Robby was so excited about all of the snacks I brought home. We are set for quite a while! Well, until the food show I'm going to next week. Did I say that I love dietetics?
Showing posts with label Dietetics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dietetics. Show all posts
Saturday, October 1, 2011
I Love Dietetics
On September 24th I went to Arizona's School Nutrition Association conference. I learned more about MyPlate and how to incorporate it with MyPyramid in teaching. I also went to a class for managers about conflict resolution. I am loving food service more and more! Oh and the food show wasn't so bad either. Check out my SWAG!
Robby was so excited about all of the snacks I brought home. We are set for quite a while! Well, until the food show I'm going to next week. Did I say that I love dietetics?
Robby was so excited about all of the snacks I brought home. We are set for quite a while! Well, until the food show I'm going to next week. Did I say that I love dietetics?
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Something that bugged me today...
I don't normally blog about nutrition, but today I just wanted to put something out there. Something that I saw and really bugged me, as a future RD. I was at the gym today and Dr. Oz was on TV. It is hard to change the channels so I kept watching, even though Dr. Oz isn't my favorite. He has said a few things related to nutrition that I don't agree with and that are not backed up by good science, which we rely heavily on in dietetics.
This particular episode was called "Slowing Aging and Preventing Disease". Part of the segment involved what Dr. Oz called his four "superfoods". They were salmon, sweet potatoes, white kidney (cannellini) beans and kale. Now don't get me wrong, there are great things about each of those foods and I would encourage anyone to include them in their normal diet. However, the way Dr. Oz portrayed it was "Add these foods to your diet to age slowly and prevent disease". This bothers me because these four foods are not magic answers to nutrition-related health problems. Simply adding these four foods to an already poor diet won't do very much. For these foods to make a difference, they need to be combined with a balanced diet, exercise, no smoking and many other factors. The key to disease prevention is lifestyle change and what we refer to as "maintenance". That is the ability to practice those healthy lifestyle habits on a daily basis. In my opinion, it isn't enough to just add those four foods.
Part of the problem with nutrition in this country is the millions of messages we get from the media every single day related to food and what we should be putting into our bodies. What people like Dr. Oz need to promote are not just "superfoods" but an overall healthy lifestyle, including foods from all of the food groups. Just for fun, here is the new MyPlate icon, that I love so much.
PS For the few of you that read this, thanks for letting me vent.
This particular episode was called "Slowing Aging and Preventing Disease". Part of the segment involved what Dr. Oz called his four "superfoods". They were salmon, sweet potatoes, white kidney (cannellini) beans and kale. Now don't get me wrong, there are great things about each of those foods and I would encourage anyone to include them in their normal diet. However, the way Dr. Oz portrayed it was "Add these foods to your diet to age slowly and prevent disease". This bothers me because these four foods are not magic answers to nutrition-related health problems. Simply adding these four foods to an already poor diet won't do very much. For these foods to make a difference, they need to be combined with a balanced diet, exercise, no smoking and many other factors. The key to disease prevention is lifestyle change and what we refer to as "maintenance". That is the ability to practice those healthy lifestyle habits on a daily basis. In my opinion, it isn't enough to just add those four foods.
Part of the problem with nutrition in this country is the millions of messages we get from the media every single day related to food and what we should be putting into our bodies. What people like Dr. Oz need to promote are not just "superfoods" but an overall healthy lifestyle, including foods from all of the food groups. Just for fun, here is the new MyPlate icon, that I love so much.
PS For the few of you that read this, thanks for letting me vent.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
My dietetic internship: WIC Edition
If I haven't blogged in the past few weeks it is because I have been so busy as a dietetic intern!
I put on my name badge and picked out an outfit from my new professional wardrobe and was off! (If anyone is wondering, my name-tag says USU on it because the internship is through them, but a distance one-so here in AZ. )
I have been at WIC and loving every minute of it. So far I have been to staff meetings, a professional seminar, observed countless counseling sessions, done quite a few counseling sessions myself, taught group classes about nutrition and the WIC food packages, and done anthropometrics (in non-dietetic speak that means measurements, doing the height and weight of the children who come to WIC). Measuring a screaming 2 year old is not as easy as you think.
I have learned so much from my preceptor and the other dietitians at WIC. I have come to respect them and the passion they have for children, nutrition, breastfeeding, etc. I am amazed at the things I have been fortunate to learn. I know that my counseling skills are 10x better in just the 3 weeks that I have been with Maricopa County WIC, than what they were after BYU. It is amazing what you can learn by doing.
My favorite experience so far is a little 2 1/2 year old girl with cystic fibrosis. She really doesn't have the quality of life most of us are blessed with, but she was so happy and full of life. She was having trouble putting on weight, as do many kids with cystic fibrosis. She came up to me in the counseling session and put her head in my lap. She told me that I was beautiful and she kept trying to touch my earrings. It made my week.
I would love to work at WIC someday!
I put on my name badge and picked out an outfit from my new professional wardrobe and was off! (If anyone is wondering, my name-tag says USU on it because the internship is through them, but a distance one-so here in AZ. )
I have been at WIC and loving every minute of it. So far I have been to staff meetings, a professional seminar, observed countless counseling sessions, done quite a few counseling sessions myself, taught group classes about nutrition and the WIC food packages, and done anthropometrics (in non-dietetic speak that means measurements, doing the height and weight of the children who come to WIC). Measuring a screaming 2 year old is not as easy as you think.
I have learned so much from my preceptor and the other dietitians at WIC. I have come to respect them and the passion they have for children, nutrition, breastfeeding, etc. I am amazed at the things I have been fortunate to learn. I know that my counseling skills are 10x better in just the 3 weeks that I have been with Maricopa County WIC, than what they were after BYU. It is amazing what you can learn by doing.
My favorite experience so far is a little 2 1/2 year old girl with cystic fibrosis. She really doesn't have the quality of life most of us are blessed with, but she was so happy and full of life. She was having trouble putting on weight, as do many kids with cystic fibrosis. She came up to me in the counseling session and put her head in my lap. She told me that I was beautiful and she kept trying to touch my earrings. It made my week.
I would love to work at WIC someday!
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