NDA Meeting Minutes – Monday, May 15th
NDA Announcements:
I. American Dietetic Association (ADA) Membership
- membership dues will be due May 31st for next year
- Jason encourages YOU to become a member – you get the Journal of the ADA,
their newsletter & it looks good on your resume/DI application
II. Congrats to New NDA Officers
President: Valerie Francisco
VP: Sharon Martin
Secretary: Norae Ferrara
Treasurer: Jaime Sims
Publicity: Angela Chan and Kelly Charboneau
III. This is the last official NDA meeting of the year
Guest Speaker: Dr. Liz Applegate from UC Davis Nutrition Dept.
Topic: Paths to a Career in Sports Nutrition
Three Main Paths to a Career in Sports Nutrition:
I. Academic – University/Community College – PhD, RD or MS, RD (jr.
college)
- this is where most sports nutritionists can be found
- main responsibility: teaching in university
- take initiative toward working with intercollegiate sports teams
- Kris Clark is a well-known sports nutritionist whose mainly works with
college sports teams
- in this setting, may do nutrition counseling & body composition, work with
athletes with eating disorders
- become an American College of Sports Medicine member
- Dr. Applegate has no RD, but an RD is more important for this position now
- PhD could be in Nutrition, Nutrition Science, Exercise Physiology
- this is the route she thinks is best – it allows you to build a
credibility base, which is very important
II. Private Practice – Athletic client/patient base – MS, RD or BS, RD
- most people don’t start out just dealing with athletes
- usually work in hospital or cardiac rehab first
- accreditation with American College of Sports Medicine is needed
- you may encounter the problem that people assume you will give free advice
- Nancy Clark is a well-known private practice sports nutritionist
- this is a career that you create, there’s no job description
III. Entrepreneurial Dietitian/Nutritionist – start a “company”
- usually have prior experience in private practice
- Susan Klimer, PhD, RD is a well-known entrepreneurial nutritionist
- she wrote Power Eating and other books, writes for magazines, does
consulting
- must watch your credibility base – don’t affiliate yourself with
questionable organizations/products
What Dr. Applegate Does:
- graduated in ‘74 from UC Davis with BS in Biochemistry
- married soon after graduating (she met him in Nutrition 10! :-)
- decided to get a PhD in Nutrition
- became involved with track n’ field at UCD, did triathalons
- worked in human performance lab and cardiac rehab lab
- in grad school, Dr. Stern helped her learn how to write nutrition articles
- wrote for Triathalon Magazine
- has been writing a nutrition column for Runner’s World for more than 13
years – it feels like writing a term paper every month
- in writing, she ties research in with practical tips
- she researches scientific journals and also checks out women’s magazines
to write articles that communicate nutrition to general public
- she has written for other magazines when approached, ex. Woman’s Day &
Redbok
- started teaching Nutrition 10 at UC Davis (she still teaches this class)
- Runner’s World asked her to write a book: “Power Foods”
- she’s also written “High-Performance Nutrition for High-Performance
People”
- after her 1st book, she started doing consulting and media work
- started as a spokesperson for Ironkids Bread’s health and fitness program
- it’s important to be careful who you associate yourself with
- she’s now a spokesperson for Sunkist oranges, talking about health
benefits of fruits/veggies and phytochemicals for them
- also spokesperson for National Honey Board, talks about eating a variety
of foods and eating whole foods
- it is hard to walk the line between promoting nutrition and healthy eating
habits for a company and actually pushing their product
- she has started doing online nutrition writing and consulting work: she
writes 4-5 articles a month for onhealth.com
- she has written “Eat Your Way to a Healthy Heart”
- she’s working on “Eat Right for Your Fitness Type”
- everyday she exercises, sometimes twice; she swims (3000-4000 yards/day),
cycles, runs and does strength training
- she has two grants now and is doing research on chocolate
Dr. Applegate’s Advice:
- start a filing system of nutrition info you come across
- when people ask you questions about nutrition & you don’t know the answer,
it’s an opportunity to grow & learn
- if you ever have an opportunity to give a talk, do it
- you don’t have to be a super-athlete to be a sports nutritionist – but you
do need to know the concerns of specific sports groups and keep yourself in
decent shape
- make sure you get enough hard science in your background to be credible
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