Meet Ellie Cheale:
Ellie hales from the United Kingdom where she qualified as a clinical dietitian through the Plymouth University. To learn more about her and our team please head on over to our team page here.
What is a dietitian?
Choosing the correct person to seek advice on your diet can sometimes be a confusing task. If you are seeking a nutrition professional of the highest standard, we recommended seeing a registered dietitian (RD).
Registered Dietitians (RDs) are the only qualified health professionals that assess, diagnose and treat nutritional problems at an individual level. They can work with healthy people and individuals with health conditions. Uniquely, dietitians use the most up to date scientific evidence on food, health and disease, which they implement into their practice to enable people to make appropriate lifestyle and food choices.
Dietitian or Nutritionist?
Many people claim to be experts in nutrition yet have very limited knowledge or experience in the area. A registered dietitian is a nutrition professional that is regulated by law and governed by an ethical code to ensure they are working to the highest standard. In many countries such as the UK, USA, Canada and Australia, only those registered with a statutory regulator, such as the Health Care Professions Council (UK), or equivalent, can use the title Dietitian/Registered Dietitian. In contrast, anyone can call themselves a ‘nutritionist’.
Why does this matter?
In many countries, ‘Nutritionists’ are not required to be registered in order to work. Therefore, a nutritionist that is not registered with a governing body, may not have met recognised standards to provide nutritional advice.
On the contrary, Dietitians must have a degree in Dietetics and be registered with a governing body. A dietetics degree is specifically engineered to include all key fundamentals of science, physiology and nutrition to the highest-standard.
Additionally, only those with a recognised professional qualification can be a member of the Singapore Nutrition and Dietetics Association (SNDA).