Hi Friends!
It’s National Nutrition Month!
Each year March is celebrated as National Nutrition Month to focus on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating habits! Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Day is the second Wednesday in March, which celebrates all the Registered Dietitians! As part of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, every March is themed on a nutrition topic for the month, and 2021 is “personalize your plate.”
Each week has a focus:
Week 1 is “eat a variety of nutritious foods every day.”
Week 2 is “plan your meals each week.”
Week 3 is “learn skills to create tasty meals.”
Week 4 is “Consult a RD!”
Let’s break down what “consulting a RD” means. If you visit your doctor, you can ask them for a referral to an RD for a variety of reasons. You can also call your insurance to see if it takes preventative measures for you to utilize insurance to pay for visits. Consulting a RD means you would receive personalized nutrition advice to meet your goals, and each community has a variety of RD’s that are specialized in unique areas.
Now, I am going to add 3 myths about what “consulting a RD” means:
Myth #1: RD's are experts in "diet trends"
To begin, I get it, I really do– diet and dietitian look like the same thing so they must be the same..but actually they’re different and you can read about their differences in my blog post here. (link) The belief behind this myth is easy to misunderstand.
Yet, as an RD for 5+ years, I can say that I have no idea how many diet trends are on the market, much less the rules that go with all of them. Honestly, the athlete’s I educate on nutrition actually educate me on diet trends. They mainly ask me if they are good or bad, to which, I have no real answer. I have often gone to the bookstore to just look at all the diet books, I am always amazed at the creativity of rules, it’s cringe worthy. Diet trends enter and exit the popularity seen so fast that I actually can’t keep up; nor, do I want to. Now consider never going on a diet again, instead you develop a healthy relationship with food and your body that you are….happy?
RD’s aren’t here to teach diet trends, engage in diet culture or set food rules. If you find yourself engaging in these conversations with an RD or any other medical professional for that matter, take a step back and reflect. RD’s are here to educate, offer a guide to healthy food relationships, medical nutrition therapy, and assisting in serving your unique needs.
Myth #2: RD's are only here to help people gain or lose weight.
Society would have you believe that if you consult a RD, it is to lose or gain weight, mostly lose. The belief comes from diet culture teaching society at a young age that thin is ideal and you must strive to be thin. Thus encouraging people to lose weight and who better to help than a nutrition professional?! Makes complete sense….and why the myth lives on. Now consider never aiming to lose or gain weight again because you have developed a healthy relationship with food and your body that you are…..happy. GASP. Image that? The reason this is a myth is because RD’s are trained in medical nutrition therapy meaning they do more than discuss ways to gain weight or lose weight. They are trained in how to feed you through a tube, through your veins, if you’re allergic to celiac, diagnosed with diabetes, diagnosed with an eating disorder, diagnosed with cancer or any other medical diagnosis that warrants your body need nourishment to heal and keep you alive. WOAH!
Side note: you were put on this earth to do more than just lose or gain weight, I promise.
Myth #3: RD's want you to count calories or be number focused.
The legend of all myths! Rightfully so, RD’s are taught this in our course work. We are taught to count calories, marconutrients (marcos), number of carbohydrates, number of servings, grams of protein, etc. I call this nutrition math and RD’s use it all the time. At some points in time RD’s started teaching client this as well thinking it was good information to share. The belief that you can do this too through an app, meal plan, etc would allow you to lose or gain the weight and meet your ideal body image. Plot twist: when people become focused on numbers, they start to restrict which can lead to diet yo-yoing or worse, eating disorders.
Now consider never counting a calorie again, instead you have developed a healthy relationship with food and your body that you are…..happy. You are listening to your hunger cues, eating meals that are satisfying, and feel more confident in your body because you can focus your energy on what you really want! Nutrition math may be warranted at times, used by the RD to aide medical nutrition therapy; however, no need for YOU to focus on numbers. You only need to focus on how you FEEL.
ROAM to Eatright.org to learn more about National Nutrition Month!