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Career Reflections — A Past, Present, and Future in Dietetics
Today’s Dietitian
Vol. 8 No. 3 P. 24

Editor’s Note: In honor of National Nutrition Month, Today’s Dietitian invited five RDs to reflect on their dietetics past—what inspired their career choice—consider what keeps them professionally satisfied, and look to the future of the field. Enjoy their unique stories and perspectives.

My guess is that not many people switch from majoring in music to dietetics. And it’s probably a small number who charge, and encourage others to charge, at least twice the going rate for dietitians. However unusual, my journey makes sense to me, as a journey of respect for how important food is in human health, as an ethical consideration, and as a field of expertise worthy of respect.

I chose to enter the field of dietetics in my second year of college. At that time I was studying music (I play piano), and the competitiveness of the industry and the isolation required for practicing, composing, etc took the fun out of it for me. I began running for stress reduction and found that I felt better if I ate balanced meals. I gained a newfound respect for the effect of food on how I felt, and I began reading all I could about the effects of diet and exercise on human health. I took my questions to the university dietitian, who gave me direction and advice on a career as an RD.

During my college years, I learned to respect the ethical aspects of food after learning about animal agriculture and factory farming in the United States. As I learned more, plant-based eating made sense to me from therapeutic (ie, health benefits), ethical, and culinary perspectives, and I decided to become vegetarian. (I have been a vegan [99%] for roughly 15 years now.)

Although I have my own beliefs, I respect the food choices of my clients and peers and never try to convert anyone. Rather, I encourage anyone seeking improved health to take advantage of what we know scientifically promotes health by including more plant foods in diets and moving away from diets laden with overly processed foods. In addition, I lecture and write about plant-based diets to address the myths that still run rampant about them (even among many RDs) and educate people on the real nutritional issues involved with these diets.

As I have progressed in my career, my respect for the profession of dietetics has continued to grow. Dietetics is a complex, ever-evolving, and exciting field. Everyone has to eat, so there is always work for dietitians, and it is fascinating to me that no two dietetics careers are alike. We can take our personal interests and incorporate them into our jobs or create our own jobs doing exactly what brings the most fulfillment. For example, I love technology, writing, and plant-based diets, so I have molded a consulting career involving these three elements. One of my colleagues is intrigued by business, so she got her MBA and uses it in conjunction with her pursuit of promoting healthy living. Another colleague is fascinated by nutrition in patients with AIDS and maternal nutrition and focuses on these areas almost exclusively. If we find our own niche, our careers will be rewarding, fulfilling, and challenging—and, most importantly, we will love them.

If I could change one thing in the dietetics field, it would be the respect we get from the public and the respect we give ourselves. To the public, dietitians are either the “food police” or a cafeteria line worker donning a hairnet and serving mashed potatoes. Many of us have advanced degrees, and we’ve all had hundreds of hours of clinical experience and passed an exam. Nonetheless, people give more respect to doctors’ advice about diet, even though the average nutritional training of an MD is 1.5 credit hours. Along the same lines, the average salary of an RD in Oklahoma City is roughly $40,000—hardly enough to support a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. And this is the average, even though the average dietitian has a decade or more on the job.

The power of our profession to help people deserves respect, and so do we. This is why I charge relatively high rates in my practice. Some people refuse my services based on my fees, while others embrace them because they know they will get what they pay for. If we all demand higher salaries and fees for our work—and we can defend why we deserve them—we will be more highly valued as professionals.

— Dina Aronson, MS, RD, is a nutrition consultant, a freelance writer, and a speaker specializing in dietetics-related technology and vegetarian nutrition.

My first major was theatre arts. The program staff presented persuasive orations about the versatility of the degree. They emphasized the practical facet of theatre arts as its ability to enable you to present a message to individuals or groups of people on any subject in any field. You would acquire this skill even if your career took you behind the camera or kept you backstage. It was not just a major for actors. That piece of the program hooked me and I decided to choose this curriculum.

But something just seemed wrong about this choice. Was I making a decision based on a great presentation by a bunch of actors? Was the major versatile or were they just very convincing? Then I discovered that all theatre arts majors must be involved in a production each semester requiring at least 10 hours of extra time after classes. I loved doing this from elementary school all through high school, but it was never for a grade. This sent me off to my advisor’s office to change my major.

My next major was journalism. During high school, several friends and I took advantage of a local news station’s journalism program. We took the train into the city every Saturday and attended class at the news station for several weeks. We shopped, lunched, and met new friends from other parts of the metropolitan area as much as we learned the basics of journalism. Networking is key in the field and we did that well. In college, writing and English literature were a pleasure. I was bothered because journalists are supposed to be neutral. If I continued in my major, I would be great at reporting topics that I knew little or nothing about. A major in journalism presented the same problems as the theatre arts major.

I embarked on a journey that led me through a series of majors related to the helping professions. They included sociology, psychology, and counseling psychology. None of them had much promise of employment after graduation without a master’s degree.

Suddenly, it seemed the answer was in front of me all along. My family has a long history in the medical field. I would go into nursing. There were no openings in the program, but the nutrition and nursing programs paralleled each other to a point when students began either upper-level nutrition or clinical nursing courses. There was space in the nutrition program. I could switch to nutrition and hope for an opening in nursing before the courses began to branch off. That opening never happened. So you can say I became a dietitian by default.

I remain a dietitian because it enables me to accomplish all the things that interest and fulfill me. I learned enough about a topic—nutrition—to believe I have an important message to present. Moreover, it is dynamic and always has a new spin to it.
My communication skills are constantly in use through writing articles and books, presenting lectures, and educating all types of groups. I always have several jobs or assignments because that keeps me interested. Another book is in the planning stages.

I currently work in a psychiatric facility and conduct psychoeducational groups with clients aged 5 to 75. Believe me, those theatre art skills come in handy now.

— Mary Anne Clairmont, RD, is the nutritionist at Fairmount Behavioral Health System and Take Two Nutrition, a nutrition consulting company in Plymouth Meeting, Pa.

Some days it feels as if nutrition has become like the weather: Everybody talks about it but nobody does anything about it. After 20 years in dietetics, it can feel frustrating to see obesity rates rising, children getting what used to be called adult onset diabetes, and studies that show toddlers eat more french fries than any other vegetable.

With this bad news, we forget how fortunate we are that we have never seen pellagra or beri beri. We know that most people can afford to make choices from the 20,000 foods lining the shelves in their local grocery store. We have the safest and most abundant food supply in history. Do we still have a lot of work to do? Yes. But we should not forget the progress that has been made.

We entered this field because we care. This is an exciting time to be a nutrition professional. Researchers learn more each day about how nutrients protect against disease. Consumers can get lost in the confusion, and we are here to part the clouds and offer clear, practical, and caring scientific advice.

Our profession offers many opportunities—from clinical work, where we get to help people one on one, to media work, where we can educate millions who see us on a cable news channel. We get to advise the government on how to help people eat better and advise food companies on products they can offer consumers. We are in a very powerful position.

My career has gone from micro to macro. Early in my career, dietetics was a one-on-one profession for me. I worked with individuals, counseling in-patients and then clients in my private practice. I then expanded to “teach the teachers” by writing professional books, mentoring dietitians in private practice, and lecturing to dietetic associations to give my colleagues the information they needed to help individuals. I then expanded to “teach the teachers” by writing books, mentoring dietitians in private practice, and lecturing to dietetic associations to give my colleagues the information they need to help individuals.

Now, by consulting with food companies, I feel my impact broaden. How fortunate I am to be in a field that allows me to grow as I gain experience. It is great to be a dietitian. Happy National Nutrition Month!

— Carol M. Meerschaert, RD, LDN, is a freelance writer, a corporate consultant, and a lecturer in Falmouth, Me.

My journey to becoming a dietitian begins with a story, as so many things do. After graduating with a bachelor’s of science in secondary education, I decided teaching wasn’t for me. Not knowing what I wanted to do, I took a position as a receptionist at a law firm. During that time, my father became ill with cancer. I watched my mother deal with the devastating emotional and physical effects of this disease: fatigue, nausea, weight loss, dehydration, and depression. I kept asking myself, “How can I help?”

I began reading everything I could get my hands on about cancer and health. That’s when I decided to pursue a master’s degree in nutrition and become an RD. I met with the chair of the department of nutrition at the University of Nebraska, who encouraged me to do a thesis project and work as a graduate assistant.

One of my first projects as a graduate assistant was to help research and write a chapter on zinc for a book she was editing. The rest is history. I went on to get my master’s degree, become registered, and combine my love for writing with my knowledge of nutrition. For most of my career, I have been a consultant—researching, writing, and editing articles for professional journals, magazines, newsletters, and Web sites. I enjoy taking scientific information, breaking it down, and translating it into a language consumers can understand. In 1996, my first book, Nutrition and the Female Athlete, was published by CRC Press.

I have been fortunate to work from home most of my career. This has allowed me to manage an exciting professional life and raise three wonderful children. I enjoy the variety of organizations I work for and look forward to new opportunities in the rapidly growing field of dietetics.

— Jaime Ruud, MS, RD, is a research technologist in the department of nutrition and health sciences at the University of Nebraska. She is also co-owner of Nutrition Link consulting, a private practice in Lincoln, Neb.

Once I entered college, my goal was to become “the Julia Child or James Beard of healthy cooking.” I graduated from the University of Georgia in Athens with a BS in consumer foods and nutrition (not the RD track) and a minor in food science and French. When I was a junior, I lived as an exchange student for 11 months at the Université d’Orléans, France, where I learned about French language and culture, not to mention bistros, brasseries, patisseries, and boulangeries.

Once I finished undergraduate school, I left Georgia and moved to New York City, where I landed my first job as a pastry assistant at Gotham Bar & Grill. This eventually led me to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., where I received a pastry certificate.

After working in fancy New York City restaurants, I relocated to the more rewarding nonprofit feeding program at GMHC (Gay Men’s Health Crisis), America’s first community-based organization committed to the fight against AIDS. Constantly interfacing with dietitians and learning so much about nutrition and HIV, I longed to become an RD. After all, I had almost all the Didactic Program in Dietetic courses, but many dietitians I met as an undergraduate talked me out of dietetics as a career choice.

Since I had always been fascinated with nutrition and food science, at the age of 29, I finally decided to apply to graduate school with the hopes of one day understanding food from both a nutritionist and chef’s point of view. I completed the master’s degree program in clinical nutrition from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education, where I was also a teaching fellow. I finished my dietetic internship at Mount Sinai Medical Center. I also received a full scholarship to Le Cordon Bleu Paris, where I received a certificate in classic French cuisine.

While a graduate student, I became involved with the American Dietetic Association, and it was on the listserv that I met D. Milton Stokes, MPH, RD. We eventually started Culinary Nutrition Consultants, Inc, where we consult with numerous clients on projects that include the creation of a nutritionally balanced home meal delivery program called NuKitchen and a new restaurant/health food store concept for 2- to 10-year-olds in New York City, which deals with correct-sized portions and natural and organic foods.

The most exciting project is our upcoming book, which demonstrates what keeps me in the field of dietetics: The fact that hotel pans and hairnets are history. Becoming a Nutritionist: A Career Guide for Students and Dietitians, being published by Prentice Hall later this year, includes a historical perspective of dietetics, shows how to prepare for and succeed in educational programs—college, graduate school, and the clinical internship—and what is required of both successful students and professionals on all fronts.

This book is an example of why I believe a career in dietetics is one of the most exciting “new” fields anyone can study. After all, there is so much untapped opportunity, and RDs have the training to show America that we are the nutrition professionals.

— Chef Kyle Shadix, CCC, MS, RD, is an instructor at the Art Institute of New York City (www.chefkyle.com). He is also the managing partner in Culinary Nutrition Consultants, Inc (www.culinarynutritionist.com).