LegalEditorial & Content Standards
Editorial & Content Standards
1. Purpose and scope
This document describes how [PENDING: LEGAL_ENTITY_NAME] (trading as Being Optimal, Site Nutrition) sources, labels, reviews, and presents nutrition and pregnancy-adjacent educational content and food nutrient data in the Services, including:
- Food catalog nutrient values and related metadata;
- Learning Center / encyclopedia-style articles;
- Help Center guides, FAQs, and product how-tos;
- Methodology and “how the score works” explainers;
- In-product educational copy, challenges, and Knowledge Score materials;
- AI assistant grounding against reviewed corpora where implemented.
It does not replace the Medical Disclaimer, Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, or Community Guidelines (user-generated posts follow community rules, not this editorial desk).
Defined terms: Definitions.
2. Core principles
- Planning context, not medical advice.
Master product line: *Planning context, not medical advice — confirm supplement doses and screening (ferritin, 25-OH-D) with your healthcare provider.*
- Numbers over hype. Prefer measurable quantities, ranges, and sources over absolute adjectives.
- Your Clinician outranks us. Content must not instruct users to defy clinical care.
- Basis honesty. Food nutrient values depend on basis (e.g. raw/dry vs cooked). We do not pretend different bases are interchangeable.
- Label uncertainty. When data are missing, averaged, or conflicting, say so (evidence tiers).
- No emergency theater. Escalation language is calm and action-oriented:
*This one's beyond nutrition — please contact your provider or local urgent care now.*
- Provider-agnostic legal prose; named science attribution where required. Infrastructure vendors are role-labeled in legal docs; scientific Nutrient Data Source attribution uses USDA FoodData Central.
3. Nutrient data sourcing
3.1 Primary Nutrient Data Source
Food composition values used in the catalog and calculation engine are derived primarily from:
Nutrient Data Source: USDA FoodData Central
This source is a public nutrient composition database / dataset, not a Sub-processor of Personal Data. It does not receive your meal logs or account data by virtue of being a composition reference. See Definitions and Legal Manifest (dataSourcesNotProcessors).
3.2 Provenance (including fdcId)
Where available, curated food entries record provenance metadata, which may include:
| Field (concept) | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Source | Origin system or dataset family (e.g. the Nutrient Data Source). |
| Source identifier (e.g. fdcId) | Stable ID of the source food entry used when authoring or verifying nutrients. |
| Verified / reviewed date | When a human last checked the mapping. |
| Confidence | Editorial confidence in the match (e.g. high/medium/low). |
| Notes | Basis, preparation, unit conversions, or known limitations. |
fdcId (and similar IDs) are traceability aids: they help operators and auditors find the public source record that informed a catalog row. They are not a warranty that every nutrient on that source record was copied without error, that the source record matches your exact brand, or that the ID remains eternally stable upstream.
3.3 Curation and dual-basis foods
- Catalog foods may be curated (selected, normalized per 100 g or other basis, labeled for UI).
- Some foods (notably grains and legumes) may exist as paired entries (e.g. dry vs cooked) because water weight changes every nutrient density number. Comparing across bases without conversion is a user error the product tries to reduce but cannot fully prevent.
- Custom ingredients you create are your data; provenance standards for the global catalog do not fully apply.
3.4 Accuracy and completeness disclaimer
To the maximum extent permitted by law:
- Nutrient values may be incomplete, rounded, averaged, outdated, or mismatched to the specific product, cultivar, fortification, or recipe you consumed.
- Bioavailability, cooking losses, fortification changes, and lab assay differences are simplified or omitted in many models.
- Engine scores that consume catalog data inherit these limits — see AD-1–AD-3 in Automated Decisions.
- Being Optimal does not warrant that catalog data are fit for clinical diet prescription, allergen medical management, or regulatory labeling of commercial food products.
If you need clinical-grade analysis, work with a qualified professional and primary laboratory or label data.
3.5 Public-domain / license note (Nutrient Data Source)
USDA FoodData Central materials are used as a composition reference under the terms applicable to that source (commonly including U.S. government work and/or public-domain or openly licensed datasets, subject to the source’s own notices).
- Being Optimal’s selection, curation, software, copy, UX, and trademarks remain our intellectual property (or licensors’), as described in the Terms of Service and Copyright DMCA.
- Attribution to USDA FoodData Central does not imply endorsement of Being Optimal by the source publisher.
- Users must not scrape or resell the catalog in violation of the Acceptable Use Policy.
Counsel should confirm exact attribution wording against the Nutrient Data Source’s current terms before publication.
4. Educational and Learning Center standards
4.1 What Learning Center content is
Learning Center (and similar encyclopedia) entries explain nutrients, patterns, methodology, and pregnancy-nutrition topics in accessible language. They are:
- Educational and general;
- Optionally cross-linked to product concepts (Day Score, targets, flags);
- Not individualized care plans, dosing orders, or diagnosis.
4.2 What Help content is
Help Center materials teach how to use the product (docs-style) and, where marked editorial, provide reassurance-first onboarding and boundary articles (e.g. Help vs Learn vs community vs AI vs emergency care). Health-adjacent Help pages should carry or link the master disclaimer where flagged in authoring systems.
4.3 Voice and certainty
Authors should follow the product voice standards (certainty ladder): distinguish your logged data, general guidance, and uncertain / missing claims. Avoid fear-based or guilt-based framing; avoid miracle claims.
4.4 Reinforced non-medical nature
Every educational surface remains subject to Medical Disclaimer. Typical on-page reminders:
- Planning context / confirm supplements and screening with your provider;
- Escalation to provider or urgent care when content is beyond nutrition;
- No clinician–patient relationship.
4.5 Citations and external links
- Prefer primary guidelines, systematic reviews, or well-established public-health sources over social media.
- External links can break or change; they are provided for convenience.
- Being Optimal is not responsible for third-party page content (Terms).
5. Evidence tiers
Where the product or content system labels claims, the following evidence tiers (or equivalent wording) apply. AI assistant instructions use a compatible ladder.
| Tier | Label (examples) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| E1 | Your data | Figures computed from the user’s own logs, targets, or entered labs in-product. Still limited by log quality and model assumptions. |
| E2 | General guidance | Established nutrition knowledge or public guideline-style ranges used when no personal figure applies; not personalized medical advice. |
| E3 | Model / methodology | Describes how Being Optimal calculates scores, ratios, or optimizer objectives — product logic, not a clinical protocol. |
| E4 | Uncertain / limited | Missing data, conflicting sources, low provenance confidence, or active scientific debate. Say what is unknown. |
| E5 | Community / UGC | User posts or unverified peer experience — not editorial science (see Community Guidelines). |
Rules of use:
- Do not present E4 or E5 claims as settled clinical fact.
- Do not upgrade E2 general guidance into a personal prescription.
- AI tools should label tiers visibly where the product design supports it.
- Scores and flags (AD-1, AD-2) are E1/E3 hybrids: personal inputs + model rules — still not diagnosis (Automated Decisions).
6. Review cadence
| Content class | Target cadence | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Pregnancy-critical safety copy (retinol, mercury, caffeine, alcohol, raw-food, emergency redirect) | Review at least annually, and on material guideline changes | Align with Medical Disclaimer |
| Nutrient methodology / Day Score explainers | On engine or scoring model changes; otherwise at least annually | Version notes encouraged |
| Learning Center science entries | Rolling review; prioritize high-traffic and clinical-adjacent entries at least every 12–24 months | Stale flags in tooling where available |
| Help product how-tos | On feature ship and when UI labels change (nav contracts) | Accuracy to product > essay polish |
| Catalog provenance sample audits | Periodic operator audits; on complaint or suspected bad mapping | fdcId / basis checks |
| AI system prompts & safety patterns | On safety incidents and regular product releases | See AD-6 |
| Legal suite cross-links | With suite version bumps | Versioning And Acceptance |
“Reviewed” means a qualified operator or designated reviewer checked the entry against sources and product behavior — not that a licensed physician certified it as medical advice for every reader.
If review dates are shown in UI, they refer to editorial review, not clinical clearance of the reader’s case.
7. Authorship, credentials, and conflicts
- Staff and contractor authors should avoid implying medical licensure they do not hold.
- Guest or expert contributions (if any) should carry byline and credential scope; clinical dosing pieces require appropriate credentials and editorial review.
- Material conflicts of interest (paid brand relationships) must not silently shape Learning Center “science” entries; commercial relationships follow Advertising Affiliate Disclosure.
- Certified brand surfaces are distinct from independent educational entries; labeling should keep that boundary visible.
8. AI-generated and AI-assisted content
| Use | Standard |
|---|---|
| In-product AI assistant (AD-6) | Generative; may be wrong; propose-only writes; red-flag redirect; health context may leave our systems to AI Model Providers (Privacy Policy). |
| Operator drafting aid | Humans remain responsible for published Help/Learning legal and safety-critical copy. |
| Grounding | Prefer retrieval from reviewed Help/Learning corpora where implemented; still not a guarantee of correctness. |
| Disclosure | Chat UI presents the assistant as AI; published long-form articles should not silently pass off unreviewed model dumps as peer-reviewed science. |
9. Community and UGC (boundary)
Forum and other user-generated content is not held to Learning Center editorial review before posting. Moderation and “no peer medical advice” rules live in Community Guidelines and Acceptable Use Policy. Escalation copy for beyond-nutrition situations applies.
10. Corrections and reporting errors
If you find a catalog mismatch, broken citation, or educational error:
- Product/content issues: [email protected]
- Privacy concerns about content personalization: [email protected]
- Legal/IP: [email protected] or [email protected] as appropriate (Copyright DMCA)
We may correct, update, or retract material without prior notice. Material legal document changes follow Versioning And Acceptance.
11. What we will not claim
Editorial and marketing surfaces should not:
- Promise prevention or cure of disease;
- Guarantee pregnancy outcomes;
- Present Day Score / Grade as a diagnostic test;
- Present blood-marker banding as a laboratory diagnosis;
- Present AI chat as a licensed clinician;
- Claim “your questions never leave your device” for the AI assistant (that privacy promise, where used, is scoped to browser-only Help search — see Privacy Policy / preflight claim scopes);
- Attribute endorsement by USDA FoodData Central’s publisher.
12. Related documents
| Document | Relationship |
|---|---|
| Medical Disclaimer | Non-clinical character; pregnancy safety; emergencies |
| Automated Decisions | How scores/AI use data and models |
| Privacy Policy | Personal Data; AI transfers |
| Advertising Affiliate Disclosure | Commercial vs editorial boundary |
| Community Guidelines | UGC standards |
| Acceptable Use Policy | No catalog resale/scraping abuse |
| Copyright DMCA | IP and takedowns |
| Terms Of Service | Contractual IP and disclaimers |
| Definitions | Nutrient Data Source, Day Score, Services |
| Sub Processor List | Processors (distinct from Nutrient Data Source) |
13. Changes
We may update these standards as catalog practices, educational programs, or law change. Version and effective date appear at the top of this document.
*Operator draft — session legal-suite-20260713. Not legal advice. Counsel review required before publication.*