With an increasing focus of food, nutrition, health and exercise in today’s society, there runs the risk of misinformation being provided. It seems that every second person wants to get on board within the health and fitness industry, often coming in blindly, passing on second hand nutrition information with no evidence to back it. With that in mind, it becomes hard for the general public to understand who has the authority to give them quality information when it comes to food, nutrition and general well-being, let alone specific to their activity, disease or health state.
If you have a question about anything, what’s the first place you turn to? For the majority of people, it’s Google. Yes, Google will have an answer. Deep down in the ‘interwebs’, you will more than likely find an accurate, high-quality answer, but more often than not you will come across incomplete, misleading or inaccurate information. The moral of the story is that anyone can publish anything.
It’s important to ask yourself when reading or receiving nutritional information "is this person qualified to speak about nutrition?" Should you believe an article on a website that tells you to eat 10 bananas each day to lose weight, or a trainer at the gym pushing a high-protein diet, or a salesperson in a health store suggesting a supplement for a "newly discovered herb" that you’ve never heard of before? Do they have a solid education behind them to make them qualified to make such suggestions? TV reports are often no different. Have you noticed that when a nutritional message is plugged on TV, it’s often presented by celebrities, fitness experts, food editors, psychologists, chefs, pharmacists… literally anyone except an accredited Dietitian or Registered Nutritionist?
In a society where all kinds of information are readily available to everyone and some people are just looking to pass on sub-standard advice to make a quick buck, it’s hard to know who to turn to for proper nutritional guidance.
Dietitians truly are the experts when it comes to nutrition. With at least 4 years of university education behind them, including 6 months of practical hands-on experience, they have the complete knowledge and understanding of how to apply nutrition information to a wide variety of people and a range of medical conditions to improve health. In the hospital setting, the knowledge a dietitian has is second to only that of doctors when it comes to the human body. Even then, doctors aren’t considered a great source of current accurate information regarding nutrition; their medical degree only skims the top of what dietitian’s know about nutrition. As a Dietitian, you have to understand:
With three years of university study behind me, nearing the completion of my Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics degree with only research and practical experience to go, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve got a greater understanding and appreciation for how nutrition influences health, fitness and wellbeing than Joe Blogs down at the gym, or Jane Doe with her super smoothies blog, trying to sell you advice that they’ve read in this week’s gossip mag. There’s a reason that Ben doesn’t give much advice to clients regarding nutritional advice. Yes, as a personal and fitness trainer, he does have a basic background in nutritional knowledge. He is a competitive bugger and likes to think that he knows everything, but he knows when to wave the white flag and concede defeat. He doesn’t want to give half-arsed information that anyone could have found with a quick and easy google search. Ben left his 60-hour week job selling cars so that, together, we can focus on giving clients and people of the Sunshine Coast the best opportunity to live a healthy and happy life. With the combination of his expertise in fitness – and I must admit, even when I listen to him speak to clients, and the passion in which he does so, he is an expert - and my extensive knowledge of nutrition, you can "Get so fit and be so fit, with AmSo Fit & Healthy".
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