features Miyoko Schinner, who founded Miyoko’s Creamery, a vegan cheese and butter firm. Activist Don Staniford opposes salmon farms.

Balanced films have specialists from both sides arguing for and against the topic. Thus, viewers receive all important information to make their own decisions.

Warning #3: FEAR

If a nutrition documentary makes frequent spectacular claims, beware. A few examples:

X meal is as unhealthy as Y smokes.
Any Z meal is unhealthy.

Scary assertions are meant to engage viewers and spark debate. These “facts” that instill terror are rarely scientific.

A cow’s milk research referenced in The Game Changers and elsewhere? Pediatrics International released the 2010 research. Researchers monitored 18 persons (seven males, six children, and five women) who drank pregnant cow milk. Milk temporarily decreased testosterone releases, not total testosterone.

Note that this finding was from seven individuals, a very tiny sample.

Warning #4: It Casts Doubt on Government/Food Supply

The tone, music, and imagery of many nutrition films make us question where our food originates from. This seems like a way to get viewers to adopt the filmmaker’s diet.

You Are What You Eat shows pig excrement spread across fields and environmental activists saying all farmed fish is unhealthy. It appears that animal food is unclean and manufactured without government monitoring.

Food safety is difficult when producing food for a nation. Since the Food Safety Modernization Act was passed, the U.S. food system is safer than ever and is updated constantly to protect consumers.

Warnign #5 : Self-Conducted “Research”

Misinterpreting research is different from misinterpreting anecdotal evidence or staged tests.

The Game Changers famously had athletes eat a high-fat, animal-based meal or a vegan meal and then have their blood taken two hours later. The film emphasizes the athletes’ murky, greasy blood plasma after eating animal-based food. Vegan athletes appear to have normal blood.

The discrepancy is shown as “proof” that a vegan diet is healthy, however having fat in our blood after a high-fat meal is typical. Our cells receive fat this way.

Research should support claims, but films seldom do. Fact-checking a movie is difficult, but there are signs that something is done for show rather than proof.

The bottom line: A healthy diet includes all foods. Please pick your diet based on facts, not fear. Nutrition films are known for emphasizing feeling over reality.