From Marika Sboros a person with her finger on the pulse. Eddie
"Hi there,
Apologies to the Bard’s Hamlet, but something’s really rotten in the state of dietetics. Not just in South Africa, worldwide dietitians are turning into nutrition dinosaurs.
Not all dietitians have passed their sell-by date, of course. Just ones who slavishly follow unscientific conventional nutrition “wisdom” and official dietary guidelines; the “cuddly dietitians wrapped in the cosy embrace” of food and pharmaceutical industry fat cats, as UK health writer Jerome Burne succinctly puts it.
In SA, dietitians’ representative body, the Association for Dietetics in SA (ADSA), is regularly pilloried for accepting sponsorship from food companies. ADSA just as regularly claims its sponsors have no influence at all on advice its members disseminate. As if they say that often enough it becomes truth. As if getting the fox to guard nutrition’s henhouse is not toxic and stupid, but deadly.
I tweeted this week that dietitians risk becoming dinosaurs; doctors in SA and internationally responded saying they are bypassing dietitians. Clearly, more doctors are adhering to the Hippocratic injunction to “let food be your medicine and medicine be your food”. Dietitians would be wise to follow suit."
Best,
Marika
4 comments:
“let food be your medicine and medicine be your food”.
Good advice. Ted
I only once had a consultation with a dietician and ended up correcting some of her statements and advice
I worked in another licensed, registered allied health profession for 20 years. Gradually I came to learn that much of what I was taught, what I practiced and believed, was just plain WRONG. In the days I was taught, it was the best knowledge available, but much of my profession (me included) failed to move on with newer data, except a few mavericks. It was a profession highly regulated by the insurers, the government, and risk adverse health care institutions, so it was nearly impossible to change without running afoul of all of those entities. I was disheartened and frustrated with myself and my profession, so I went back to school and acquired a new career altogether.
So I do have a bit of sympathy for dietitians. The world has moved on without them, and they must first admit they have been wrong (and possibly caused harm) and then they must learn and practice new things, working against the tide at first, and often outside the standards of care--very risky. Those who are already doing so are very smart and brave and have my admiration! But those who fail to do it ARE dinosaurs, and I'm not going to let them advise and treat me or anyone I love or care about while they remain ignorant or keep their heads in the sand.
I always have trouble beating back the dieticians bothering me at the gym.. lol.. they are so old school! - http://www.domesticgeekgirl.com
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