So, You Want To Be A Registered Dietitian?
Your skill... your smarts... your unlimited potential... We've been looking for it, and now that you’re here, we’re just excited to see whose life you’re going to touch
So… *sits down on chair backwards*… You want to be a Registered Dietitian?
Or maybe, you’ve heard about Dietitians, and now are curious about what they do? Then again, maybe you’ve heard about the new educational requirements for Dietitians, and now you’re wondering, “Gee Public Health Dad, what exactly is in store for the profession of dietetics?”
These are all great questions. Sit a minute. Let’s talk about them.
First off, here are the simple facts. Dietetics? It’s a great profession. Here your job is to help people through food and nutrition. That may sound simplistic, but don’t forget, food is the great equalizer of people. You see, no matter how much money you have, how many homes you’ve bought, how many cars you drive, the only thing you really need to get you to the next day is food. Food doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor. Old or young. Man or woman. You need it, and what you choose to eat will affect the time you have here on Earth.
That’s another thing. Every day, people make choices about their food, but not many people know much about nutritional science or dietary behaviors. Dietitians do. Most people aren’t aware that stress, or fear, or self-loathing, or a host of other factors can drive them to choose nutrient-poor foods. Dietitians do. Not every healthcare professional knows how to respectfully or compassionately help people create a healthy and sustainable dietary pattern. Dietitians do.
The world of today is scientifically interconnected like never before and produces lots of food. This combination means a whole new array of foods are available like never before. All that variety, all those ingredients, and all those options may make some people nervous about what to eat. But Dietitians can help with that.
What’s the most satisfying part of being a Dietitian? To me, it’s the daily victories you earn through the people you work with. Every day where a person is well nourished, well, that’s a victory. A young woman appreciates and desires to fuel her body? That may not seem like much, but that’s huge. A sick patient who is now more confident about managing their condition through food? Bullseye. A mom or dad feeling good because they prepared a nutritious meal for the family that included frozen veggies? There’s nothing quite like that.
Daily victories keep you going, because nutrition is daily. If you have a bad day, the world gifts you a new one to try again.
But I do need to be honest, sometimes those satisfactions come packaged with frustrations. Patients who struggle, policies that fail, or competition from would-be health influencers. The era of social media makes it possible for anyone to mistake the follower count for expertise, but don’t be fooled. Anybody trying to scare you or make you angry is likely just trying to mask their incompetence.
My advice for dealing with the phonies is, try to laugh, or at the very least try not to cry. Because boy howdy, there are things to cry about.
An example, you ask? Well, about 99.7% of the human population consumes coffee orally, IE, through their mouth hole. However, you’ll find some zany individuals who put their coffee into another orifice, this one located on the backside, right below the belt line, nestled in between the gluteus maximus muscles. The more technical term for this practice is a “coffee enema”, and yes, people actually do this.
But most of the time, you deal with this in the form of influencers who love going to the grocery store (shirts occasionally optional), where they grab a food package, show it to the camera, and poorly pronounce an ingredient they claim is going to make you sick. It’s not valid information, it’s not evidence-based. It’s just clickable — and occasionally shirtless — content.
One more thing worth talking about. To be a Dietitian now requires having a graduate degree of your choice, like an MS, MPH, MBA, or even a terminal degree if you like. What does this mean for you, and for the profession?
I’ve got a long answer, and I’ve got a short answer. First, the long answer.
The mission and vision of the dietetics profession has always had us looking up a mountainside. Optimizing health through today’s world of food presents with many challenges and barriers, and the United States is a large and diverse country. There are 337 million US citizens, and less than 112,000 Dietitians. Not everyone is desperate for our services, but our numbers and name brand are spread thin through those who do. So holding ourselves to a higher standard of education and training is a good thing. We should build our skill set, because that will make us more valuable and useful for the variety of services needed now and in the future.
The thing about the future? It’s always marching ahead, and it’s up to us to either keep pace or be left behind. We’ve already seen how much we can leverage telehealth to our advantage, or invest in chronic disease prevention, or expand food access through technology. Just imagine what else will come down the line in the next 10 years.
You want to keep with the trends of interest? Here’s what I would suggest.
Personalized nutrition and nutrigenomics, the ability to identify individual genetic markers that influence our body’s reaction to specified diets, and thereby optimize health outcomes. We’re not there yet, but make no mistake, this is coming. One way or another, we’ll need to know more about this subject, if only to protect the public from frauds and charlatans.
Stakeholders and policy makers will continue to express interest and demand action in food sustainability and production. Dietitians should support farmers unapologetically, and provide evidence-based information about how we produce our food.
Chronic disease is going to continue to increase in prevalence if we don’t support good public policy, cultural competency for the populations we serve, and communicate rigorous, high-quality research.
Honestly though, Dietitians are already always thinking about the future. Even before the graduate degree requirement, Dietitians invested themselves in providing new services, providing new knowledge, or advancing the nation through it’s food supply. We’ve often been on the forefront of new and exciting opportunities in human nutrition, though our work may be relatively unknown.
You’ve probably heard of the most recent Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, but did you know who was responsible for the food and meal plans that fueled their athletic greatness? It’s a Dietitian.
You’ve heard of NASA, but did you know that someone at NASA is currently involved in research to determine what foods to prepare and package for the astronauts making that intense and arduous journey for the first time to Mars? It’s a Dietitian.
You likely know that children can sometimes be picky regarding food choices, or have trouble with family meals, but did you know who pioneered the research behind how to address feeding dynamics and improve pediatric eating competence? It’s a Dietitian.
That’s the long answer to what this new requirement means for the profession, but here’s the short answer, in the form of a question.
What are you going to do?
What new service are you going to innovate that will heal someone’s relationship with food? What policy are you going to help craft that will expand the expected lifetime of this nation? Who will you connect with, where they would otherwise feel forgotten by the medical community?
You see, I’m not worried about the future of the profession because now we have you to add to our numbers. Your skill, your talent, your passion, your smarts, your unlimited potential. We've been looking for it, and now that you’re here, we’re just excited to see whose life you’re going to touch.
Get as much education as you can. Make yourself useful to others. Don’t impose unreasonable limits on yourself. Have courage.
What’s in store for the profession, and for you? Simple. It’s whatever you make it, and thankfully, I know you’re going to make it great.