Postgraduate students of Nutritional Science are complaining of the many and time–consuming diets they have to undergo as part of their training. While their supervisor Per Ole Iversen thinks it important that the students obtain first–hand knowledge of how patients experience diets, the students themselves want more practical training and contact with patients. Students currently spend a mere three weeks doing practical work with patients in the course of their five years of studies.

The 14 postgraduate students point out that diets are part of the course at undergraduate level, and that they are therefore well–acquainted with the experience of dieting. In addition to being time–consuming, the diets are a social strain, they argue. The diets include food with low salt content; milk–, egg– and fish–free diets; foods of different consistencies (including mashed and fluid foods); easily digestible food, and food with low sodium content.