Two hours can’t teach someone to recognise the person who doesn’t look “sick enough,” or to know that a normal-range BMI says nothing about how much danger someone is in.
Is there a lack of eating disorder knowledge among GPs? Ask this question to a group of people in the eating disorder community and you are likely to get a range of different answers. Many will have met GPs with an extensive amount of knowledge. Others won’t have been so lucky, and others, myself included, will have met both.
Why this matters
GPs are usually the first person a patient tells. Not a specialist, not an eating disorder service – a GP, often ten minutes into an appointment booked for something else entirely. What happens in that room can set the tone for everything that follows: whether someone feels believed, whether they’re referred promptly, whether they come back at all if they’re turned away the first time.
The training gap, in numbers
A 2018 UK study asked every medical school how much teaching they gave on eating disorders. The answer, across the board: less than two hours in the entire undergraduate degree. Postgraduate training adds almost nothing more, except for those who go into child and adolescent psychiatry. Most doctors are never even assessed on their eating disorder knowledge before qualifying.
That’s less than two hours to prepare for illnesses with the highest mortality rate of any mental health condition. Beat, the UK’s eating disorder charity, has run an entire campaign – Worth More Than 2 Hours – around exactly this figure, because two hours can’t teach someone to recognise the person who doesn’t look “sick enough,” or to know that a normal-range BMI says nothing about how much danger someone is in.
A more recent qualitative study of GPs themselves backs this up from the inside. GPs interviewed about managing patients with eating disorders described real uncertainty – not knowing which physical checks mattered, not knowing what to say, not knowing where to refer or how urgently. Not indifference. A genuine gap.
The Royal College of GPs doesn’t agree
The Royal College of GPs pushes back on the idea that GPs are under-trained, and it’s fair to say the picture isn’t uniform – the GP curriculum does include mental health, and continuing professional development exists. But “included in the curriculum” and “sufficient to catch a condition that often hides in plain sight” are different claims, and the more granular research keeps landing on the second being false more often than anyone would like.
What’s actually changing
There is movement. NHS England has started rolling out training for GPs, school nurses, and teachers specifically aimed at spotting the signs earlier, backed by Beat and the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Children’s services have seen real investment and faster access times over the past decade. It’s slower and patchier for adults, but the direction is right.
What this means if you’re the one in the room
If your GP doesn’t seem to know what to do with what you’ve told them, that isn’t a verdict on how real or serious your experience is. It’s a training system that has, until very recently, given doctors almost no preparation for this.
You’re allowed to ask for a second opinion, ask to be referred directly to a specialist eating disorder service, or bring someone with you who can advocate if you can’t. The gap is real – but it’s a gap in the system, not in you. Push for the care you need.
Sources: BMC Medical Education (2018) on UK medical school eating disorder teaching hours; Beat’s “Worth More Than 2 Hours” campaign; BJGP Open (2024) qualitative study of GPs managing eating disorder patients; NHS England training announcement.
