What does a Dietitian do?
Planning, implementing, and overseeing food and nutrition programs are the top responsibilities of a Dietitian, whether they’re creating plans for private individuals or the wider community. To best support their clients, Dietitians get to know their dietary requirements and create individually tailored plans and programs with optimal health in mind. Dietitians provide nutrition guidance, label interpretation, and consultation services to health professionals, individuals, the government, community groups, and the media by translating the science of nutrition into terms everyone can understand.
Dietitian skills and qualifications
Successful dietitians balance nutritional expertise and excellent people skills with the ability to teach and educate their clients. Top skills for dietitians include:
- Strong analytical skills to examine and diagnose inadequate nutrition, and applying those same analytical abilities in their research and investigation of scientific nutritional studies
- Good communication skills are imperative to success, as Dietitians need to be confident explaining scientific, nutrition-related information to people in a simple and effective way
- Great evaluation skills to assess the outcomes of nutrition plans, and being flexible enough to adjust programs where necessary
- Teaching, coaching, and training competencies are important in a Dietitian role, as a great deal of time is spent sharing dietary advice with others
- Dietitians are typically compassionate in their approach to supporting and counselling clients
Dietitian experience requirements
For most jobs, Dietitian candidates will need some experience in a Dietitian role to succeed. However, candidates with experience in nutrition support or sports nutrition roles may also be adequate. For entry-level Dietitian positions, candidates should be able to demonstrate practical experience from internships or supervised work roles.
Dietitian education and training requirements
Dietitian candidates will need to have a minimum of a bachelor’s degree in nutrition or a related field (such as food and nutritional science). Candidates with a master’s degree in one of those topics are ideal. Following graduation, Dietitian candidates will need to have registered with their province’s regulatory body. For some roles, you may require candidates to have a membership with the national association, the Dietitians of Canada.
Dietitian salary expectations
According to Indeed Salaries, the average salary for a Dietitian in Canada is $57,484 per year. This may vary depending on experience, company and location.
Job description samples for similar positions
If a Dietitian job description is not quite what you’re looking for, see samples for similar positions including: