Most members of the "medical" profession do not want to know. They do realise their patients are not losing weight, but they put it down to cheating and secret binges. Some slimming professionals even run group therapy sessions, at which members are applauded when they are able to show they have lost weight and made to feel ashamed of any gain.1 The mental cruelty involved in these practices is positively mediaeval. Moreover, stipulating a 1500 calorie diet without detailing what it is to contain is quite inadequate. It simply serves to focus on the energy value of foods without taking account of their nutritional value.
Apart from a few specialists, doctors tend to be disinclined to update their understanding of these matters and are usually not knowledgeable about them in the first place. Where nutrition is concerned, they seem to have little scientific understanding going beyond the commonly held views.
What is more, it is not a field in which doctors in general are particularly interested. I have noticed that of the twenty or so I have worked with on this book, all of them, without exception, were originally led to research and experiment in the field because they themselves had a serious weight problem to solve.
