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Fish for Dinner? Balancing Risks, Benefits, and Values in Formulating Food Consumption Advice

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  • Karen Rideout
  • Tom Kosatsky

Abstract

Many and complex factors underlie seemingly simple decisions about what to eat. This is particularly so for foods such as fish, which present consumers with both risks and benefits. Advice about what type of and how much fish to consume is abundant, but that advice is often confusing or contradictory, reflecting the differing mandates and orientations of those advising. We survey a range of issues that can and should be incorporated into dietary advice, and offer tools for health agencies tasked with providing it. We argue that risks and benefits should not be limited to direct physical health. Rather, socioeconomic and community factors, unintended or indirect effects, and nonhuman‐health outcomes such as animal welfare and planetary health should also be considered and weighed. We provide examples of existing fish consumption guidance to highlight the conflicting messages that emerge when different sources of advice with singular aims of avoiding risk, gaining nutritional benefit, or sustaining fish populations are juxtaposed. We then offer tools borrowed from health and other fields to guide health agencies toward developing more comprehensive advice and targeting that advice for specific populations.

Suggested Citation

  • Karen Rideout & Tom Kosatsky, 2017. "Fish for Dinner? Balancing Risks, Benefits, and Values in Formulating Food Consumption Advice," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(11), pages 2041-2052, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:37:y:2017:i:11:p:2041-2052
    DOI: 10.1111/risa.12769
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    1. Nydia‐Yuriana Zamora‐Arellano & Miguel Betancourt‐Lozano & César Ilizaliturri‐Hernández & Jaqueline García‐Hernández & Matín Jara‐Marini & Cristina Chávez‐Sánchez & Jorge Ricardo Ruelas‐Inzunza, 2018. "Mercury Levels and Risk Implications Through Fish Consumption on the Sinaloa Coasts (Gulf of California, Northwest Mexico)," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(12), pages 2646-2658, December.
    2. Paul E. Ouboter & Gwendolyn Landburg & Gaitrie U. Satnarain & Sheryl Y. Starke & Indra Nanden & Bridget Simon-Friedt & William B. Hawkins & Robert Taylor & Maureen Y. Lichtveld & Emily Harville & Jeff, 2018. "Mercury Levels in Women and Children from Interior Villages in Suriname, South America," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-13, May.

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