Faulty logic

“Intervention needed!”

People who are sick often get better without an intervention. Sometimes a nutrition intervention will not help and may even make things worse.

Nutrition interventions can keep you from getting sick or make you better if you do get sick. However, when people are sick, they often get better without an intervention.

Sometimes nutrition interventions may make things worse. Those thought to prevent sickness also may not be needed, if your chances of getting sick without the nutrition intervention are very small.

You need to know what would happen without a nutrition intervention to decide whether it is needed. For example, most people with a cold will get better without taking a vitamin C supplement. Taking a vitamin C supplement may make a cold go away a little bit more quickly, but you do not need a vitamin C supplement to get better.

People with a cold sometimes get very sick. Treating a cold with a vitamin C supplement may make the chances of getting very sick smaller, but for people with good living conditions, the chances of getting very sick from a cold are small to begin with.

BEWARE when someone says that a “nutrition intervention is needed”.

REMEMBER: The nutrition intervention might not be needed. Waiting to see what happens is sometimes a better choice.