Cognitive Dissonance and Professional Protocols

The Illusion of Knowing in Health

Obesity and Type II Diabetes, are out of control. Why? In this website, we argue that because we don't recognise the development of Metabolic Syndrome, beginning perhaps when we are 30, we spend the next 20 years, unknowingly getting progressively sicker. Unless we pay particular attention, there is no illness, or pain, and no medical problem the doctor will call your attention to.

All of the "diseases" associated with Metabolic Syndrome are old. There are standard protocols for diagnosis and treatment that were developed well before evidence based medicine became a key objective. Outdated protocols change very slowly, or perhaps not at all.

Below, Stephen Hawking explains this very well.

What is the diet that humans are best adapted to eat? Major General Sir Robert McCarrison, gave us an early warning about our poor quality diet.

Mythical Beliefs About Healthy Diets

The health problems caused by Metabolic Syndrome, are largely preventable. They are also about 80% of the work of general practitioners, and much more than half of all the cost of addressing sickness in the community. At a community level this rising cost, is driven by the rise in obesity and Type II Diabetes, that threatens to bankrupt the health system.

The effect cannot be calculated in a sensible way. The disability suffered by individuals. The loss of productivity in the workforce, and to voluntary activities. And the monetary cost of attempting to apply a medical solution, to a dietary and lifestyle problem.

At the heart of the issue is our faulty human diet. Only the human species can create a myth about what a healthy diet must be, and when that diet creates poor health, we double down, we become even more entrenched in our faulty belief system.

But it's also destroying lives. Certainly the lives of people you know, quite probably family members you care for and want to protect. There is also more than a good chance that we are talking about your life too.

How do we recognise a signal that we might have this wrong? Perhaps when we begin to blame traditional foods, like red meat, for our problems. We have eaten less and less red meat over the last 100 years, but red meat is still blamed as we get sicker and sicker. That makes no sense.

We will make progress when nutritional experts understand that our genetic makeup changes very slowly. We are well adapted to traditional foods that keep us healthy. It's the displacing foods of modern commerce that are causing Metabolic Syndrome, and the chronic poor health that follows. The meals that great grandmother made are nutritionaly superior to the manufactured foods that you now buy, that are called by a similar name.

Increasing Health Care Costs are Exceeding GDP Growth

Health care is becoming an increasing part of GDP everywhere.

If we have professional training and commitment to what we've been taught, we may be strongly trapped in a restrictive box of our own making. Professionals "stand on the shoulders of giants," they learn the secrets of past researchers and acknowledged experts. Professionals are given the secret formulas, the shortcuts to professional success. Following those rules is the price of membership, protecting not only yourself, but also the reputation of the whole profession. It takes a very brave and confident person to challenge the code that ensures our present income, gives us social status, and opens the door to future opportunity.

So it's very hard to even consider that some of what you "know for certain," might in fact be wrong. That changes when although you have been following the official advice your own health begins to break down,

What you have been taught and practiced goes to the heart of your self esteem and professional standing. You have protocols to follow, so that your actions are transparent, and your methods are approved, and the rules of your professional body are not violated.

Traps for Institutions and Professional Groups

For the very best reasons, like the service of science, ethical protocols, or legal requirements, institutions and professions create documents that specify written standards which are intended to be very stable. As part of the process of training and certification, each of us becomes committed to uphold those standards.

Imagine that you are a dietitian both by training and practice. Your professional group is committed to help people succeed using the dietary standards approved by the Ministry of Health. Like many others before you, your own struggle to keep slim and healthy fails, and you discover by personal experiments and some advice from a friend, that the secret to easy weight control and better health is to ignore those guidelines. What do you do now?

Anecdotes are Powerful when it's You.

If you look around, there are many examples in this website of people who began to question what they have been taught. People who eventually challenge the status quo usually have a profound personal failure first. "I'm a doctor and I'm fat", or "I've got Type II Diabetes." Then deep personal re-evaluation that goes on. "What am I doing wrong?" You double down on what you "know." More exercise and more dieting; followed by more failure. Then somehow you discover what works. Once your eyes are open to that, you can't unsee it again.

Dr John Madany overcame his own sickness and became a better doctor.

https://youtu.be/NQkUb5c1oBg

Low Carb Denver 2020 Interviews - Dr. John Madany explains how his own health challenges led to a change in his personal life, and then to changes in his medical practice.

This 7 minute video explains what cognitive dissonance is. The information you are getting conflicts with what you "know" and the dissonance may be so strong that you are compelled to turn the new message off. "I can't waste my time with that nonsense," your body might be saying.

Cognitive dissonance video (7 min.)

If you can find a way to resist that response, new learning might be possible. For instance in your mind create a space, a shelf if you like, for an idea that is contrary to your present understanding. Place this strange idea on the shelf for a while, let is sit, and see if it changes over time.

There is little chance that the Ministry of Health dietary guidelines, or the protocol for treating Type II Diabetes will change, anytime soon. In the meantime you have to get on with your own life, and with your personal effort to practice your profession.

People in the past have found gentle ways to break the rules, usually using the success of the method and the desire of the client to proceed in this alternative way, as justification of the action taken. In the past that was clearly a professional risk. Today after several court cases and failed attempts to censure people, that's less likely to be a problem.

You have every reason to resist new ideas and to stand against new information that conflicts with what you were taught. Especially if you have found that protocol reliable in the past. Doing what you've always done is safe, but it may not be the best option.

Cognitive Dissonance

The Illusion of Knowing