Nutrition Titles

Nutrition Titles

A number of different titles are used to describe professionals working in the field of nutrition.

Nutritional Therapists

Nutritional Therapists must meet the National Occupational Standards for Nutritional Therapy and are presently coming under regulation by the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC). Nutritional therapy encompasses the use of carefully compiled individual prescriptions for diet and lifestyle in order to alleviate or prevent ailments and promote optimal health. These recommendations may include guidance on natural detoxification, procedures to promote colon health, methods to support digestion and absorption, the avoidance of ingestion or inhalation of toxins or allergens and the appropriate use of supplementary nutrients.

Nutritional therapists often work with patients, many of whom have been referred by medical practitioners, who have chronic health problems that conventional medicine finds difficult to treat. These include allergies, digestive and bowel disorders, hormonal imbalances, fatigue, depression or stress, auto-immune conditions, migraine and skin disorders. Increasingly, parents with an overweight child and/or a child with learning and behaviour difficulties seek to support their child with nutritional therapy as opposed to prescription medications.

Dietitians

Dietitians work principally in the National Health Service and are regulated by the Health Professions Council. Their professional body is the British Dietetic Association. A dietitian uses the science of nutrition to devise eating plans for patients to treat medical conditions. They also work to promote good health by helping to facilitate a positive change in food choices amongst individuals, groups and communities.

NB. Only dietitians and nutritional therapists are trained in clinical practice to give one-on-one personal health advice. Both groups must practise with full professional indemnity insurance.

Nutritionists

Registered Nutritionists provide evidence-based information and guidance about the impacts of food and nutrition on the health and wellbeing of humans (at an individual or population level) or animals. Registered Nutritionists have a good understanding of the scientific basis of nutrition and work in a range of settings, including research, education and in policy development.

Applied Nutrition

Nutrition science is defined globally as the study of food systems, foods and drinks, and their nutrients and other constituents; and of their interactions within and between all relevant biological, social and environmental systems.(1) Outside the biological sciences, which are core to practice in nutritional therapy, applied nutritionists have knowledge, skills and understanding which underpin competence in areas which may include inter alia epidemiology, public health practice, food technology and development, food safety, food law, ecological and environmental sustainability, economics, catering, journalism, politics and social science. The National Occupational Standards (NOS) for Nutritional Therapy cover clinical practice only. Practitioners working in applied nutrition have qualifications, training and experience additional to those required to meet the NOS for clinical practice.

(1) http://www.iuns.org/features/05-09%20NNS%20Declaration.pdf

Nutrition Advisor/Dietary Advisor

Other practitioners of complementary therapy may offer general nutrition advice as part of advice on a healthy lifestyle, for weight management or to support another therapy, such as massage therapy. There are many short courses in nutrition advice designed to support other complementary therapies, but they do not meet the National Occupational Standard for nutritional therapy.