Diabetes Care | Care of People with Metabolic Problems: Diabetes | Dietary Advice in Diabetes

Dietary advice in diabetes
Session overview
Description
This session describes the dietary approaches for managing people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. It highlights dietary resources and the range of dietetic services that are available both in the community and in diabetes centres.

This session was reviewed by Khyati Bakhai and last updated in September 2022.

Learning objectives
By the end of this session you will be able to:

• offer basic dietary advice to a patient with diabetes
• be aware of the evidence base for the low-GI diet
• calculate the body mass index
• enable patients to access more information about healthy diet
• describe the role of the diabetes dietitian

Healthy eating advice is important for everyone, whether diabetic or not.

The Eatwell Guide (Figure 1) shows how much of what you eat should come from each food group. This includes everything you eat during the day, including snacks.

To complement the Eatwell Guide, you should encourage patients to eat:

• plenty of fruit and vegetables
• include bread, rice, potatoes, pasta and other starchy foods. Choose wholegrain varieties whenever you can
• some milk and dairy foods, preferably low fat varieties
• some meat, fish, eggs, beans and other non-dairy sources of protein
• just a small amount of foods and drinks high in fat and/or sugar