Where to Get Nutrition Advice From – How to advise Your Patient’s and Educate Yourself
While selected patients are provided the opportunity for a dietetic referral to seek support for their health conditions, others are left trying to find alternate sources for nutrition advice, often from friends, family and media platforms (Keaver et al., 2023). Due to the rise in nutrition related conditions, it is crucial that healthcare professionals are able to provide at least basic evidence-based nutrition advice (Adamski, 2018).
Barriers to Providing Nutrition Advice
Doctors advocating for evidence based nutrition advice is a crucial element of the World Health Organisations ‘Decade of Action on Nutrition’ (WHO, 2017). However numerous challenges and barriers have been identified for why healthcare professionals do not provide nutrition advice to their patients, which include (Adamski, 2018):
A lack of nutrition education and training ( (Ball et al. 2010; Cuerda et al. 2017; Kahan et al., 2017)
Time constraints during appointments (Kahan, 2017)
Patients having access to ever growing nutrition information online
Sourcing Accurate, Reliable and evidence-based Nutrition Advice
Referral to trained specialists, such as dietitians, who have the time, funding, knowledge and practical skills to provide reliable and accurate nutrition advice and elicit behaviour change is one way to overcome these barriers (Sailvera et al., 2017), however is not possible for all patients seeking nutrition support. Therefore, it is crucial that healthcare professionals can confidently signpost to evidenced-based nutrition resources, produced by trusted professionals and/or leading nutrition authorities. These include:
The British Dietetic Association (BDA) – http://bda.uk.com
The British Nutrition Foundation - https://www.nutrition.org.uk
Qualified professionals who are ANutr (Registered Associate Nutrition) or RD (Registered Dietitian), this indicates adherence to regulated standards of evidence-based practice.
Awareness of Online Nutrition Misinformation
More action is required to improve the reliability of nutrition related information (Denniss et al, 2023). Young people’s engagement with social media content is growing, specifically nutrition information. However, there is a high prevalence on nutrition misinformation available on these platforms, due to a lack of professional gatekeeping of this user-generated content (Kreft et al., 2023). It has been suggested that the majority of social media users struggle to determine what information is accurate and reliable (Kreft et al.,2023). It is suggested that online nutrition-related information is often low quality and inaccurate, putting the reader at risk of being misinformed (Denniss et al., 2023). Therefore, it is important that healthcare professionals and their patients consider of the following factors when recommending or sourcing nutrition advice online:
The title ‘Nutritionist’ is not a protected title, meaning qualifications can be achieved from brief online course without suitable knowledge or training. (Look for professionals with ‘ANutr’ and ‘RD’).
Not all medical professionals are nutrition professionals.
Look into the experience and creditability of the advice provider.
Be wary of claims promising cures or fixes.
Avoid advice from anyone advocating for extreme solutions.
Be cautious of those who excessively promote supplements.
Understand that bias and false/unrealistic claims are prevalent online due to creators being paid by companies for promotion and advertisements.
Recognised that reputable sources can make false claims, so check the evidence itself to assess accuracy.
Reference List
Adamski, M., Gibson, S., Leech, M., & Truby, H. (2018). Are doctors nutritionists? What is the role of doctors in providing nutrition advice?.
Ball, L. E., Hughes, R. M., & Leveritt, M. D. (2010). Nutrition in general practice: role and workforce preparation expectations of medical educators. Australian Journal of Primary Health, 16(4), 304-310.
Cuerda, C., Schneider, S. M., & Van Gossum, A. (2017). Clinical nutrition education in medical schools: results of an ESPEN survey. Clinical nutrition, 36(4), 915-916.
Denniss, E., Lindberg, R., & McNaughton, S. (2023). Quality and accuracy of online nutrition-related information: A systematic review of content analysis studies. Public Health Nutrition, 1-29.
Kahan, S., & Manson, J. E. (2017). Nutrition counseling in clinical practice: how clinicians can do better. Jama, 318(12), 1101-1102.
Keaver, L., Richmond, J., Rafferty, F., & Douglas, P. (2023). Sources of nutrition advice and desired nutrition guidance in oncology care: Patient's perspectives. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, 36(2), 434-442.
Kreft, M., Smith, B., Hopwood, D., & Blaauw, R. (2023). The use of social media as a source of nutrition information. South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1-7.
Sialvera, T. E., Papadopoulou, A., Efstathiou, S. P., Trautwein, E. A., Ras, R. T., Kollia, N., ... & Zampelas, A. (2018). Structured advice provided by a dietitian increases adherence of consumers to diet and lifestyle changes and lowers blood low‐density lipoprotein (ldl)‐cholesterol: The increasing adherence of consumers to diet & lifestyle changes to lower (ldl) cholesterol (act) randomised controlled trial. Journal of human nutrition and dietetics, 31(2), 197-208.