My Search For Dietitians: The Profession Of Dietetics

III. My Search for Dietitians

The Profession of Dietetics

The most common belief and practice of dietetics is that nutrition is the most important factor in order to live a full and happy life according to The Profession of Dietetics written by June Payne-Palacio and Deborah D. Canter. Nutrition is crucial for overall wellbeing and health. The profession of dietetics is a dietitian, dietitians study diets and nutrition. They find the most effective diet for an individual person and work with that person until they are at the healthy or desired lifestyle. Dietitians will work with several different categories of people. The most common is sports nutrition. Dietitians are predicted to be one of the fastest growing professions in America. Dietetics

is a very diverse profession, which institutes why it is one of the fastest growing professions. There is such a wide variety of jobs to choose from. That almost anyone can be interested by the dietetics field.
Dietitians are able to work with various patients.

They normally work in hospitals, colleges, nursing homes, public schools, correctional facilities, airlines, and restaurants. They work with individuals who are looking to lose weight, gain weight, or improve their wellness. Some people get the help from a dietitian without even knowing it. As in school lunches. Usually, schools have a dietitian come and help them choose cheap and healthy school lunches that their students can buy during lunch time. Other times, dietitians will be hired for correctional facilities. They provide knowledge for the prisoners and help them understand what they will need to be consuming in order to maintain the health that they want and need. They often work with ex-drug and alcohol addicts, which will get them healthy after they have detoxed. This keeps them in shape and they have a lesser of a chance of relapsing. They either work with these patients in a hospital, jail, or prison, or a mental institution. Dietitians are trained to empathize with their patients and create a substantial learning environment. Although, there are dietitians who do not work with individual patients. Instead, they work in an office and provide expert nutrition information for food television shows, or even magazines and newspapers. This is necessary for

publicity.
Opportunities in Nutrition Careers
Normally, to become a registered dietitian, it takes four to five years in college. Opportunities in Nutrition Careers written by Carol Coles Caldwell is t what it takes to be a dietitian and what other jobs there are in the dietetics field. In order to master the concept of dietetic practice, knowing the basics of nutrition, biochemistry, physiology, social sciences, behavioral sciences, and management. The most important concepts of dietetics would be nutrition, social sciences, and physiology. Having more knowledge on those concepts will make for a stronger dietitian. Of course, knowing the bare minimum will most likely not result in the best job. For most dietitians, they study these subjects until they believe that they have the knowledge it takes to give a professional stance when it comes to patients.
There are ten different dietitians. Clinical dietitians, who work in hospitals and nursing homes. Community dietitians, who work within their community, they normally work with individual patients. Foodservice dietitians work with school food and different homeless shelters. They also work with prisons and restaurants. Gerontological dietitians, who specifically work with nursing homes. Neonatal dietitians, who work with premature newborns. Pediatric dietitians work with newborns, children, and adolescents. They work with meal plans for teens with eating disorders. Research dietitians focus on behavior change. Administrative dietitians focus on food policy. Business dietitians work on marketing and communication of nutrition. Lastly, consultant dietitians work under a contract with private practice, they provide information about nutrition to fitness clubs, grocery stores, sports teams, and health centers. The diversity in the dietetics field is profound.
Many dietitians work with patients who have diseases.

The dietitian will use food and nutrition to try and cure the diseases. Often it will help a tremendous amount. The dietitian will work with alternative and herbal remedies to help prevent and treat different diseases. The dietitian’s goal is to cure different conditions with the use of food and herbal remedies, rather than prescription pills and harmful chemicals that could in the long run, harm the body even more. Dietitians that work with these patients have to be calm during their practices, “these specialties involve high-pressure work environments and long hours that demand leadership, assertiveness, and career commitment from the dietetic professional” (28). They will also create a personal relationship with their patient in order to make the patient more comfortable and open up to them because in most cases, the patient is coming to the dietitian for weight problems. If they are overweight or underweight, the dietitian will try to help them become comfortable in their own body before they make any drastic changes. It makes the process easier. It can also make the process easier by creating a relationship with their patients. If the patient thinks of the dietitian as their friend, they will most likely think of it as just conversing rather than confessing. In all honesty, it is hard to open up to people, especially if you have dealt with body image issues your whole

life.
“Dietitian in a Store Near You”
I discovered this article yet again through the EMU online library. I read the title and I was not automatically interested. I thought it would just be a promotional ad for grocery stores. Despite the title, I read the first paragraph. As I read along, I found out about the “Eat Well in Store” program that was discovered by the Fortinos’ supermarket. The program had in store dietitians that would help willing shoppers choose healthy groceries. This process would normally be one-hour long and start with several questions to get a basic understanding on what the customer is looking for. The two questions that were always asked were what the customer is eating and what his/her goals were. Alexis Williams was the dietitian that worked with Fortinos’. She stated her goal “’We weren’t promoting specific brands so much as overall health’” (3). This again, was a more personal goal. She cares more about the overall health rather than the profit. Her job is to make her customers happy and healthy. Which I think will keep the dietitian persistent. If a person mixes passion with their career they are most likely going to be more persistent.
“Aliya Haq: Balance is the Key”
I was introduced to this article written by Farida Hakim from the Eastern Michigan online library. I thought this article would be an exceptional source to research considering it was about a woman who became a dietitian because of her childhood. This could answer my question about what drives a person to become a dietitian. I was automatically intrigued when I read the quote of Aliya Sultana Haq, “My goal has been to change the way my patients think about the food they provide their children” (1). I discovered that Haq’s goal was not only to help her patients, but it was to also include her patients’ children. That to me, was a very personal goal. She is not looking at her job for currency only. She is doing her job with passion to make a difference.
Haq was inspired by her mother to become a dietitian. She observed her mother cook nutritious meals for her and her family as a child. She grew up believing that nutrition is crucial for a healthy lifestyle. She saw the different aspects of nutrition and she became intrigued by those aspects and wanted to learn more. When Haq grew a family of her own, she decided to take on the full-time job as a mother. She included her healthy aspects into her children’s lives. She then began to consider going to school and becoming a registered dietitian. She now includes her knowledge of a mother into her everyday work life. I think that makes her job more personal, which dietitians are trained to do. They must empathize with their patients in order to get their full trust. Haq works with individual patients along with groups. The groups consist of mostly mothers or soon to be mothers. Haq is a pediatric dietitian, therefore she works with new born babies and children as well. A pediatric dietitian works with any condition in which a child’s health is involved. She works with doctors in the office and has her own patients. Haq’s job becomes much more personal when children are involved because she is a mother herself. Which makes her job a little easier, as she is already an expert on the subject.
An Interview with Lynda Seeley, RD.
I had a face to face interview with a woman named Lynda Seeley. She was introduced to me by another dietitian. We met at Saint Joseph Mercy hospital. She is a registered renal dietitian. Renal dietitians work with patients who require nutrition therapy. She works with these patients in the hospital. Most of her patients are elderly. I began by asking her my most important question: what aspired her to become a dietitian. She told me that she was first introduced to dietetics when her middle school class took an aptitude test and her top choice was dietitian. She was not sure what that was, so she did more research as she grew older.
I then asked her what was the best thing about her job was. She explained that it is a very personal job. She exclaimed that she loved watching her patients grow and recover. I began to wonder what the most difficult thing about her job was. I asked her and she looked glum. She said that the personal aspect of her job can be the most difficult thing about it. She explained how emotional it can be to watch her patients not recover. I can only imagine how hard that would be. Seeley seemed like a very empathetic person. I could tell by the way she talked about her patients. She understood that everyone needs nutrition in order to be healthy. She was talking about correctional facilities and how some people thought prisoners should not have the nutrition that free people have. Seeley shared her reflection on that statement, “prisoners are people too and she thought they deserved to live a healthy life no matter what”. I agree with her completely. She also told me that school food systems are getting better, but they still need work. She thought that schools that have their own garden get their students more involved in healthy eating. My old middle school had a garden and we were all happy to eat the produce that we grew. Seeley stated, “it makes nutrition more hands on”. She specifically does not work with children and schools, but she knows fellow dietitians that work in schools. As Seeley is a very busy woman, she could not talk much longer. I ended the interview and thanked her for her wonderful knowledge.
An Interview with Mandy Niemic, RD
My sister introduced me to this woman named Mandy Niemic. She had met with my sister in the beginning of her college experience. Niemic is a registered Dietitian as well as a student advisor. When we met, she was very eager to meet with me and talk to me because usually when she meets with students asking questions about her career, they always ask the same questions’. As for me, she acknowledged that I had a fresh and new set of questions.
When I asked her my first question, which was asking what aspired her to become a dietitian she confessed that it was her second choice. When she first went to college, she exercise physiology at The University of Michigan and graduated with a degree. At the end of junior year became interested in nutrition for many reasons. She was on an athletic team and had friends that had eating disorders, which she thought that it was fascinating because she did not understand how this person could physically function and do the things that she was doing when she was bulimic. She ended up getting help, but it was fascinating. She also saw the power of what was eaten and how it made her feel. She thought she knew a lot of about nutrition but there was still a lot to know. The answer to my next question which was asking what was rewarding about her job was awfully similar to Lynda Seeley, the other dietitian I interviewed. She believed that it was rewarding to see the people she worked with recover and finish the dietetics program.
Seeley also added what was challenging about her job. Which in an academic advising role, it is hard to see students who have great social skills but they don’t have the strength in science or are unable to show mastery on the classes needed for dietetics. Also seeing a student not make it in the program but developing that relationship with them throughout the process. Although she is able to help them discover other careers that have to do with nutrition. She shared, “in a dietitian perspective, seeing my clients fail to recover in their heath and how they feel, it is hard to motivate someone who does not have any hope”. I could tell that Seeley really loves helping people.
I was curious what she thought of the controversy on Nutritionist vs. Dietitians. She stated before that anyone can call themselves a nutritionist but you need to take several classes in order to get the credentials to be a dietitian. She told me that a registered dietitian can be a nutritionist but a nutritionist is not necessarily a dietitian. Different states have different laws in which you can practice nutrition and what exactly “practicing nutrition” is. Some states do not have laws at all about that so it is really a matter of who can talk to who about nutrition. Dietitians are not the only profession that can tell you what is good to eat and what is not good to eat. There has been a new credential added. Registered dietitians can choose to have RD or RDN by their name. RDN stands for Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, which helps the public understand what dietitians are.