I had the honor of
speaking at ShiftCon, an expo of the top health and wellness influencers.  These aren’t your everyday bloggers. They
truly are the cream of the crop who have lofty goals for themselves. ShiftCon
values transparency, good health and eco-friendly practices so I felt at home
among this group. What really impressed me about ShiftCon bloggers was their
passion for straight, honest, fact-based nutrition information. They
desperately wanted to know how to spot the myths and speak the truth to their
community. This gave me hope that someday, we won’t be battling all the hype
about what to eat and what to avoid. The truth will be as close as our favorite
podcast or social media feed.

My presentation, Fact Checking the Fact Checkers: Myths and
Truths in Health Advice, was just prior to the conference’s keynote. This
gave me the unique opportunity to bash a few myths while warming up this
already highly engaged crowd. Watch my presentation here.

Among other things, I
explained that much of the nutrition advice shared decades ago was inaccurate
and downright dangerous to our health, such as how the low-fat craze led to a
devastating rise in obesity. I talked about the demonization of saturated fats,
despite fact-based clinical studies documenting that its consumption does not
increase heart disease risk. This misinformation grows and gets rooted in
society making it hard to know what’s really true.

In fact, a new study coming out of Malaysia reaffirmed that fat is not the problem in
our diet. It’s a high amount of carbohydrates. When you accurately assess
cardiovascular risk using modern measures, you get a very different story about
which dietary patterns influence cardiovascular risk. Bottom line: We’ve been
targeting the wrong macronutrient. Fat isn’t — and never was — the dietary
enemy.

I also had the opportunity to personally connect with many bloggers while hosting a booth sponsored by ChecktheFactsReportTheNews.org. This is what really stirred my hope for the future and why I think these passionate influencers can make a difference in our society. These people are leaders, not followers. And they’re well educated on the issues plaguing us. I conducted a survey at the event which revealed this, as well as some thought-provoking issues. Read more about in my next blog.