Summer arrives and brings with it the concerns that wake up from their state of hibernation during the cold months. A more exposed body, tight and short clothes, beaches and pools with people you know, a new summer romance starting, low self-esteem, we could compile a seemingly endless list of reasons as to why the warmest season of the year is one of the most demanding, but we’ll leave it to your imagination to search for the most intimate reason. For many, May symbolises the opening period for harsh reflections on eating habits and possible magic diets, although it should be noted that, increasingly, «people value physical and mental well-being», according to Bárbara de Oliveira, a nutritionist who is quite active on social networks, counting more than 100,000 followers on Instagram. This trend has been emphasised in the digital age, with the help of social networks, considered the big vehicles for nutritional information. «They are barrier free means of communication and easily reach thousands of readers within minutes,» clarifies Rita Lopes, a nutritionist specialising in weight loss, coaching and emotional hunger. Everything is just a click away on a search engine, or in other words, it gets to us without much effort, with digital marketing only doing its job. Easy and quick access to information has proven to be problematic, these days. Not everything you can look up is content verified by reliable sources of information, and knowing how to filter out the all-too-common fake news has proved to be a global challenge. «It takes some critical awareness to understand what is right or wrong and what is the scientific evidence, or even the context, of the information that reaches us,» Barbara explains. What is certain with the dissemination of false information, is that many people do not confirm the accuracy of the content, and end up attributing credibility to nutritional myths and opting for unhealthy, and in the long term, possibly dangerous diets. Intending to combat the fake news involving nutrition, V&G has turned to two nutritionists active in the digital universe to explore the most common nutritional myths in society. Bárbara de Oliveira addressed the gluten misrepresentation, saying it is persistent, before going on to explain: «many people believe that, in order to lose weight, it is necessary to remove gluten from the diet, but this is not true. Gluten is a protein that can cause unwanted symptoms for those who are intolerant. Only those people should remove it from their diet». Rita Lopes names common, erroneous statements, such as «carbohydrates make you fat»; «drinking water with meals makes weight loss more difficult» and «water with lemon on an empty stomach makes you lose weight». There is consensus among nutrition professionals about the countless number of myths circulating on social networks every day, but the same cannot be said when it comes to objective confirmation of what is or is not a lie. Consensus is not always reached among nutritionists, admits Bárbara, something that Rita considers to be «different approaches». The nutritionists point to the importance of having the support of a nutritionist and, when this is not possible, of using good sources of information, such as the National Health Authority and the Portuguese Nutrition Association.
