Nutrition career opportunities vary, but all of the careers relate to creating meals, diet plans and food choices that are healthy for the patients or clients that the nutrition professionals are working to help. Some of the nutrition career opportunities include dieticians, nutritionists, dietetic technicians, food service managers and health educators.
One of the primary nutrition career opportunities is a dietician. Dieticians can work in a variety of work environments and organizations. Some types of businesses that employ dieticians include hospitals, schools and nursing homes. Dieticians work with hospital patients, kids in schools and nursing home residents to educate them on how to eat healthy. Dieticians may even come up with a specific meal plan for the individual to follow, especially in situations where the individual needs to control his diet for health reasons, such as diabetes or obesity.
Nutritionists tend to create nutrition programs for various institutions; institutions that are the same as a dietician. A nutritionist may also work with people on an individual basis. For example, a client may hire a nutritionist to come to her home once a week and plan out the weekly meal schedule. Some nutritionists make the meals for the clients, while other nutritionist simply provide the meal plan and the recipes.
Often those involved in nutrition career opportunities do not work alone. These professionals may work in conjunction with other health experts, including doctors, fitness instructors and personal trainers.
Another one of the nutrition opportunities available is dietetic technicians. Essentially, dietetic technicians are assistants to dieticians or nutritionists. These professionals perform the same duties as nutritionists and dieticians, but it is under the supervision of the dieticians or nutritionists. Often, these types of nutrition career opportunities is an entry-level position so that the individual can gain hands-on experience so they can move up the career ladder into a dietician or nutritionist role.
Food service managers also fall under the category of nutrition career opportunities. Food service managers typically work for restaurants, but may also be responsible for managing food service areas such as hospital or school cafeteria. Food service managers ensure that nutritional laws and regulations for the food they are serving are met and kept up.
Food service managers, especially in hospitals and school cafeterias, may work with the nutritionists and dieticians to prepare special meals for patients or students that have special dietary needs.