Scope of the Nutrition

     After passing twelfth class, a course in nutrition and dietetics can offer an exciting career opportunity. A degree in Home Science or Hotel Management would take to higher levels of knowledge regarding nutrition and dietetics.

    Conventionally, in India, it is the women who venture into this domain. However, due to ample opportunities these days, men are also pursuing a career in this field.

    If he or she  have an inborn interest in cooking and exploring various cuisines from different countries, nutrition and dietetics is one subject which will help him or her to explore how to design controlled diets. Based on the body mass index, one can design  own food charts and  summarize the quantity of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins which must be consumed everyday.

   For a career, initially, this may be a low paying job. But once you have picked up and gained experience, there is a lot of scope and you may earn quite well and travel abroad as well.

Step-by-Step

Typically, the objective of a course in nutrition and dietetics is:

•   To identify nutrition and dietary problems in segments of populations.
•   To devise socially, economically and technologically viable methods to control nutrition and dietary problems in the country.
•   To devise newer management and administration techniques to monitor nutrition and dietetics.
•   To encourage research on nutrition and develop future scientists for the country.
•   To advise governments and health bodies on issues related with nutrition.

Job Prospect

As a career, hotels, cruise lines, hospitals, nursing homes and government health departments recruit nutrition and dietetics professionals for a good salary. If you join a shipping company such as Shell, Maersk or their subsidiary companies that run tourist ships along with logistics and oil et al., you would get the opportunity to travel to several countries situated along the shorelines.

Pay Packet

A fresher who has completed a course in Nutrition and Dietetics may draw anywhere between Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 20,000 in a standard hospital or nursing home of repute. Several sports organizations, companies and factories hire these professionals for designing a healthy menu for their cafeteria. Spas and clinics hire dieticians to use them for designing healthy, low-calorie monthly food charts for their customers. When combined with a degree in hotel management, the salary levels could be between Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000.

Demand and Supply

The demand for nutritionists has greatly increased over the past few years due to increased awareness amongst people to stay healthy and avoid high calorie unplanned diets leading to obesity, hypertension and other food related diseases! The supply therefore is low when compared with the demand.

Mainly due to low initial salaries, only women prefer to join a course in nutrition and dietetics in order to keep their work routines untiring and less busy. However, there are leading nutritionists and doctors in the country who have appeared often on TV channels and joined leading companies to design their food charts as well.