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Welcome to Issue 30 of My Newsletter.

It has never been easier to sound credible.

A professional title helps.
A white coat helps.
A podcast helps.
A large audience helps.
A confident voice helps.
A well-lit video helps.
A lean physique helps.
A teleprompter helps.
A few scientific phrases help.
A strong opinion helps.
A supplement sponsor probably helps too.

None of these things automatically mean someone is wrong.

That is important.

A doctor may be a credible source.
A podcast may be valuable.
A large audience may be earned.
A fit-looking practitioner may be highly competent.
A clear communicator may also be scientifically rigorous.
A person selling something may still be ethical.

But these signals can also mislead.

And in nutrition, health, fitness, and performance, that is becoming a growing problem.

Because many people now appear credible before we have any reason to know whether they are.

The new pseudoscience is more polished

Pseudoscience does not always look obvious anymore.

It is not always badly designed websites, wild claims, or someone selling miracle pills from the shadows.

Much of it is now polished.

High production value.
Professional branding.
Scientific language.
Confident delivery.
Guest appearances.
Podcast networks.
Selective citations.
Impressive titles.
Before-and-after stories.
Testimonials.
Blood tests.
Wearables.
Supplements.
Wellness devices.
“Root cause” language.
Personalised protocols.
A strong sense that conventional advice has failed and they have the real answer.

That is a powerful package.

Especially when it is delivered by someone who looks and sounds the part.

Sometimes they have “Dr” in front of their name.

Sometimes that title is entirely legitimate, but the content is outside their actual area of expertise.

Sometimes they are a medical doctor speaking confidently about nutrition science they may not understand in depth.

Sometimes they have a PhD, but not in a relevant field.

Sometimes they are a practitioner with a strong physique and a large platform, but weak scientific reasoning.

Sometimes they are good at reading from a script and sounding authoritative.

Sometimes they genuinely believe they are helping.

Sometimes they are ignorant of their own ignorance.

And sometimes, of course, they are simply selling certainty because certainty sells.

Everyone is a nutrition expert, apparently

Nutrition has always had this problem.

Everyone eats.

So everyone has an opinion.

People confuse personal experience with expertise.

They confuse what worked for them with what should work for others.

They confuse confidence with competence.

They confuse being lean with understanding metabolism.

They confuse having a large following with being trustworthy.

They confuse being a doctor with being an expert in every area of health.

They confuse a plausible mechanism with a meaningful outcome.

They confuse storytelling with evidence.

And because nutrition is personal, emotional, cultural, and visible, misinformation spreads easily.

Food is not abstract.

People care about it.

They worry about their health.
They worry about their body.
They worry about performance.
They worry about energy.
They worry about ageing.
They worry about their children.
They worry about doing the wrong thing.

That makes them vulnerable to confident people offering simple answers.

The trust recession

We are also living through something that feels like a trust recession.

Many people distrust institutions.
They distrust guidelines.
They distrust public health messaging.
They distrust experts.
They distrust industry.
They distrust media.
They distrust anything that sounds too official.

Some of that distrust has understandable roots.

Institutions do make mistakes.
Guidelines do change.
Experts do disagree.
Industry influence is real.
Public communication is often poor.
People have had bad experiences.
Nutrition advice has been oversimplified many times.

So the answer is not to say:

“Just trust the experts.”

That will not work.

And it should not work blindly.

Trust has to be earned.

For genuine practitioners, nutritionists, coaches, educators, and scientists, this creates a difficult challenge.

How do we communicate responsibly in an environment where the loudest voices often sound the most certain?

How do we build trust without becoming simplistic?

How do we compete for attention without becoming part of the problem?

How do we show people that we are credible, useful, and acting in their best interest?

Credentials are useful, but not enough

Credentials matter.

Qualifications matter.
Scope of practice matters.
Professional standards matter.
Registration and accreditation can matter.
Research training can matter.
Clinical training can matter.
Experience can matter.

But credentials are not enough on their own.

A title does not guarantee relevance.

A doctorate does not guarantee humility.

A medical degree does not automatically make someone an expert in sports nutrition.

A PhD in one field does not automatically transfer to expertise in another.

An academic may understand evidence but communicate poorly.

A practitioner may have extensive experience but still rely on outdated ideas.

A registered professional may still be unhelpful.

A highly visible expert may still overstate.

And a less visible practitioner may be doing excellent, ethical, evidence-informed work every day.

That is why credibility has to be judged in layers.

Not just by the letters before or after a name.

The appearance of expertise is not expertise

In fitness and performance spaces, appearance can also distort trust.

Someone is lean, muscular, energetic, and confident on camera.

They look disciplined.

They look like the result people want.

So people assume they must know what they are talking about.

But physique is not a peer-review process.

A six-pack does not prove that someone understands energy availability, behaviour change, REDs, eating disorders, female physiology, metabolic adaptation, supplementation, gastrointestinal issues, or the realities of long-term adherence.

It proves, at most, that they have achieved a certain appearance.

That may be impressive.

But it is not the same as expertise.

The same applies to polished delivery.

Someone may speak beautifully from a teleprompter.

They may sound fluent, confident, and scientific.

They may use the right terms.

They may deliver short clips that feel convincing.

But fluency is not evidence.

Delivery matters, of course.

I wrote last week about why delivery is important.

But delivery without substance is performance.

And performance can be mistaken for credibility.

Follow the incentives

One useful question is:

What is being sold?

Again, selling does not automatically make someone untrustworthy.

I sell education.
Many good practitioners sell coaching.
Researchers write books.
Podcasters use sponsors.
Companies sell products that may be useful.

Commercial activity is not automatically unethical.

But incentives matter.

If every problem leads to the same supplement, test, device, membership, protocol, or paid solution, we should pay attention.

If the content consistently increases fear and then sells relief, we should pay attention.

If the message is always that conventional advice is wrong and their product is the missing answer, we should pay attention.

If uncertainty disappears as soon as a commercial offer appears, we should pay attention.

If the person platforms the same circle of experts who all sell overlapping solutions, we should pay attention.

If the science is used mainly as decoration for marketing, we should pay attention.

Trustworthy practitioners can sell.

But they should not need to distort the problem to create demand.

Not everyone is a charlatan

It is tempting to put everyone promoting poor nutrition information into one category.

Quacks.
Charlatans.
Grifters.
Influencers.
Snake-oil salespeople.

Some people deserve those labels.

Some knowingly mislead.

Some cherry-pick evidence because it sells.

Some create fear to drive revenue.

Some know exactly what they are doing.

But not everyone is acting in bad faith.

Some genuinely believe they are helping.

Some have been captured by their own audience.

Some have mistaken personal experience for universal truth.

Some are outside their expertise but cannot see it.

Some are confident because they do not know enough to be cautious.

Some are repeating claims they heard from other confident people.

Some are, quite literally, ignorant of their ignorance.

That distinction matters.

Not because the harm disappears.

Poor advice can still harm even when it is well-intended.

But it affects how we respond.

Sometimes we need correction.

Sometimes we need education.

Sometimes we need boundaries.

Sometimes we need stronger professional standards.

Sometimes we need to call out clear harm.

And sometimes we need to become better communicators ourselves.

Moaning is not enough

Genuine experts often complain that misinformation gets more attention.

And they are right.

It often does.

But complaining is not a strategy.

If qualified, evidence-informed practitioners stay quiet, unclear, invisible, or inaccessible, the space will be filled by people who are louder.

That does not mean we need to copy the worst behaviours.

We do not need to become sensationalist.

We do not need to create fear.

We do not need to pretend certainty where there is uncertainty.

We do not need to turn every topic into a fight.

But we do need to communicate better.

More clearly.
More consistently.
More usefully.
More visibly.
More humanly.

If the public only hears from the loudest voices, we should not be surprised when they trust the loudest voices.

Good practitioners need to be seen.

Not for ego.

For service.

Being credible is not the same as being heard

This is uncomfortable, but important.

You can be credible and still not be heard.

You can be well qualified and still communicate poorly.

You can be scientifically accurate and still be boring, vague, or inaccessible.

You can be right and still fail to help people understand why it matters.

You can have expertise and still lose attention to someone with less knowledge but better communication.

That does not mean the less credible person is right.

It means communication is part of the work.

If we want people to trust better information, we have to make better information easier to engage with.

Not by lowering standards.

By improving translation.

Use clearer language.
Give better examples.
Explain uncertainty.
Show relevance.
Make the practical meaning obvious.
Avoid unnecessary jargon.
Be honest about limits.
Help people make decisions.

That is how genuine authority becomes useful.

Figure 30. Credibility Signals Can Mislead. Visible signals may attract attention, but trustworthy expertise is built through relevant knowledge, ethical practice, transparency, humility, and useful outcomes.

How to show you are trustworthy

For practitioners, this raises a practical question.

How do you show an audience, client, athlete, or colleague that you are credible?

Not by shouting louder.

Not by pretending to know everything.

Not by copying influencer tactics uncritically.

Not by hiding behind qualifications alone.

But by repeatedly demonstrating trustworthiness.

Be clear about your scope.

Say what you know.

Say what you do not know.

Explain how you reached a conclusion.

Avoid overclaiming.

Update your view when the evidence changes.

Separate evidence from opinion.

Be honest about uncertainty.

Make your conflicts of interest clear.

Do not sell a solution to every problem.

Show your reasoning.

Give people useful frameworks.

Help them make better decisions.

That is slower than outrage.

But it compounds.

Authority is built through consistency

Real authority is rarely built from one viral post.

It is built through repeated signals.

The way you explain things.

The way you handle disagreement.

The way you correct yourself.

The way you treat people.

The way you discuss evidence.

The way you avoid exaggeration.

The way you stay within your lane.

The way you refer out when needed.

The way you help clients get results.

The way people feel after working with you.

The way colleagues trust you over time.

That kind of authority may not grow as quickly as sensational content.

But it is more durable.

And in a trust recession, durable credibility matters.

The practitioner’s opportunity

The rise of polished pseudoscience is frustrating.

But it is also an opportunity.

Because people are confused.

They are overwhelmed by competing claims.

They are tired of being sold to.

They do not know who to trust.

They need practitioners who can help them make sense of things.

Not by mocking them for being confused.

Not by assuming they should already know better.

Not by being dismissive or arrogant.

But by becoming clearer, more useful, and more trustworthy.

That is the opportunity.

To be the person who reduces noise.

To be the person who explains without patronising.

To be the person who can say, “That sounds convincing, but here is what we need to consider.”

To be the person who helps someone move from fear to understanding.

To be the person whose credibility is not just claimed, but experienced.

Applied Practice Takeaways

When judging credibility — including your own — ask:

1. Is the person speaking within their actual expertise?​
A title may be real, but the topic still needs to match their training, experience, and scope.

2. Are they explaining evidence or selling certainty?​
Trustworthy experts can make clear recommendations without pretending every issue is settled.

3. What are the incentives?​
Products, sponsors, tests, devices, memberships, and protocols do not automatically invalidate a message, but they should be visible and considered.

4. Do they show their reasoning?​
Credibility improves when people explain how they interpret evidence, where uncertainty remains, and why a recommendation applies.

5. Are they helping people make better decisions?​
The goal is not to sound impressive. The goal is to reduce confusion and support better practice.

The practical point

Credibility is getting harder to judge.

The signals are louder.

The production is better.

The titles look impressive.

The bodies look convincing.

The scripts sound polished.

The claims feel certain.

The audiences are huge.

But genuine expertise is not defined by confidence, appearance, audience size, or commercial success.

It is defined by relevant knowledge, ethical practice, clear reasoning, appropriate humility, transparency, and useful outcomes.

So yes, we should be concerned about the noise.

But we should also respond by becoming better signals.

Clearer.

More visible.

More useful.

More trustworthy.

Because if everyone is apparently a nutrition expert, the real work is not just being credible.

It is helping the right people recognise why that credibility matters.

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To better practice,
​Dr Laurent Bannock