Why Your Doctor Can’t Tell You What to Eat
Researchers call for better nutrition education in the medical curriculum
What do diabetes, heart disease, and obesity have in common? The right diet can help manage and even prevent all of these conditions. Yet experts say that medical school often doesn’t equip students with the information and counseling skills needed to advise their future patients on dietary interventions and provide nutritional care.
“For the last two millennia, we have done episodic care: You come see me, you tell me your problems, and I write a prescription. We’ve gotten really good at that,” says Timothy S. Harlan, MD, executive director of the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at Tulane University. “The challenge is that at the same time, there’s been a concomitant rise in calorie-dense, nutrient-poor, relatively easily accessible and inexpensive highly processed food that has caused an obesity crisis and has had a significant impact on our health.”
The resulting explosion of chronic conditions requires a higher level of nutritional intervention, which in turn requires an increased focus on nutrition education for (future) doctors, adds Rand S. Swenson, MD, PhD, professor of medical education and neurology and chair of the department of medical education at Geisel School of Medicine at…
