To think that most health care professionals are hopeless at advising on weight

YANBU. We don't really get much training it it, dietician is a whole other specialty. I am a HCP and as part of my job am expected to advise on diet and exercise. For most people, I caveat that advice by acknowledging that they probably know it all already and that most of us do, it's just doing it that's the hard part. I then tell them that there are many different diets that work, the one that works for them it the one they can stick to.

For some people, there are obvious changes they could make that they hadn't considered (like the older gentleman I had with high blood sugars and a 'healthy diet' but was drinking a litre of orange juice a day!) or they may genuinely have never tried to diet before (older generations usually, often men) and actually ask me for specific advice. For things like pre-diabetes I have a diet advice sheet I give out and signpost them to online resources and offer a referral to a course/weight loss programme (which all basically say the same 'eat better, move more') while again acknowledging that it likely will be telling most of them what they already know.

Weight and diet are about so much more than food, we all have our own complex reasons for being overweight and our own barriers to healthy diet and exercise. I am not qualified to counsel people about this. Ideally we could offer referrals for personalised support with therapy, but I think the best we can hope for is being able to prescribe weight loss drugs in future!

HCP's are not experts on weight loss. It's not a taught subject. However they do have a professional duty to provide health promotion and signpost to services that can help wether it's weight loss or smoking, drinking etc
Why is it the doctors downfall that he cannot tell you exactly how you should lose the weight you want to lose? We have a responsibility to ourselves to figure that out surely? They have enough to deal with.

Unfortunately the NHS is massively under resourced. To do this well would take time the doctor just doesn’t have. So in one sense I agree with you, his approach was patronising and insufficient, but on the other hand, by your own admission (and I can say the same about my own weight too) your weight history is long and complex and to explore it well would take much longer than this doctor was given.

I think they might not empathise with the complexities but they do appreciate it's not as simple as more veg/ less cake. I wonder if there is a prompt and tick box in the record keeping system that they have to complete for anyone with a BMI above a certain level.

BMI 30, healthy eating advice given ✅

Well to be fair to him, he doesn't know that, does he? Most doctors will start with generic advice and it's up to you to then explain anything else they need to know so it can be adjusted for you.

What would you like to have happened differently? Weight is a hugely complex multifactorial issue, what works for one person won't work for another. It would need a huge in depth conversation really to give it justice. Do you think that this NHS doctor has the time, resources or expertise to go deeply into this with you?

Yeah it's patronising, right? I wonder how many patients have been living under a rock and go in and are genuinely like, "WOW I did NOT know that!"

Not many I would think.

I hear you 😢. I know all the answers but also struggle constantly with disordered eating - I’m so tired 😢