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Can What You Say Get You in Hot Water? Legal Risks Every Nutrition Communicator Needs To Know

Monday, October 7, 2024

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101 ABCHIJ

Level: Level 2 (intermediate knowledge/experience)

Track: Career Advancement

CPE: 1.5

Description

There is no doubt we live in a 7 second sound bite world where buzz words and grandiose claims get the most clicks and likes. Nutrition professionals are in the best position to share evidence-based information with their patients, clients, and followers to promote sound nutrition and combat the mis-information noise. However, have you ever thought about what you can and cannot say? Or how it resonates with different populations? With false advertising lawsuits in the food and beverage industry continuing to emerge, nutrition professionals need to be diligent of the promises and language they use when promoting products. This session will cover recent litigation by the Food & Drug Administration, USDA’s Agriculture Marketing Services, and the Federal Trade Commission that all nutrition professionals need to know about. Experts will share how to navigate creating accurate, truthful, and compelling communications and how to avoid being a target for litigation. This session will be especially relevant for nutrition professionals who are expressing their own brands on social platforms and for those who are working with industry partners.

Planned with the Food and Culinary Professionals Dietetics Practice Group

Learning Objectives

  • Understand recent litigation in the food marketing and social media space that have placed food brands and nutrition communicators at risk.
  • Describe similarities and differences between the Food & Drug Administration, Agricultural Marketing Services, and the Federal Trade Commission’s oversight of claims, food marketing, and advertising.
  • Create accurate, compliant, and compelling nutrition messages to promote a product and win consumer confidence while avoiding regulatory scrutiny.

Performance Indicators

  • 11.4.3 Ensures advertising information is evidence-based, balanced, accurate and in the public’s best interest.
  • 2.2.3 Delivers accurate and credible messaging.
  • 1.2.1 Recognizes and discloses any conflicts of interest, including any financial interests in products or services.

Speakers

  • Melissa Dobbins photo

    Melissa Dobbins

    CEO of Sound Bites, Sound Bites, Inc

    Melissa is the CEO of Sound Bites® Inc., and promotes sound science, smart nutrition and good food. Her background includes clinical nutrition, outpatient counseling, corporate wellness, academia and research. Melissa has extensive media and communications experience and received the Media Excellence Award from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in 2016. She is a former spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the Illinois Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the American Association of Diabetes Educators, the National Dairy Council and a supermarket spokesperson for Jewel-Osco/Albertson’s. As the host of the popular Sound Bites® Podcast for more than nine years, Melissa interviews experts on a variety of topics ranging from fad diets to farming and shares evidence-based information and realistic solutions to help people enjoy their food with health in mind. The podcast has more than 260 episodes, 1 million downloads and has provided over 25,000 free CEU activities for RDNs through the Commission on Dietetic Registration. Melissa has been published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, contributed to three chapters in the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ book “Communicating Nutrition: The Authoritative Guide” and served as an expert witness on behalf of the federal government in the FTC trial of Kevin Trudeau who was convicted of nutrition-related fraud in 2013.
  • Eric Unis photo

    Eric Unis

Moderator

  • Shelley Johnson photo

    Shelley Johnson

    National Senior Lead, Food Systems and Heart-Check, American Heart Association

    Shelley Johnson, MJ, RD is the National Lead of Food Systems and Heart-Check at the American Heart Association. She is a subject matter expert on food and nutrition regulatory schemes, performing nutrition and health claim reviews on food packaging for the Heart-Check food certification program. Prior to her work at AHA, she led national nutrition outreach programs for the beef and dairy checkoff programs but started her career in healthcare and clinical nutrition management. These experiences motivated her to work towards closing the communication gap between marketing and regulatory affairs in the food industry. She received her BS in nutrition at Southeast Missouri State University and an M. Juris. In Global Food Law at Michigan State University.

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