Rajesh Sharma, Vaishali Gautam, Himanshu Agrawal
Background Adequate nutritional knowledge and its translation into healthy dietary practice are essential prerequisites for medical professionals, who serve both as providers and as role models for the communities they serve. The National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) released comprehensively updated Dietary Guidelines for Indians in May 2024, integrating traditional Indian food knowledge with contemporary evidence and extended guidance to cooking methods and utensils. To our knowledge, no published study has assessed awareness of these revised recommendations across multiple strata of Indian medical professionals, nor has any study systematically compared trainees with settled professionals. Methods This analytical cross-sectional study was conducted among 222 Indian medical professionals at GS Medical College, Pilkhuwa, Uttar Pradesh, India, from May to November 2025, approximately one year after the release of the NIN-2024 recommendations. Participants were categorised as Trainees (MBBS students, interns, junior residents, and senior residents) and Settled (faculty, practising clinicians, and administrators). A validated, self-administered electronic questionnaire aligned with the NIN-2024 guidelines was used. Three composite indices: the Nutritional Knowledge Score (NKS, 22 items), the Guidelines Understanding Score (GUS, 9 items focusing specifically on NIN-2024 recommendations), and the Healthy Practice Score (HPS, nine behaviour-based items) were produced. Corresponding rates were computed as the percentage of the maximum possible score. Chi-square tests, independent t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and multiple linear regression were applied using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 26 (Released 2018; IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Results The mean NKS was 10.82 ± 3.3, yielding an overall nutritional knowledge rate of 49.18%; the majority of participants (55%) demonstrated only average nutritional knowledge, and merely 2.7% achieved a good NKS. In contrast, the guidelines understanding rate was considerably higher at 71.22% (mean GUS 6.41 ± 2.2), indicating greater familiarity with recent updates than with holistic nutritional concepts. The overall healthy practice rate was 53.2% (mean HPS 4.79 ± 1.7). Faculty members recorded significantly higher NKS than all other strata; women, participants in their 30s and 40s, and those consuming home-prepared meals consistently outperformed their counterparts across knowledge and practice domains. In multiple linear regression, the source of food emerged as a significant independent predictor of HPS (β = -1.231, p < 0.001), while settlement status did not independently predict HPS (β = -0.071, p = 0.838) after accounting for dietary source. Conclusions Nutritional knowledge among Indian medical professionals remains insufficient and is inconsistently translated into practice, irrespective of training status. The comparatively stronger awareness of NIN-2024 updates points to a systemic imbalance in nutritional education - one that emphasises guideline dissemination over foundational competency. Healthy dietary behaviour was determined more by the source of food than by professional seniority or settlement status. Addressing these lacunae necessitates a multipronged approach: curriculum reform aligned with the NMC-CBME framework, structured nutrition training across all career stages, and policy-level attention to the nutritional quality of institutional food environments.