Health Literacy Hit Close to Home
This week I learned a thing or two about health literacy. In my Nutrition Communication class we discussed nutrition misinformation and how it can prey on the people who are not very health literate, which is a rampant problem. As I was going through articles and videos about it I thought that it was very sad, and that the situation should be rectified. Research articles are one of my favorite things, so I'm used to big, scary health words. When I thought of the people I personally know, I conceded that maybe they might struggle a bit. But they're smart people, they would probably be fine. And that was that.
Fast forward a few days to a conversation with my sister. Whenever I had trouble in school I always went to her for help, especially for math. She was that weird exception where she was good at math AND language arts (I'm still only able to do the one). Anyway, my sister recently did the Whole30 diet.
We started talking about her experience with Whole30 and how confused she got regarding which sugar is the "best" for you. I tried to shed some light on the situation but it didn't help that I couldn't remember my monosaccharides from my disaccharides. I told her I would look into it more and get back to her.
In my other class, Biochemistry, we started on carbohydrates. Perfect! I texted her a bunch of info about fructose being one molecule and sucrose being two that needed to be broken down. This leads to slower absorption. And that high fructose corn syrup is often added to things lacking in fiber which exacerbates the problem. She understood that fine, and tried to put the pieces together for glucose. That's a single molecule too? Yup, it sure is. Then the gut-wrenching text: glucose comes from gluten?
My sister is smart. My sister is logical, rational, and well educated. To witness first-hand, her struggling to increase her health literacy really made the problem hit home and has just made me irate. Why does it have to be so hard and complicated and scary and completely daunting just to know if something is good for you?
As I take a deep breath, I know it's not a simple question to answer: "is this good for me." Everyone is different and there are so many minute details of food-body interactions. I have a huge new respect for dietitians who make an effort to put food into terms normal smart people can understand.
Hopefully, I can start with helping my sister out. 1 down, a few million to go.
Fast forward a few days to a conversation with my sister. Whenever I had trouble in school I always went to her for help, especially for math. She was that weird exception where she was good at math AND language arts (I'm still only able to do the one). Anyway, my sister recently did the Whole30 diet.
We started talking about her experience with Whole30 and how confused she got regarding which sugar is the "best" for you. I tried to shed some light on the situation but it didn't help that I couldn't remember my monosaccharides from my disaccharides. I told her I would look into it more and get back to her.
In my other class, Biochemistry, we started on carbohydrates. Perfect! I texted her a bunch of info about fructose being one molecule and sucrose being two that needed to be broken down. This leads to slower absorption. And that high fructose corn syrup is often added to things lacking in fiber which exacerbates the problem. She understood that fine, and tried to put the pieces together for glucose. That's a single molecule too? Yup, it sure is. Then the gut-wrenching text: glucose comes from gluten?
My sister is smart. My sister is logical, rational, and well educated. To witness first-hand, her struggling to increase her health literacy really made the problem hit home and has just made me irate. Why does it have to be so hard and complicated and scary and completely daunting just to know if something is good for you?
As I take a deep breath, I know it's not a simple question to answer: "is this good for me." Everyone is different and there are so many minute details of food-body interactions. I have a huge new respect for dietitians who make an effort to put food into terms normal smart people can understand.
Hopefully, I can start with helping my sister out. 1 down, a few million to go.
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