nutrition and diet forum mods

r3nu4l

Amz wrote:

People do take diet and nutrition very seriously, you have to go to university to get a degree to be qualified to give advice, I don't think neuro-praxis has such a qualification.

Also, giving advice, no matter how trivial you might feel it is, on an internet forum can be quite dodgy, particularly when it can affect the health and well being of the person being advised. There is no way to follow up on advice and ensure that it is being followed properly.

I agree in principle Amz but equally I don't think (m)any of the people on the fitness forum have degrees in nutrition, yet they give excellent advice.

Despite the advice given in the fitness forum there is no way to follow up on advice and ensure that it is being followed properly either, yet it works for those who take the advice seriously.

The Diet and Nutrition forum should be a place for sound nutritional advice which is why I'd like to see the relevant fitness forum stickies ported over and also g'em installed as another mod...or failing that, a regular poster

The forum should be a place that tells people...faddy diets are cr*p and the only way to lose weight safely is to eat a well-balanced diet with as few processed foods as possible. It should also tell people to be wary of the label "low-fat" (usual translation: sugar enhanced).

EDIT: Dragan, that's why you guys should stick your noses in every day to give some tough lovin' Do you think g'em would be interested if asked? Also...I think as it stands the forum has a better chance of attracting those who most need help by being outside the 'fitness' bracket...if they see some results from eating properly, maybe, just maybe, they'll venture to the fitness forum

/grabs another doughnut

Amz

Dragan wrote:

To be honest, the second I first saw this forum asked for I asked myself "why?". It appears people don't like to package eating healthy and fitness together.

Why is that? Is it really so bad to be concerned about your health? Is it such an illogical step to consider that eating the foods your body needs in the correct portions at the correct times can be a part of fitness? Since when did fitness or health go hand in hand with a gym membership?

This forum could either be a huge help, or a total disaster, filled with folk who talk about X System and Y Diet but are not putting the actual effort into making real changes. The simple fact is that an honest and obvious improvement in physical health or appearance takes effort. If it didn't we'd all have six packs and 20 inch arms.

I have no doubt Neuro's heart is in the right place, but frankly that forum is a potential mine-field of possible bad advice and Cosmo bull**** about losing weight...... something boards needs to keep an eye on.

QFT

Why are people able to be so blasé about this issue?

I have studied sports science and health, many aspects of that course involved nutrition and diet, yet I would not touch something like this with a ten foot pole, because the potential dangers in giving out advice no matter how trivial it may appear can outweigh (no pun intended) the potential positives.

Time Magazine

Seraphina wrote:

well for a start, i didn't mention neuro-praxis anywhere in my post, why everyone is jumping to her defence and assuming i'm attacking her :rolleyes: Ibid, is beyond me. there are 5 moderators listed on that forum, i was referring to all of them in general tbh.

The rest are category or sub-category moderators, mods by default.

frankly, if you're going to have a bunch of women discussing weight watchers and how to squeeze chocolate into your day without gaining weight, it should be called portion control or losing weight, and not diet and nutrition.

Aside from a rose by any other name, there are examples of fora on Boards that are named generically but catered to an audience. A rough example is Parenting, where it seems to be more of a Mammy's Gang board than a frank discussion on parenting. This is fine imo, respect to the Mammies of Ireland. Ditto the Giving Up Smoking forum, that's "medical advice" that's really a community. Hey even Politics is the anti-Bertie forum at the moment, with little intellectual rigour applied.

Amz wrote:

Ibid it's very easy to say that's it's only a general forum for college students, but that's taking away from the seriousness of it. People do take diet and nutrition very seriously, you have to go to university to get a degree to be qualified to give advice, I don't think neuro-praxis has such a qualification.

I see your point, but where does this leave Investments & Markets or all the other fora? If I say "Seriously, Bank of Ireland look like a bargain!" and the share price falls, how is that different? People take things said there seriously. What about Legal Discussion? Legal and financial advice are more likely to result in action against Boards than nutritional advice for the simple reason it's easier to prove and I have no doubt about this. If someone wants to diet they can eat badly by themselves far easier than they can get summon bad legal or investment advice.

Amz

Del Griffith wrote:

EDIT: Dragan, that's why you guys should stick your noses in every day to give some tough lovin' Do you think g'em would be interested if asked? Also...I think as it stands the forum has a better chance of attracting those who most need help by being outside the 'fitness' bracket...if they see some results from eating properly, maybe, just maybe, they'll venture to the fitness forum

/grabs another doughnut

Why in god's name should the mods of another forum have to babysit the mods of this forum and possibly have to clean up after them and the users of the forum?

Amz

Ibid wrote:

I see your point, but where does this leave Investments & Markets or all the other fora? If I say "Seriously, Bank of Ireland look like a bargain!" and the share price falls, how is that different? People take things said there seriously. What about Legal Discussion? Legal and financial advice are more likely to result in action against Boards than nutritional advice for the simple reason it's easier to prove and I have no doubt about this. If someone wants to diet they can eat badly by themselves far easier than they can get summon bad legal or investment advice.

People losing money is nowhere near as serious as people damaging their health, but it seems you're not prepared to take that on board.

How you can compare the two is beyond me.

r3nu4l

Amz wrote:

Why in god's name should the mods of another forum have to babysit the mods of this forum and possibly have to clean up after them and the users of the forum?

Let me clarify...I meant the regular users of the fitness forum who know a bit about nutrition. Why should they? Well because they are already interested in nutrition and this is a dedicated nutrition forum. It would therefore seem logical that they would be interested in reading and posting there as well as in the fitness forum.

Just because you regularly post in one forum does not mean you can't post in another forum. That's why in God's name...although why you bring Him into is is another question entirely

GuanYin

I can see why Cloud made the forum a nutrition and diet forum as a compromise, but seriously, I see it as a grave misjudgement to set up such a forum and hand it over to a mod who was heavily involved in the debate for/against it being a nutrition forum.

When it comes to dietry advice, there are two types of people who should be allowed to give it. 1) A trained dietician. 2) a trained gastroenterologist.

I'm a trained gastroenterologist and even *I* don't feel comfortable giving nutritional advice to someone I've never seen or never met.

The sad thing is, were I to post on that forum, most of my posts would probably be to tell posters that the diets being suggested are wrong and dangerous and why. I can imagine it would get me banned.

If this is a forum just to discuss people's diet, without giving advice (as has been suggested), then why not just have it in the food forum?

r3nu4l

Amz, you also fail to acknowledge that nutrition advice is already regularly posted on the Fitness forum by 'unqualified' persons.

These people may not have a qualification on paper yet their advice is usually sound which is why I'd like to see them post on the nutrition forum. When the advice they give is not sound, one of the other regular nutrition 'experts' usually pulls them up on that fact. It almost self-moderates once you have enough people who know what they are talking about...after that the mods only need to clean and tidy the threads a bit.

Amz

The dietry/nutrition advice usually given on the fitness forum is mostly in conjunction with some sort of fitness routine.

It's not stand alone advice.

The idea of this forum seemed to stem from the desire of one of the mods to lose weight and it seems the only way they felt they could lose weight was through dieting or change in eating habits.

Vegeta

Listen folks a mod does exactly that moderates, stops abuse, reports shills yada yada yada. They do not have to be the number 1 source of advice/info on the topic they moderate.

If any of the fitness/nutrition guys check in regularly they will set any of that sh1te straight ( like choclate? how to lose weight on a choclate diet). They will not be cleaning up other peoples mess or dirty work. They will be participating members of a forum. What boards is all about really.

So neuro isn't the most up to speed (neither am I or most here), let the forum regulars hand out the advice. That forum could be moderated by anyone. Advice on the other hand should only be given by those in the know.

So please stop focusing on the actual moderating of the forum, the advice is what's important and there's no devine law saying the mod has to give the advice. The reason the fitness forum (which so many refer to here) is a succes is because so many posters there are passionate about fitness not because it has good mods (which it does but that's another matter)

excuse my spelling I had no time to spell check this

fits

I cant help feeling that this is being taken way too seriously.
I see this forum as a community rather than a gospel for nutrition.... and I'd imagine most posters would feel the same.

If people need medical advice in relation to their diet, then its up to themselves to go get it. For someone who needs, for example, to lose a small bit of weight, I cant see any harm in a forum where they get a bit of encouragement and are told to eat more porridge..

Vegeta

Del Griffith wrote:

These people may not have a qualification on paper yet their advice is usually sound which is why I'd like to see them post on the nutrition forum. When the advice they give is not sound, one of the other regular nutrition 'experts' usually pulls them up on that fact. It almost self-moderates once you have enough people who know what they are talking about...after that the mods only need to clean and tidy the threads a bit.

yup this is what I was getting at.

GuanYin

Del Griffith wrote:

Amz, you also fail to acknowledge that nutrition advice is already regularly posted on the Fitness forum by 'unqualified' persons.

These people may not have a qualification on paper yet their advice is usually sound which is why I'd like to see them post on the nutrition forum. When the advice they give is not sound, one of the other regular nutrition 'experts' usually pulls them up on that fact. It almost self-moderates once you have enough people who know what they are talking about...after that the mods only need to clean and tidy the threads a bit.

Nutritional advice is different to dietary advice and it's not just semantics. People may come in here and ask for information or advice on nutritional sources and nutritional substitutes. Fair enough.

People who come on here to discuss weight loss diets or somesuch are the ones I worry about.

You know those warnings you see about consulting a doctor before engaging in a weight loss program? Thats not just legal covering, there are pretty practical reasons behind it.

Time Magazine

Amz wrote:

People losing money is nowhere near as serious as people damaging their health, but it seems you're not prepared to take that on board.

I am of course. People do and will damage their health by crash dieting all the time. I know nothing about nutrition. If I wanted to lose weight I'd probably simply skip breakfasts.

How you can compare the two is beyond me.

Both can get Boards in trouble. And one is far more likely to get Boards in trouble than the other. How you can't see that is beyond me.

Dragan

Del Griffith wrote:

EDIT: Dragan, that's why you guys should stick your noses in every day to give some tough lovin' Do you think g'em would be interested if asked? Also...I think as it stands the forum has a better chance of attracting those who most need help by being outside the 'fitness' bracket...if they see some results from eating properly, maybe, just maybe, they'll venture to the fitness forum

/grabs another doughnut

Funnily enough I am actually working on my first post for that forum as we speak, it should be done by Thursday ( would be a lot quicker but I'm squeezing it into working hours….whatever they are ).

As for G'em , well I can't really speak for her but I'm sure she would be interested in lending a hand. To be honest, I'm sure she will whether she is a Mod or not….she just likes helping people.

Dragan

Ibid wrote:

I am of course. People do and will damage their health by crash dieting all the time. I know nothing about nutrition. If I wanted to lose weight I'd probably simply skip breakfasts.

Neatly crippling your ability to effectively, quickly and healthily lose weight.

See…. This is the type of thing that I worry will crop up in the forum?

r3nu4l

Yeah I agree that fitness is important but as g'em amongst others has said on the fitness forum: when it comes to weight loss, it's 80% diet and 20% exercise.

Now, that 20% is vital for accelerating and continuing weight loss as well as vital for overall health but the 80% is what this forum is about. Posters should be advised of this and directed to the fitness forum for fitness advice.

My own view is that the forum should be the kind of place where users are told...fad diets are useless, hard work is necessary, try to avoid refined carbs, use wholemeal pasta or brown rice instead of white stuff. Learn that low-fat may mean high sugar. Unused carbs are converted to fat, so reduce carbs...etc.

These forums can work hand in hand, the diet and nutrition forum is very new, give it a chance and hopefully neuro-praxis can take on board any constructive criticisms.

I'd also like to see neuro-praxis engage in discussion with the fitness mods a bit for advice from them as well as on the mod forum This can work if given a chance!

So,

r3nu4l

Dragan wrote:

Neatly crippling your ability to effectively, quickly and healthily lose weight.

See…. This is the type of thing that I worry will crop up in the forum?

Very true

In fairness Dragan, people have asked this kind of thing on the fitness forum and you guys have put them straight, I don't see why the fitness people interested in nutrition can't post in the diet and nutrition forum too. I realise that they approach nutrition from the fitness and reducing bf or bulking up angle but their knowledge is perfect for this type of foruma nd they would be valuable posters! Reach out to neuro-praxis?

Dragan

Del Griffith wrote:

I realise that they approach nutrition from the fitness and reducing bf or bulking up angle but their knowledge is perfect for this type of foruma nd they would be valuable posters! Reach out to neuro-praxis?

Over on fitness we make every effort we can to answer every question as it's asked. We had a lot of people not really interested in fitness, but were all about losing weight and they got as much help as anyone else! I'm all about the Diet and Nutrition Forum, to be honest…. I just think it has Disasterpiece potential sometimes!

As I already said, I'm already working on my contributions, and will be doing everything I can to help out Neuro. I'm sure the rest of my gym going brethern will do the same. Still think it would be a strong idea to get G'em on board in a manner that gives her a slightly bigger stick though.

Time Magazine

Dragan wrote:

Neatly crippling your ability to effectively, quickly and healthily lose weight.

See…. This is the type of thing that I worry will crop up in the forum?

To the contrary. If it wasn't for this/this sort of forum, this would happen. Which we all know does happen. Instead I could read the forum. If you're taking a benevolent view to weight-loss/nutrition, having good information is far better than nothing.

If you're complaining about this forum taking a Boards-protection point of view, Legal Discussion and Investments & Markets have to go. Or else you can look at them as precedents and see they're very successful at the average Joe level. Just like "I need advice" threads in I&M and Legal Discussion forum get locked on sight "I'm 12 and need to diet" should get locked on sight. On the other hand "I'm 20, moving to college and want a nutritious breakfast" is fine imho. And it doesn't require a B.Sc. in food science either.

Boston

Ibid do you actual have a clue?

Dragan: will you and the other mods be allowing topics of a diet an nutrition nature remain on the fitness forum or will you be moving them to that other place. For me and I think you as well fitness/diet/good health are inseparable.

Imposter

Boston wrote:

Dragan: will you and the other mods be allowing topics of a diet an nutrition nature remain on the fitness forum or will you be moving them to that other place. For me and I think you as well fitness/diet/good health are inseparable.

I too hope all diet related posts that are started on Fitness remain there.

Terry

Ibid wrote:

Ditto the Giving Up Smoking forum, that's "medical advice" that's really a community.

Hold your horses there, buddy.
There is no medical advice given in that forum. I'm very strict about that.

The forum is mostly analogies on how people have coped and methods they have personally used. Absolutely no medical advice is given or aallowed be given.

The rest are category or sub-category moderators, mods by default.

You're correct on that.
I'm a mod of teach na Ngealt, but I don't speak a word of Irish.

Talliesin

People have been spouting ****e about what you should eat for centuries (e.g. the Classical authors of ancient Greece and Rome and indeed even God if you take the view that He was directly behind Deuteronomy).

People convincing each other that they should do stupid things like the Aitkins diet or the mapel syrup diet or the corn-flour diet (I just made that one up, send me €250 and I'll explain it to you in detail) or whatever is part of our society's culture. It has a sensible place on this site along side the fart threads, pictures of cats and the cuckoo's nest.

Not everything has to be sensible.

GuanYin

Talliesin wrote:

People convincing each other that they should do stupid things like the Aitkins diet or the mapel syrup diet or the corn-flour diet (I just made that one up, send me €250 and I'll explain it to you in detail) or whatever is part of our society's culture. It has a sensible place on this site along side the fart threads, pictures of cats and the cuckoo's nest.

Not everything has to be sensible.

Yet only one of the things you mention in your post can actually cause a person harm.

psi

psi wrote:

Yet only one of the things you mention in your post can actually cause a person harm.

The cats?

Talliesin

The aitkins diet can cause you harm, the mapel syrup diet can cause you harm, and the corn-flour diet can cause you €250 worth of harm (but is otherwise perfectly safe and healthy). Fart threads can irritate deeply, which counts as harm.

GuanYin

Myth wrote:

The cats?

They are evil and nasty creatures.

Talliesin wrote:

The aitkins diet can cause you harm, the mapel syrup diet can cause you harm, and the corn-flour diet can cause you €250 worth of harm (but is otherwise perfectly safe and healthy). Fart threads can irritate deeply, which counts as harm.

I've yet to see a GI consult required for fart threads, I've seen them as a result of fad diets though.

watna

smashey wrote:

neuro-praxis seems to be doing a good job.

I agree, he/she (hmm I wonder which?!) seems to be very interested and fair. There's already a sticky by neuro-praxis about healthy snacks, seems pretty helpful to me. People are only commenting on what worked/works for them. I don't think anyone on that forum is expecting proffessional advice, you should go to a nutritionist for that just a discussion on diets and nutrition. I think people are smart enough to understand everything is just people's opinions not fact. There's a huge difference. As long as that is outline in the charter, I don't see the harm.

ali.c

Vegeta wrote:

If any of the fitness/nutrition guys check in regularly they will set any of that sh1te straight ( like choclate? how to lose weight on a choclate diet). They will not be cleaning up other peoples mess or dirty work. They will be participating members of a forum. What boards is all about really.

Eh but the charter says not to repeately correct peoples choices of food, tbh that bugged me purely as if someone is continually making poor choices that its hardly good nutrition. When it s contrasted to the way nutrional advice is given in the fitness forum no-one on there recommends eating clean 100% of the time, in fact the advice is you aim for 90%, so in fact if someone is making poor choices on a daily basis it should be corrected IMHO.

Though i am kinda reserving judgement to see how it all pans out. It will be interested to see how the first lipotrim thread is dealt with. The forum is still pretty quiet at the minute so i suppose time will tell.

Oh and i would think the g'em would make an excellent mod!