Your doctor is one of the most important people to your wellbeing, and rightfully so.

I always figured the lack of intervention was probably because they assumed I’d grow out of the chub.

Besides, it can’t be easy for someone to dual as parent and diet coach.

Fast forward two decades, and the story is completely different.

My father is now overweight and pops countless (medical) pills for breakfast.

He doesn’t know the first thing about losing weight, nor does he care to learn.

It was because they had no cluehow tohelp me lose weight.

Basically, doctors learn a whole lot about a whole bunch of stuff, for a long time.

Of the40,000 hours that doctors spend on training, typically only 19 of thoseare devoted to studying nutrition.

With conflicting information abound, people deal with confusion in different ways.

Some areautodidacts,or self-learners, who read voraciously until they can navigate through the noise.

Most people, however, naturally default to someone they trust to tell them what to do.

For most people, doctors are the gatekeepers of health information.

They know doctors are educated in their profession, and generally trustworthy.

Therefore, it seemingly follows that a doctor’s health advice must be reliable.

In reality, these are two completely different areas of expertise.

In other words, they must ensure that any treatment does not make a patient’s situation worse.

For nutrition, this often translates into stock-standard dietary advice.

In the doctor’s eyes, which is more likely to “do no harm?”

Their assumption is that advice “does no harm.”

The problem is that itdoesdo harm.

It increases their patient’s chances of failure.

Quite simply, research shows that thebest diet is one it’s possible for you to stick to.

According to obesity specialist and frequent Lifehacker contributorDr.

This doesn’t mean the doctor is bad, it just means it wasn’t in their training.

Yoni Freedhoff, another frequent Vitals contributor.

The danger, however, is that assuming that all medical doctors have this same expertise.

or “Are eggs bad for my health?”

or do they go into specific recommendations, such as “keep a food journal and track calories.”

Be realistic about how well you get along with your doctor.Knowledge isn’t everything.

Stay as informed as you’re able to on the latest nutritional research.

Don’t expect your doctor’s knowledge about medicine to apply to other domains.

After alllike youthey are only human.