Dealing with arrogant dieticians

Long ago I was politically very active for the promotion of nutritional therapy, as most of us called it then. I gave talks in hospitals, was interviewed on radio and TV and spoke at meetings of parliamentary committees. I was rarely allowed to speak unless a dietician was present to contradict me.

It was invariably a frustrating experience. As the guest, I would speak first and the dietician would then proceed to declare that there was
“no evidence” to support anything I had said.

If you remember the Module One book of your course, I explained how our opponents are never satisfied with any evidence that we give them. They are only interested in their official views. Arguing with them is completely and utterly pointless.

One sympathetic PhD nutrition student friend of mine once tried to speak with her professor about introducing some of our views on supplements into her thesis. She was told in no uncertain terms that she would not get her PhD if she did so.

After one parliamentary committee meeting, a dietician from St George’s hospital in London virtually spat in my face. There was literally spittle coming out of her mouth as she told me how disgusted she was that I was even allowed to be present.

So how do we deal with these people?

As I said last week, I am tempted to tell them “Go play with your Dietary Reference Values”. Really, it doesn’t matter what facts you try to give them, they will never accept it, and the more you try to convince them, the bigger the hole you will dig for yourself. If you expose their ignorance, they will wave their degree at you in order to save face.

Here are some possible alternative responses to “there’s no evidence”.

That’s a bit of a knee-jerk reaction isn’t it? You really have no idea, do you.

You’re welcome to come for a tutorial with me so I can bring you up to date on all the evidence. Here’s my card showing my hourly fee.

If you already think you know everything, you’ll never learn anything new.

I’m surprised that you want to confine yourself to a life of calorie-counting.

Where do you get your evidence from, the Beano?

Of course we all want to be polite and civil, and to keep the peace, but to contradict us really is downright rude, and we absolutely must stand up to bullies. They have no right to be rude about your work, and you must always point out how rude they are. That is the only way to answer. The best outcome would be to agree with them that if they are not rude about your work then you won’t be rude about theirs.

It’s more difficult to give like for like if you are on a public platform such as radio or TV. In those situations, don’t get drawn into arguments at all. Simply ignore everything the dietician says and begin telling stories about the people you have helped. Tell lengthy stories of their suffering and what you did to help them. You can slip in a remark or two about how GPs would rather work with naturopathic nutritionists than dieticians because we are trained in how to deal nutritionally with many common illnesses. You can give some statistics of how many people have recovered after you saw them. Don’t say 90 per cent, that always sounds made up. 75 per cent sounds better.