Why Work with a Dietitian

Dietitians are becoming more well known as part of the healthcare field but do people genuinely understand the role of a dietitian? Throughout my career I’ve frequently encountered, “What do you really do with people?” from potential clients, friends, family members, doctors, nurses, therapists, etc. This is a fair question because the role of a dietitian is ever-expanding as our value gains more recognition. Dietitians work in a variety of settings and serve a variety of populations so how we help people greatly depends on our role. This list will not be exhaustive but give you an overview of who may benefit from working with a dietitian. In my experience, people ask me to explain my work because they want to know if they qualify for my services or if I can help them.

First, let’s cover a little background on the dietetics profession. Dietitians are highly educated and trained. We are required to complete an undergraduate degree, graduate degree, and 1,200 hours of supervised practice in the field before sitting for a national credentialing exam. After passing the RD exam, dietitians have to maintain state licensure, continuing education, and additional certification requirements for the remainder of their careers. Ongoing education and training is necessary for dietitians because nutrition science is always changing and we desire to continuously improve the quality of care we provide as we become more specialized in our fields.

Dietitians provide medical nutrition therapy which essentially means we provide nutrition recommendations for managing or treating health conditions. Dietitians focus on helping their clients improve their health and well being using nutrition and lifestyle modifications. Dietitians are trained to be curious, meet people where they are, and provide well-rounded and individualized care to their clients. In order to provide the most helpful nutrition recommendations, we aim to understand a client and their life as whole which means we’re collecting context about family history, medications, life stressors, schedule, routines, exercise, thoughts and feelings, eating patterns, family dynamics, etc. I find new clients are often worried that dietitians are judgmental or strict but rest assured that isn’t the nutrition care you’ll find around here. Dietitians are trained to be comprehensive, caring, creative, and collaborative!

If you find you connect with any of the examples in the lists below, you likely have great benefit to gain from the support a dietitian can offer you!

When to Talk to a Dietitian

• You want individualized nutrition recommendations that consider your lifestyle, schedule, and needs

• You have a nutrition goal

• You have a health goal that can be significantly impacted by nutrition

• You have a medical condition affected by nutrition 

• You have lost your period and/or a significant amount of weight due to a lack of nutrition and/or engaging in exercise

• You feel there is anything “off” or stressful in your relationship with food

• You have obsessive food thoughts

• You judge your character or your day overall based on your eating and exercise habits that day

• Your nutrition choices inform how you feel about yourself and speak to yourself

• You feel overwhelmed by all of the nutrition information online and in social media

• You find yourself comparing your body, workouts and food to what you see on social media

• You feel how you eat and exercise is negatively impacting your life or mental health

• You spend a lot of time thinking about food or workouts

• You are highly dissatisfied with your body

• The thought of changing your eating or exercise causes distress

• You have an unhealthy relationship with foods (categorizing foods as good and bad, lack of flexibility, distress going out to eat, etc.)

• You have an unhealthy relationship with exercise (you exercise to punish yourself; you punish yourself for missing workouts; you exercise multiple times a day; you exercise with an injury; you are unwilling to modify workouts when needed, etc.)

• You use food/nutrition/exercise/not eating/using harmful behaviors as a coping mechanism 

• You feel you cannot keep foods in your house without finishing them immediately

• You feel you cannot control yourself around food

Dietitians can help you

• Understand nutrition science and health

• Implement nutrition recommendations for illness or disease management

• Use nutrition & lifestyle strategies for symptom relief

• Make sense of confusing & conflicting nutrition information seen online & on social media

• Calm food and health noise

• Cope with emotions around food and impacting food and health

• Maintain accountability & consistency in your goals

• Build self confidence

• Build skills in internal validation

• Improve your ability to advocate for yourself in medical settings

• Understand daily nutrition needs

• Meal plan

• Navigate the grocery store and grocery store anxiety

• Navigate food anxiety

• Understand metabolism

• Understand bloodwork results

• Use nutrition to help you reach health or exercise goals

• Navigate eating at work, school, events, holidays, on vacations, etc.

• Resolve emotional eating

• Wok through feeling a lack of control

• Improve your relationship with and thoughts about food, body image, health, and exercise

• Practice self-compassion

• Align how you care for your health with your values

• Reduce harm associated with eating, exercise, and health patterns

• Find and build community

• Navigate difficult family dynamics around food, exercise, and body image

If you resonate with anything in this post and you are curious about working with a dietitian, click the button below to schedule a free 15-minute discovery call. We’ll talk about how we could work together in nutrition counseling to help you reach your goals!