Choosing a career is not nearly as serious as it used to be. Go back 40 years or so and the choice of job you made when you left school would set you on a path to a life doing nothing but that. This is why parents tend to be in long term professions and they get a bit anxious when their children are happy to flit between jobs, building a more varied career portfolio.

If you want to lower your parents blood pressure, or you want to find a career that offers a good solid future as well as being well paid and interesting, a career as a dietician may be perfect for you.

Here’s why:

Interesting Job
A dietician (or nutritionist’s) job basically consists of managing and planning nutrition programs. They need to know a great deal about nutrition obviously, which should ideally be gained by completing a degree in nutrition, dietetics or food service management. You would learn about elements of chemistry, biology, physiology and even psychology as part of these courses and some economics.

In addition to these skills dieticians also need to be good at dealing with people sensitively as they have to be able to help and give advice to potentially vulnerable people as they deal with all types of eating issues, and at a service level to wider groups such as in a school or factory.

Secure Position
The reason why this job is considered secure is because it is statistically a growth industry. People are ever more interested in their diet and companies are always looking for a way to make sure they are providing something they can market as healthy because of it, so both individuals and companies will look to hire you.

The NHS is also a big employer of dieticians. They are set to hire a load more over the next few decades as the aging population brings more older people to the wards who often require specialised diets that require a dietician to plan and manage.

Normal Day
So what can you expect to do all day? You may work in a nursing home, where you would assess new patient’s diet, work out what they need to help them and then implement their new menu and eating schedule. You would also sit in meetings with doctors and other staff to discuss particular patient’s progress and needs to arrive at a rounded plan of action that will help the patient. This would normally be done within normal working hours of 9-5 depending on the institution.

Sound like a job for you?

Allan Bat is a dietician. He thinks dietician jobs are one of the best roles in the NHS. He Found his through a locum agency in London. This article was written by a guest author. Would you like to, submit a guest blog post?