KATHARINE CHILD: Dietitian who took on Tim Noakes put through hell by his fanatical supporters
'Hundreds of tweets aimed at Julsing-Strydom suggest she isn’t thin enough to be a dietitian'
EXTRACT
Julsing-Strydom, who has spoken at events with Noakes, said she had always been polite to him, but felt her name had been dragged through the mud. “I don’t get a cent from the food industry.”
She said her husband told her to ignore the insults, which she does, but it was upsetting. She has tried to respond with scientific articles on nutrition and had offered to discuss nutrition science on the phone with any of her critics, but she said no one had ever taken her up on her offer.
Noakes told Times Select he stood by his belief that Julsing-Strydom had colluded. “It’s on the record. We have the e-mails. We describe it in the book. What she did was completely and utterly unforgivable. What happened thereafter is the result purely of her own actions. She needs to front up and accept responsibility. Until she does that, she sets herself up as a target.”
Dietitian Claire Julsing-Strydom says she has had to endure hundreds of insulting messages from Banting fans since she laid a complaint against Professor Tim Noakes in 2014 for advising parents not to feed their children carbohydrates. She has been called “frumpy”, “obese” and “dim” on social media and has been accused of being on the payroll of big sugar companies. Remarks were made about her weight when she was six months pregnant.Julsing-Strydom, as voluntary president of the Association of Dietetics, laid multiple complaints with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) about Noakes giving advice on what infants should eat, as well as a voice clip in which he said on radio “children don’t need any carbohydrates”. Vegetables and fruit are considered carbohydrates. Noakes was found not guilty of professional misconduct in 2017 and the council’s subsequent appeal was dismissed on Friday. The panel did not make a decision on the science of what children should eat, bu...
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