Dietary advice in British General Practice

Diet is a major determinant of health. It is now clear that at least as far as reducing the content of fat and sugar and increasing the content of fruit and vegetables is concerned, considerable gains can reasonably be expected if populations can be persuaded to alter their life style. In Western societies family medicine/general practice forms the front line of the Health Service and in the United Kingdom the contact rate between the population and primary care doctors now averages five encounters a year and relationships last an average of eleven years. This gives primary care, particularly in the form of multiprofessional teams of doctors and nurses, a substantial opportunity to explain the principles of healthy eating. Primary care worldwide is increasingly taking on responsibility for advising on life style, for example with smoking, immunisation, family planning etc. The provision of dietary advice in primary care is already common in the management of many chronic diseases, like hypertension and hyperlipidaemia, where over 90% of patients are exclusively managed in family medicine. It is probable that the provision of dietary advice will in future extend beyond diseased patients and will play a much higher role in relation to healthy patients.