i wish i were a grifter..or do i?
What is a grifter? A grifter is a swindler, scammer, hack, fraud all rolled into one. Often, they’re shameless money-makers at the expense of their subjects. They prey on the idea that health is achievable only if you perfect their approaches. A grifter is a product pusher with questionable evidence behind their claims. Sometimes grifters have legitimate medical education, but often they have little to none.
The vocabulary of grifters usually includes sayings like “cures,” “fixes,” “natural,” “transformations,” and boasts “alternative” paths to health which they often claim are being kept from us. It’s also not uncommon for grifters to brag that they’ve unearthed some esoteric remedy from some culture’s system of medicine they have no legitimate training from. The most dangerous ones convince people to distrust any approach except theirs.
Grifters profit as parasitic opportunists who feed off the faults of the medical system. We’re lucky to get 20 minutes of face-to-face time with our healthcare providers.¹ If our symptoms don’t line up with a straightforward diagnosis, it can take months to years of referrals to figure out what’s going on. Additionally, if seeking help as a person of color, gender diverse, or a cis-woman, chances of adequate medical care decrease significantly.²
There are stretches of weeks to months between medical visits that are fraught with fear and uncertainty. When something changes in the body and we’re not getting fast answers, we can be rendered to a level of desperation that swings open doors to trying and buying things we otherwise might scoff at. This is the exact location where grifters saunter in wearing white linens, offering baskets of bullshit, and rattling off mile-long rhetorics of remedies that have no regulation or evidence to stand on. Neither the product nor the pusher lasts long, but it’s just enough time to empty some pockets, wreak some havoc, and run off with the riches.
As someone who is a trained healthcare provider and who experienced years of medical mistreatment when my own body went berserk for a time, I feel smoldering ripples of anger cascading under my skin when I see grifters grifting in any way, especially when it comes to nutrition. I’m not above admitting that some of the anger could very well be in part, jealousy.
The lack of regulations around who can give nutrition recommendations creates a cloud of chaos around the field that props the doors wide open for the griftiest of the grifters. The average Registered Dietitian is lucky to make $60,000 per year, despite being clinical specialists, requiring a Master’s of Science at minimum, enduring a year-long unpaid internship, and passing a boards exam with a 62% pass rate. If I didn’t step up my negotiating skills early on in this career, I wouldn’t be able to stay in this field. But still, I’d be lying if I didn’t share that I question it constantly.
The only thing that keeps me in it is working with patients. The majority of my patients are so curious, and brave, and smart in ways they don’t even see, I can’t help but be regularly reminded that the constant crescendo of chaos outside of appointment time is worth it. It’s rough to see the ways highly marketable nutrition/wellness harm people who are just trying to do what’s “healthy.”
When I worked in food service, I used to get a thrill from that moment when a customer’s gaze floated to the ceiling with delight from that first bite of a perfectly seasoned dish. My health stopped me from participating in that experience which was very difficult for a few years. Now, my cup fills from the small victories I get to experience with my patients when they’ve rerouted old habits and negative thoughts to achieve changes in labs and more peace with the unavoidable nature of being in an ever-changing body. It’s rarely straightforward, fast, or a perfect process, but physical and mental health improvements do happen and when they do as the result of collaboration, curiosity, and trust, that is the gift of this career that no amount of money can touch.
That is why I can’t bring myself to grift.
References:
1. Neprash HT, Mulcahy JF, Cross DA, Gaugler JE, Golberstein E, Ganguli I. Association of Primary Care Visit Length With Potentially Inappropriate Prescribing. JAMA Health Forum. 2023;4(3):e230052. doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2023.0052
2. Casanova-Perez R., et al. Broken Down By Bias: Healthcare biases experienced by BIPOC and LGBTQ+ patients. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2021; 2021: 275-284. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8861755/
