MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT FATS AND CHOLESTEROL - IMPLICATIONS FOR DIETARY GUIDELINES

To be effective, dietary guidelines must be understandable by their au diences. Misconceptions interfere with acceptance of correct but confl icting information, contributing to unhealthy dietary behavior. This s tudy was undertaken to identify, from a cognitive perspective, misconc eptions about dietary fat and cholesterol and their roots. Eighty-eigh t women and men participated in semistructured interviews that identif ied their knowledge structure and misconceptions. Women had slightly m ore numerous and serious (potential to lead to inappropriate food choi ces) misconceptions than men. Both groups had numerous misconceptions in common (saturated fats have more fat or calories than unsaturated f ats). Most misconceptions could be attributed to missing or incomplete information, yet the Dietary Guidelines for Americans bulletin on fat and cholesterol was ineffective in changing them. These results have implications for public health education efforts: common misconception s need to be identified and addressed, or they will reduce effectivene ss of the efforts.