Feb 13 2008

Yet another scoring system

Adam Drewnowski at University of Washington in Seattle has come up with yet another scoring system to rank the nutritional value of food products. So we now have three done by independent scientists: Hannaford’s, David Katz’s, and now this one (see previous posts). And companies like Kraft (Sensible Solutions) and PepsiCo (Smart Spot) have their own. What is a consumer to do? I, of course, say get rid of all of them.  I’m willing to concede that an alternative would be for the FDA to convene a summit and select one rating method. As these systems proliferate, the “one rating system” idea looks better and better, no?

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I like your first idea – no rating system, for all the reasons that commenters on your previous posts have stated.

What we really need to invest in is teaching better critical thinking skills, so people can see through the oversimplified media reporting on science and the exaggerated claims of marketers.

  • Fentry
  • February 13, 2008
  • 2:05 pm

To play Devil’s advocate, it is not clear to me why having multiple rating systems poses a problem for consumers (except uncritical ones).

Divergent ratings regimens provides evidence to consumers that there are different ways of thinking about or evaluating nutrition and that they have to think about the assumptions behind each of the rating systems.

It seems little different to me than ratings of institutions of higher education or consumer reports: one can’t just look at a number, one has to see if the selection criteria are relevant to oneself.

  • Mark
  • February 13, 2008
  • 5:18 pm

This journal article is just a meta-review of existing ranking systems, not a new ranking system, right?

Drewnowski did a previous review in 2005. This just introduces ideas for ranking the rankings: Things are really getting out of hand!

  • Mark
  • February 13, 2008
  • 5:19 pm

Previous comment scrambled: I meant to say that it is not a new ranking system, but is a review of existing ranking systems.

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