Lessons From My 4 Year Degree in Nutrition
If you’ve read my About page, you already know that I did my undergrad in Dietetics. Specifically, I went to school for 4 years and graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Science in Applied Human Nutrition. This degree is accredited by Dietitians of Canada and is required to be a registered Dietitian. The only thing left for me to do after the degree was to apply for a one-year unpaid internship to experience the life of a Dietitian in various sectors, write an exam, and register with Dietitians of Canada.
Life happened and I did not get the chance to apply - not even once. Normally, you’d get three tries to apply to the internship and after that, you’d have to take upgrading courses to apply again. I never applied once. I’d rather not dwell on those reasons because life is life and we all have different opportunities and obstacles that come our way and ultimately shape the paths we end up pursuing. Instead, I worked at a gym as a Nutrition Consultant and prepared for my personal trainer certification. I welcomed clients and showed them how to use various pieces of equipment around the gym. It was fun, it was lovely, but I had to move on and although I transitioned into social services, I have always used and updated my knowledge in nutrition.
We all need to be nutrition savvy - we all need more education when it comes to a subject that dominates our everyday lives. I am grateful to have pursued my undergrad on this topic because it prepared me for life and has given me the tools to stay relevant, on-topic, and most importantly, avoid the nonsense that most “food” experts preach. Here are some of the lessons that I learned (5 in particular) from my degree that have helped me navigate the wonderful, brilliant, and sometimes ridiculous landscape of food and nutrition.
Not all diets work for all people.
I’m sure you've seen people who have tried the keto diet and it did wonders for them and you thought to yourself “this could be me?!”. Let me burst that bubble and tell you right now that not all diets will work for everyone. There is no one size fits all approach when it comes to our food intake. Different diets work for different people because our food intake is influenced by many factors. Factors such as illness, activity level, genetics, body type, stress, and most importantly, our social life and routines. There are many other factors but I won’t go into them just yet as I want to keep this brief. Until you’ve examined all of these and carefully pinpointed where you belong in these categories, you will not be able to achieve the results you are looking for.
The internet is filled with pseudo-science. Question the advice you get. Frequently.
It absolutely infuriates me when I see or hear people casually talking about food and nutrition as if they know all the answers. The truth is, no one does. No one knows everything. It took me 4 years to study the human body, mind, social structures, etc to get a deep understanding of how food affects people and I still don’t know everything. It is this humility and thirst for knowledge that drives me to research and be skeptical of unsolicited advice. Please take everything you hear with a grain of salt and question the advice you get from others. Have a friendly debate, it’s perfectly natural and beneficial for you to want to learn rather than blindly follow what’s presented. The next time a doctor gives you nutrition advice, ask them how much of their medical degree covered nutrition. Just because someone is a doctor does not make them a nutrition expert. Medical degrees focus heavily on medicine, pharmaceuticals, treating illnesses, diagnosis, etc. I am no doctor but I sure as hell don’t think doctors are nutritionists or dietitians. Neither should you.
There are a lot of politics involved in our food guides and the general nutrition advice you are told to follow.
If you haven’t read up on how fats were vilified and what studies pushed our understanding of fat intake being very risky, then do yourself a favour and read about it now. This is a classic example of how biased the food industry can be. Studies need funding and funding comes from companies who want to prove their point of view. I wasn’t exactly taught this in school but I questioned it to the point where my professors thought I just didn’t care about school. It got pretty ugly for me and heavily influenced my outlook on the system. I am not saying “all nutrition advice is flawed” but what I am saying is this: one should look around and pay close attention to lobbyists who work tirelessly to advocate with no bias or hidden agendas. There is a war going on with information and people are fighting the good fight. Support them, read about them. Educate yourself.
Losing weight is not always the answer.
Everywhere you turn, people are talking about losing weight as if it will resolve all of life’s problems. Losing weight has tremendous potential benefits for people. Note: I said potential. Not all benefits will be equal and benefit everyone and in fact, some may be downright dangerous. If someone obsesses about weight to no avail, they may look “healthy” but their obsessive habits might be doing more harm to them than good. Not every skinny person is healthy and not everyone who is overweight is unhealthy. Our genetic makeup has a great deal of influence on our ability to succumb to or avert certain health conditions. Our society is obsessed with vanity and somehow we have reduced the measure of health to our perceived (and sometimes absurd) standards of beauty. Healthy people come in all different sizes.
Your socioeconomic status has more to do with your health than you think.
Ever notice how many fast-food chains are around your neighbourhood? How about wellness centers and yoga studios? What about grocery stores? Do you notice the types of products they carry and how different parts of the city will sell different products? Well, that’s no coincidence and our health is largely shaped by our wealth. The next time you cast judgment on someone overweight who has been on welfare for the past 10 years (would you even know this?), be sure to check your privilege. Not everyone has the same resources as you do. Our health is largely dependent on the availability of resources around us which ultimately, and might I add, greatly shape the choices we make. We need less judgment and more compassion, holistic planning, and advocacy if we are to educate some of the poorest populations and neighbourhoods. Let’s start talking about solutions, rather than blaming the less fortunate for their choices because sometimes the system pushes them to make those choices - which in the end isn’t quite a choice anymore. It’s survival.
There you have it, 5 random things that I learned from my degree. I will, of course, write more on each of the aforementioned topics but I hope this gave you some idea of how complicated the topic of food and nutrition can be.