Editorial: Don’t rely on ‘functional foods’ to improve health

Want to lower your cholesterol? Reduce your risk of heart disease? Improve your digestion? It is… Want to lower your cholesterol? Reduce your risk of heart disease? Improve your digestion? It’s not as simple as visiting the grocery store.

Wellness is nothing less than an obsession for countless Americans, and, as with many obsessions, companies can take the golden opportunity to exploit the public’s general lack of knowledge.

On Saturday, The New York Times ran an article critiquing foods and beverages that claim to carry various health benefits. They’re called “functional foods,” and they’re becoming an increasingly widespread phenomenon. In 2009, the sale of these products in America totaled $37.3 billion — a roughly 15 percent increase from 2005, according to the estimates of the Nutrition Business Journal, a market research firm.

This wouldn’t be a problem if such foods actually accomplished their purported function. But more often than not,according to The New York Times, the claims on their packages are disingenuous at best.

Quaker Oatmeal Squares cereal, The New York Times reports, advertises on the front of its box that “Oatmeal helps reduce cholesterol.” Superficially, this isn’t inaccurate: Fiber, which can be found in the cereal, is generally considered beneficial for cardiac health. But as the Times notes, consumers would need to eat three bowls of the product per day in order to achieve the daily amount of fiber necessary to reduce the risk of heart disease.

Other marketing ploys are less genuine and have been pursued as such by government agencies. Dannon’s Activia yogurt, for instance, was marketed in commercials as “clinically proven to help regulate your digestive system in two weeks” when eaten every day. But the Federal Trade Commission found that, in some of the company’s studies, Activia accomplished no more than a placebo, and that digestive improvement — when it did occur — involved eating the product three times a day, which ads did not mention. In 2009, Dannon agreed to settle a false advertising lawsuit with the FTC while denying any wrongdoing, the Los Angeles Times reported.

We cite these examples not to suggest that every food product purporting to lower cholesterol, reduce the risk of heart disease or improve digestion is a sham — merely to advise that, when evaluating a product’s health benefits, consumers must exercise extreme skepticism.

Ideally, we shouldn’t have to depend on these foods to improve our well-being. There are countless means of attaining fitness, many of which are cheaper than such heavily marketed products and relatively immune to corporate exploitation. If people want to reduce their cholesterol, they needn’t consume three bowls of Quaker Oatmeal Squares a day. Rather, they can rely on the sage advice of databases like UPMC’s “Health A to Z,” which counsels readers to “begin a safe exercise program with the advice of your doctor,” “avoid processed and refined sugars and starches” and “drink alcohol in moderation.” This might entail more effort than simply eating cereal, but it will also substantially improve your lifestyle.

The problem of disingenuous food marketing isn’t going to disappear anytime soon, as regulators complained to The New York Times that they’re struggling to stay on top of all the violations. So it’s important for consumers to pursue alternate means of attaining physical well-being — means which can be found using sound medical advice as well as pure common sense. Functional foods might be appetizing for the health-conscious consumer, but they are rarely, if ever, the best solution.