The final helping

neil donnelly

are you a registered Dietitian? if so then you will be aware that you have to perform your professional duties in line with a degree of anticipated standards and expected neutrality by the Health and Care professions Council (HCpC), otherwise you risk losing your registration, and possibly your livelihood. this is especially true if you work within the national Health service. you have to be unbiased.

‘Butter isn’t bad for you after all.’

‘By scaring us off butter they’ve made us fatter - and unhealthier.’

‘I gave up the most glorious food on earth FOR A LIE.’

How Many A Day?

Three, five, seven or 10 portions of fruit and veg a day have similar health benefits!

The dietary advice and support you offer to your patients and the general public will be based on the scientific interpretation of the evidence gathered by eminent professionals in the course of their work, which will then be translated into a more meaningful form for your use. Government dietary guidelines will be produced in ongoing reports which reflect the significance of nutrients in our diet and their implications on the health of the Nation. Then, these headlines emerge in the National Press:

‘Butter isn’t bad for you after all.’ ‘By scaring us off butter they’ve made us fatter - and unhealthier.’ ‘I gave up the most glorious food on earth FOR A LIE.’

Neil is a Fellow of the bDa and retired Dietetic Services Manager. His main areas of interest are weight management and eating disorders

A damning new study in the BMJ publication Open Heart by a team led by Zoe Harcombe, an obesity researcher at the University of the West of Scotland, states that national warnings over fat consumption to cut heart disease in 1977 and 1983 ‘should not have been introduced’. It concluded that the data did not show that cutting fats significantly reduced heart deaths. Those recommendations stated that we cut dietary fat to less than a third of total energy intake, singling out saturated fat from meat and dairy as particularly perilous.

Oh dear, what is the general public going to make of the advice being given out by health professionals in the future when something like this is headline news? We have all heard on numerous occasions about the ‘nanny state’ and how government feed us healthy eating messages that we of course have to endorse and freely advocate. Where do we go from here? Well, it won’t be easy to refute the patient who approaches you with the “why should I follow what you advise when professionals always seem to be changing their minds about what is and isn’t good for you” question.

I leave you with two quotes from recent articles by authors in the national popular press:

‘For myself, these studies have inspired me to put butter back into the fridge’s butter compartment and soft full-fat cheese on my crackers. I’m starting to smile like the cat that has got the cream.”

‘The moral of this saga? Eat a little of whatever you like, don’t listen to government busybodies - and remember that butter‘s not only delicious, it’s also officially good for you.’

Next month: Will new research suggest that eating three, five, seven or 10 portions of fruit and veg a day have similar health benefits!