The Registered Dietitian - more than you expect

First and foremost, Dietitian is never spelled with a C, let’s get that straight from the get-go. Yes, the dictionary has it both ways, but we all know the English language is weird, one example to make my point – The word Queue is just a Q followed by four silent letters. What’s up with that? I found that on a meme once and it has always stuck with me.

A Registered Dietitian (RD) is an expert in food and nutrition who has met certain qualifications set by the profession itself as well as the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Each RD has completed 4 years of college with coursework that encompasses a broad range of topics such as nutrition sciences (evidenced-backed research), management, business, chemistry, physiology, microbiology, human anatomy, and many more. I never knew until later in my life the advantages of all those chemistry classes. To put this into some context, most nursing majors take basic chemistry, at South Dakota State University that was Chem 106-108, where nutrition students take Chem 112 to organic and biochemistry, every year chemistry engulfed our lives. The reason for this is to understand how food is broken down in our body, how vitamins/minerals play a role in chemical reactions and the significance of this as we dive into chronic diseases. At the time, I HATED IT, but now I am appreciative of the knowledge I was able to take away.

Once nutrition majors have completed 4 years, in my case a bit longer (that’s a longer story), we go onto an accredited, supervised program that involves three areas: health care, community, and food service. Once all is completed, we take a national examination, as do all health care professionals, and must keep up to date with continuing education every 5 years. Most Dietitians hold advanced degrees, however, in 2024 all incoming RDs will be required to have a master's degree. Most RDs also hold certifications in specialized areas such as renal nutrition, nutrition support, diabetes, and so forth. These specialized areas take time, studying, examination, and of course passion. Most RDs choose a specialization based on their interest. I have yet to get specialization, but in the following years hope to get a specialization in Renal Nutrition (Kidneys), but we will see where life takes me.

I truly feel that Dietitians have an important role in our communities and health care systems. Dietitians are the nutrition experts who have gone through years of schooling but also use evidence-based research to back their expertise. Those are the most important distinctions between an RD and your neighbor telling you the raw food diet she/he trialed helped dropped some pounds and give them so much energy. Later in the posts, we will talk about fad diets and the impact of those on your health and mind.

Back to the topic at hand, did you know that Doctors receive less than 25 hours of nutrition education? A study was done looking at the status of nutrition education in medical schools. They surveyed 126 US medical schools and only 40 of those schools required a minimum of 25 nutrition education hours. If you are a Medical Doctor reading this, utilize your dietitians, trust me, they know more than you do about nutrition. Dietitians interpret research and help people incorporate that into their lives, there is power in nutrition. Dietitians also have a role in shaping public food choices through public policy initiatives and making a change in people's lives through medical nutrition therapy of chronic disease states.

The goal of this first blog post was to give you all an insight into what a Dietitian does, granted this is only a glimpse of the whole picture. Nutrition has been used for centuries to help with ailments or disease, however, modern nutrition is very young, less than 100 years old. The first vitamin wasn’t isolated until 1926 and from there nutrition research, on chronic disease, has accelerated. I have attached a picture from the Journal of Science and Politics of Nutrition to help you visualize nutrition’s history.

Excited to take this journey with you all!

Chase Merfeld MS, RD, LN