I was reading a magazine article the other day that was reporting on the findings of a nutrition study and it got me thinking about nutrition and the media.  How do these two fields interact with one another?  On one hand, the media is a powerhouse that can relay messages to a mass amount of people with just the click of a mouse.  Getting quality nutrition information out to the public using the mass media can be extremely beneficial for dietitians whose goals include an overall healthier population.  However, there was a key word in that sentence: quality.  In a society where “everyone is an expert in nutrition,” there is a plethora of misinformation.  Products promise miracles if you take this pill with this juice all while standing on your head and clapping your hands in the name of science.  Even studies that have scientific merit can be falsified in the media when their results are interpreted incorrectly. 

So where does this leave the relationship?  Are nutrition and the media friends or are they enemies?  Perhaps they are actually both: frienemies.  Wikipedia (not the source I would ever use to back up an argument, except in this case) defines frienemies as a partnership where the two parties are simultaneously friends and rivals.  I think this term defines the relationship between nutrition and media perfectly.  The media can deliver important messages to the public on a grand scale, yet often those are the very messages dietitians are trying to debunk with their clients.  We have to understand how the media works and use it to get quality messages out to the public if we are going to compete with countless individuals and companies that are already utilizing mass media to distribute inaccurate information.  Essentially, we must become friends with the enemy to benefit both fields tremendously.