Executive summary? Not so fast..

In my never-ending quest to bring the internecine battles of nutrition science into the context of the rest of American life, some interesting statistics came to my attention today.

They have to do with condoms.

As you may or may not know, our government in it’s infinite wisdom has decided that people who aren’t married shouldn’t have sex, so only sex-education programs that teach abstinence-only receive federal funds.

Guess what. Abstinence only programs do delay the age at which teenagers have sex.

Well that’s good news for the abstinence-only crowd. And if I were making the case for abstinence-only programs onstage, to the “base”, in front of the Republican National Committee, I could leave now to thunderous applause, and everyone would go home happy and self-satisfied, believing that abstinence only programs “work”.

But I would have left out an interesting piece of data.

Those same kids who delay sex slightly because of those abstinence-only programs? They are statistically way more likely to be condom-free once they start having sex. And therefore to have all the things that go with unprotected sex. Like STDs and babies.

Result? The abstinence only sex-education programs don’t do a thing to ultimately create the very thing they’re meant to create- sexual health.

Those of us who read in areas other than nutrition- say politics, or social policy, or education or ethics- see these kinds of conundrums every single day. Which is why I’m continually frustrated by the seeming inability of people to understand that the exact same complexities exist in areas of diet and nutrition and health.

Take red wine. Research shows that a couple of glasses a day may protect your cardiovascular health. If I report that onstage at a winemaker’s convention, I can leave right now. I had you at hello. You’re gonna love me.

But I left something out.

Those nice warm and fuzzy stats? They only apply to men.

In women, two glasses of any kind of alcohol a day raises the risk of breast cancer by 25%.

But wait, there’s more.

That increased risk for women disappears when they get enough folic acid.

Oh these darn statistics, why do they have to be so messy?

Actually, the problem isn’t with statistics, which are always, read my lips, always messy, particularly when you’re describing free-living adults where the number of uncontrolled variables is virtually incalculable. The problem is with the way we Americans like our information- short, sweet, simple and fast.

And, unfortunately, stupid.

We love statements like “bread is bad” and “bananas are good”. We love statements like “vegan diets work” (“work” to do what?) or “high protein diets cause cancer”. Unfortunately, these silly soundbytes never capture the full complexity of the data. And they generally tell us exactly nothing of value. We hear them as headlines on CNN and we repeat them at cocktail parties, and they make us feel good because we think we actually know something, but alas, all we really know is the way some cub reporter interpreted complex data.

So what’s the moral of the story?

Don’t believe everything you read or that you hear on television when it comes to nutrition (or anything else). Read beyond the “executive summary”, especially when the executive summary is five words or less.

Life- like nutrition and statistics- may be messy, but it’s also rich and delicious.

And far more complicated than a five word soundbyte.