Diet doctor under fire

CELEBRITY diet doctor Pierre Dukan is facing disciplinary action after trying to get weight loss included in the Baccalauréat.

Doctors’ professional body the Conseil de l’Ordre has complained that Dukan, who touts a high-protein diet, broke professional ethics codes by suggesting an “anti-obesity” option in the Bac. He recommended that students could gain extra points by losing weight.

Education Minister Luc Chatel has said he is “astonished” by the “strange” idea, saying it could cause discrimination against the overweight and that “the Bac is an examination of knowledge, not a health check-up”.

The Conseil de l’Ordre also complains that Dukan, who turns over €100 million a year in books and dieting products according to newspaper Sud-Ouest, breaks the professional rule that medical practice should not be over-commercialised. “What he does is nothing like a medical practice any more,” the body said.

Dukan is in America on a book tour and his lawyer argued that doctors should be allowed to have “free expression”. She added he would answer the complaints fully when he is called before the Conseil.