Can anyone call themselves a nutritionist?

Can anyone call themselves a nutritionist? In New South Wales and in Australia, yes, they can. They can call themselves a nutritionist. This makes things a bit harder to assess what the person that you're looking at is qualified to comment on. And if they have the knowledge and understanding to provide you a valuable service in return for what you're paying for. It's not a protected title, but in New South Wales you're covered by the non-registered practitioner code of conduct that I'm bound to and indeed other non-registered practitioners are bound to. So let's unpack that a little bit. It's very different from one person to the other, with different levels of education, training, and accountability. I encourage people to not focus on the title but look at the qualifications, the accreditations, and the professional standards of the person sitting behind that title.

A clinical nutritionist that I am is trained to assess the relationship between not only nutrition, lifestyle, symptoms, and health conditions. Rather than focusing on single foods or a supplement here or there, we'll hit the big picture and how that fits into the health and circumstances and the goals for the person in front of us. So many times I hear on social media a supplement stack. Or you should do this. That's not qualified advice; it's general advice. And we're all very different. So the aim is to provide practical, evidence-informed nutrition. That can be applied in real life. If you're looking for nutritional support, you should be asking some questions. What qualifications does the practitioner hold? Are they recorded by a professional body? What is that, Bonnie? Do they undertake professional development?

Are professional standards and ethical requirements in place that they must follow? Who are they accountable to? In my view, those questions are often more important than the title itself. Being a Certified Practicing Nutritionist (CPN), I'm accredited through AARPN and bound by their professional standards and code of ethics and also continuing professional development requirements that I enjoy. So there's a lot of focus on titles and accountability and standards, but consumer protections are also important in that conversation. Are all dietitians nutritionists and nutritionist dietitians? That's one that comes up often. Very different pathways. So.

I've put together a graphic (in the embedded video) that attempts to tell you what those differences are and what the commonalities are. Dietitians train typically in a health setting such as a hospital or other medical facility. In clinical nutrition, we train at university-led clinics, not in a medical environment. Dietitians are trained on medical conditions that involve doctors, such as eating disorders, chronic kidney disease, or in intestinal feeding via tube or supplements. So for you it's important that you are seeking a practitioner with appropriate training, accountability, and expertise for what you're seeking help with as anyone can call themselves a nutritionist. But the better questions are does the practitioner have qualifications, accreditations and professional standards that's appropriate to your needs. Because it's not ultimately about the title. It's about the training, the accountability, and the care that you're looking across from and whether that person can understand what's impacting you and do something about supporting them.