Introduction

I'm currently in my 4th year in the Nutrition major program with a goal of becoming a Registered Dietitian (RD). Dietitians are nutrition professionals that are registered under a provincial regulatory board. Dietitians can work in a variety of settings including but not limited to clinical, private practice, food service management and policy development. To learn more about the role of a dietitian or how to become a dietitian check out the Dietitians of Canada website.

Communication plays a very important role in nutrition and nutrition education. Nutrition information can be found every from the news, commercials on the radio and TV, magazines, from friends and family, and from health care practitioners to name a few. A major problem today is mixed messaging. The classic example is butter vs. margarine.

Image from http://blogs.canoe.ca/healthierhappierwiser/health/guest-blogger-butter-vs-margarine/

It seems like one day people are told that butter is better than margarine and the next they are being told the opposite. This leads to people not listening to nutrition information and just choosing whatever they like best. Furthermore anyone can give nutrition information and when people are receiving it they need to decide whether it is coming form a credible source or not. 

A possible was to combat these 2 issues are health care professionals using social media to deliver consistent messaging. Since social media is so popular it has the potential to deliver reliable information from a credible to source to a large amount of the population. Currently there are quite a few blogs written by RD's about health and nutrition. Take a look at a few: A Girl and Her Carrot, A Bite of Wellness Wisdom, Healthy and Happy Hour. 

Looking forward to a fun semester of blogging! Check you another nutrition students blog here!