As long as I remember, I always wanted to be a doctor.  As a child when asked “What do you want be when your grow up ?” I instantly said “Doctor” . When playing with my siblings, I always remember role playing as a doctor. I also excelled in biology in high school and had good PCB score to think of being a doctor as my career. To become a doctor, I needed to clear a medical entrance test and for that I would need to move to Bombay in my summer vacation and take classes which was a deterrent for various reasons. Also, as much as my parents supported me in academics and extracurricular activities the focus was never for me to have a career and given the long path to becoming a doctor, my mom suggested me to look into becoming a dietitian instead. It looked appealing to me since I would still study human biology/physiology but instead of recommending medications , I would provide diet recommendations. I was foodie and loved food, helping mom cook or study the nutritional benefits of foods etc. So, it sounded quite appealing to me. I then decided to go to SNDT university Bombay known for good nutrition school. I enjoyed my coursework, then found a job as a bariatric dietitian with a leading surgeon in Mumbai, I was doing quite well professionally. I then met sagar, and to be with him had to move to the US. Since I was successful in this field, and have always wanted to study in the US, I decided to pursue Master’s again in SJSU, California. I enjoyed the course work even more and had a better understanding of my field. It was very exciting to be working again in the US . Like every other job, this job as its pros and cons too which I will list below

 

Pros:

• Through understanding of nutrient needs across different lifespans
• The ability to simplify complex nutrition content
• The ability to sift media created nutrition jargon from actual nutritional facts
• Able to help myself and my family with nutrition. My husband still thanks me for looking the same as he did 10 yrs ago when we met in Jan 2009.
• Helps be aware of food choices and avoid empty calories ( doesn’t mean my diet is perfect, I still indulge in Haldiram snacks, chips and other favorite foods from time to time and I also give into my cravings like any other human being.
• Helping people achieve their health goals such as weight loss, blood sugars control etc. A career that can make a difference to people’s life
• Fixed hours at work, never have to work overtime
• Ever since I became a outpatient dietitian, I get weekends off, all major holidays off which is a big plus in my opinion and this isn’t the case being a inpatient dieitian
• You know you schedule ahead of time so you can plan accordingly.

Cons:

• Being a dietitian, there is a constant pressure to eat per nutrition content of the food as people are always watching what you eat at social gatherings. They also have misconception that because I am a dietitian I don’t eat fried foods, oily foods, carb rich foods but guess what , I love all these foods. Sadly, people also judge you if you have a different body type than what is expected of a dietitian. But the truth is, like every human dietitian come in all shapes and sizes and body diversity needs to be accepted
• I find helping people change their diets is harder than helping them change their religions, the change doesn’t happen overnight and because we eat for different reasons ranging from nourishment, pleasure, comfort, social gatherings, convenience, availability and in today’s image / fitness obsessed world, this concept if difficult to understand my most people
• Ever changing nutritional information, personal nutrition opinions people have, nutrition quacks, personal trainers giving advice about diet, whatsapp forwards, facebook memes, people who have successfully lost weight giving advice about diet and nutrition to other people,  fad diets, diet trends, unscientific health claims creates a lot of confusion in this field and that makes it challenging to change people’s belief
• Depending on the management of the organization, the job can be inflexible due to inability to work from home/remotely, makes last minute time off difficult as people take time off to come see you so rain or shine you have to be there except sick leave
• Unrealistic societal standards about which body type is considered healthy vs unhealthy
• Constantly talking to people all day every hour of your work and counseling them

 

I will keep revising this post as when I can think of more things to include or change as I am evolving