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Nicole Cardamone

Mrs. Lynch

AP English 3

3 February 2019

Nutrition in a Changing World

While the world and all its beings continue to integrate into the changing times, nutrition

stands still in the face of medical change. Doctors, primary caregivers, remain categorized by

their patients as professionals who treat their patients with the best care in order to improve their

lives. These doctors cannot improve lives if they do not have the proper education from the

beginning. Nutrition determines how human lives will be affected, for the better or for the

worse, however because of the lack of nutritional information given to doctors, they cannot help

prevent the change for patient nutrition. This problem cannot bluntly be blamed on doctors, but

instead on the level of education and classes required for the doctors to take while in their

studies. Once the doctors receive a more in-depth training on nutrition, they will have the ability

to prevent rather than treat disease and relay better information to their patients.

Lack of proper nutrition sits at the number one cause for disease, which often results in

death. According to the CDC, six in ten Americans live with at least one chronic disease such as

heart disease, cancer, strokes, or diabetes. With that, these diseases are a part of the top leading

causes of death (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Even to this day, these statistics

show little to no improvement because doctors continue to lack the proper nutritional education.

According to a study, medical students receive “less than 20 hours of nutrition education over 4

years”, and only “27 percent” of them have claimed to have taken a single course in nutrition

(Greger). This suggests less than 20 hours in nutrition out of the total of 41,760 hours medical
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students cover in a span of seven years or more. (The Best Medical Degrees). While the sciences

are the most focused topic in becoming a doctor, and display extremely crucial information for

this profession, nutrition needs the same recognition so that these future doctors can present

more helpful information to their patients, stressing the effects of poor nutrition. Since students

continue to receive limited education, the death from disease continues to rise. Doctors even

admit to not knowing enough about nutrition, but they do not have proper guidance in the

medical field to get them to a position where they feel confident and more comfortable with

giving out nutritional advice. Even in a “35-page list of requirements” for doctors, nutrition has

no mention (Greger). Patients continue to rely on doctors for medical advice and information

without realizing this lack of education and it can eventually hurt them.

While nutrition needs a stronger stance in the medical field, some obstacles come about,

causing the change to be more difficult. The obstacles maintain the power of allowing doctors to

treat a patient instead of helping them prevent a possible issue. A couple of the top reasons for

not including a strong basis of nutrition include: a lack of funding, and a shortage of trained

faculty in order to instruct the nutrition classes (Colino). Cost, specifically, seems to stand in the

way of all good. If the barrier between the cost of education and the cost of losing a life is

compared, nutritional education would make its stance and flourish in minds to help much pain

and loss. Along with cost and the lack of staff, in the world of medical school, there also seems

to be a crowding of curriculum in which new priorities have no place to stand (Colino). If public

health cannot recognize the need and put forth an effort to make room for nutrition, change will

not have a place in the medical world. With more determination and commitment, doctors can

make change happen and help move past these barriers. These doctors have the choice in their

hands, yet they just do not know where to begin because of nutritional education falling so
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behind.

Patients rely on what the doctors know, but they do not understand the connection

between good and bad health because doctors lack the ability to give importance to the topic.

Patients have no clue that nutrition can potentially lead to or avoid, a serious issue. According to

Michael Greger, “physicians are considered the most trusted source for information related to

nutrition” (Greger). What patients do not know; the background education level of these doctors.

Patients do not realize that the advice given to them, by the doctor, can potentially lead them to a

higher risk for disease, or bring no improvement to their health already (Meyer). For instance,

when he/she goes to the doctor, doctors ask about eating habits, but they only seem to ask about

the fruit and vegetable intake every day. In relation, when he/she asks about a nutrition problem,

the doctors often turn to vitamins and proclaim that the vitamins will help the issue (Meyer).

With vitamins having some importance and can benefit people in some cases, it does not work

for every person. There stands many other eating habits or restrictions that doctors can suggest to

a patient, instead of the vitamin. With doctors lacking proper nutrition education, in which they

can only skim the importance of fruits and vegetables, and vitamins, they often get distracted

from the extreme effects of poor health, such as the number one cause of death.

Diet obtains importance and influences disease risk. Doctors need to be informed of the

terms of nutrition, so they can present more knowledge to the patient. Heart disease, the number

on cause of death, suggests a nutritional diet consisting of “low salt, refined sugars, total fat,

saturated fat and cholesterol and high in fresh fruits and vegetables”, yet patients remain unaware

of this (Nichols). Patients do not get informed about all the other little foods they can moderate

even more to prevent such an impairing disease. Doctors never get a chance to even spout out

these words about dietary habits because of the lack of education they receive. According to
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research, it is found that eating too much or too little of certain foods can raise the risk of dying

of heart disease, strokes, and diabetes. There have been 702,308 adult deaths from these diseases,

mentioning that 318,656 of those adults had an unhealthy diet (National Institutes of Health). If

doctors could only gain the tools to prevent this statistic, the death toll would diminish greatly.

Having the effects of death linger with no mention, can put patients at an even higher panic mode

when diagnosed. To prevent this from happening, doctors do not just need the tools to tell

patients more about eating a healthy diet, but they also need the knowledge to help prevent

patients from going down into an unhealthy lifestyle.

In this world of fast food, many people encounter the widespread issue of obesity,

another effect of improper nutrition. This issue shines through in many of the patients who

doctors see, in which doctors have little knowledge on how to lead them in the right direction to

fix their eating habits or inform them on how they can reduce the amount of weight they carry.

This case of obesity leads to some of the top leading causes of death that also partake in a certain

substance of nutrition, including: heart disease, strokes, and cancer (Leonard). The big question

here stands unanswered on the breakout of U.S. obesity that doctors continue to push to the side

and think nothing of. It all leads back to that lack of education in nutrition. Michael Hook was

overweight himself and had been listed as “morbidly obese” with the advice of “get the weight

under control” from his doctors. It was until he heard the story of his friend who developed a

perforated colon from being overweight, Hook made his own decision to take action and lose the

weight (Leonard). The doctor had the knowledge to treat the disease but lacked the knowledge of

giving advice for prevention leading the patient to figure things out on his own. With that in

mind, doctors do not have the correct mindset with nutrition because they lack the proper

nutrition education. If the doctors had the education, they would excel in giving out proper
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advice and prevention options, instead of having people figure things out for themselves.

Even in these times that allow little change to implement, there stands some brief

solutions for the time being. If a doctor feels uneducated in nutrition, they have the option of

taking an online course. A three-hour course allows the doctor to work at their own pace and

helps benefit them in the world of nutrition (Berg). The one issue with an online course is that

they do now allow enough time for information to be absorbed, especially with just the three

hours given to the doctors. Another, widespread solution stands in the hands of nutritionists and

dieticians (Berg). These are trained professional in the very depths of nutrition. When a doctor

has no true knowledge in educating his patient, he can choose to refer his patient to a trusted

nutritionist or dietician. These specialty doctors have a duty to advice and prevent, all the aspects

that doctors also need to be educated on. So, because of a high knowledge in nutrition these

special doctors receive, doctors have the choice to recommend a visit to a nutritionist or dietician

to the patient. Even though doctors remain the primary caregivers, sometimes they do not gain to

tools to get them at the higher level or knowledge, as shown through the many statistics

presented.

Doctors moral and ethical responsibility to treat patients focuses on treating diseases, but

they often lack the responsibility to advise the patient. This is clearly portrayed in “The Immortal

Life of Henrietta Lacks”. When Deborah talked to her family, she realized that she had many

questions unanswered, relating to the kind of cancer, the treatments that were used, and the part

of Henrietta that was still alive (Skloot, page 186). This comes to show that relaying information

to a patient lacks greatly. Patients should not leave a hospital with unanswered questions. They

have a right to know all information related to the fate of a loved one. Along with that, Deborah

recognized that “education is everything” (Skloot, page 251). She realized that knowledge
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remains the most powerful and, in the situation, the doctor seemed to deny the patient the

knowledge they needed to know. This leads back to the lack of education in doctors. The

doctor’s duty to a patient must always relate to giving full treatment and prevention options to

the patient, and they need to gain the knowledge to do so.

In the end, nutrition is not a miracle worker for fixing all medical issues, but it is

definitely a big factor in improving lives, as shown by many studies. It is important that the

medical field focuses on prevention medicine as much as treatment. In turn, a better education in

the means of nutrition will forever diminish the rate at which diseases occur, and deaths will be

prevented. It will be a bump in the road to get there but the medical field can really benefit if

they had this involved in their studies. We must begin the conversation and start focusing on

education and improving the patients’ health.

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Works Cited

Berg, Sarah. “How to talk with your patients about nutrition.” American Medical Association. 22

February 2018. www.ama-assm.org. 2 February 2019.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 30 January 2019. www.cdc.gov. 2 February 2019.

Colino, Stacey. “How Much Do Doctos Learn About Nutrition.” U.S.News. 7 December 2016.

www.health.usnews.com. 2 February 2019.

Greger, Michael. “How Much Nutrition Education Do Doctors Get?” NutritionFacts.org. 8 June

2017. www.nutritionfacts.org. 17 January 2019.

“How dietary factors influence disease risk.” National Institutes of Health. 14 March, 2017.

www.nih.gov. 2 February 2019.

Leonard, Kimberly. “Fat? Your Doctor Can’t Help.” U.S.News. 12 April 2016.

www.usnews.com. 20 January 2019.

Meyer, Nick. “A Survey Was Given to 114 U.S. Doctors About Nutrition.”

ALTHEALTHWORKS. 15 August 2015. www.althealthworks.com. 19 January 2019.

Nichols, Hannah. “The top 10 leading causes of death in the United States.” MedicalNewsToday.

23 February 2017. www.medicalnewstoday.com. 19 January 2019.

Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Broadway Books, 2011.

“The Deceptive Salary Of Doctors.” www.bestmedicaldegrees.com. 27 January 2019.