What Dietary Advice Trainers Can and Cannot Give

Azdak

https://www.facebook.com/theptdc/posts/1022805161120920

I thought this was a good article that clearly explained the scope of practice for a Registered Dietitian and what kinds of advice personal trainers are qualified to give.

In short: trainers can provide general food ideas, general information about macros and share evidence supporting different trends in nutrition.

Trainers cannot prescribe diets to treat ANY medical condition (including obesity); they cannot recommend ANY supplements to treat any medical condition (including a sports injury); they cannot diagnose or suggest any treatment, dietary or otherwise, for any medical condition.

I see too many "trainers" working outside their scope of practice and too many articles promoting the financial benefits for trainers posing as pseudo-dietitians. (Although, in all fairness, many trainers have no idea what the professional standards are and they are just aping their colleagues).

Even if you are not a trainer, it's worth reading so that you can evaluate the professionalism of your own trainer and/or the quality of his/her advice.

Packerjohn

Thanks for posting. A professional in any field should know the limits of what advice they can legitimately/legally give based on their training/licensing/certification and refer out when appropriate.

kshama2001

Great post. We get lots of "My trainer wants me to do X wacky dietary thing" threads. I'll nominate it for a sticky once the sticky nomination thread is monitored again.