Future dietitian diversity guide
Support diversity in your future profession, educate yourself, and improve the inequality in nutrition.
While you might feel paralyzed by the just how big the problem of racial injustice and inequality is, and feel like your actions wouldn’t matter (FYI they do!), you can start with the dietetics profession and know that your efforts will contribute to the bigger cause.
Also, as you are learning now, nutrition is very much involved in the issues of inequality and injustice, as it is woven into our culture and political system. The more awareness you have and the more action you take to fix these issues, the more equipped you are to be a leader and help create a better profession, and world.
Here are the resources and actions you can take as a future dietitian to support diversity in your future profession, educate yourself, and improve the inequality in nutrition.
Thank you to the All Access Dietetics community for contributing to this guide.
PODCASTS TO TUNE INTO
ORGANIZATIONS TO SUPPORT
FACEBOOK GROUPS TO JOIN
CONTENT TO CONSUME
5 Tips for Anti-Racism in Dietetics by Aja Gyimah, MHSC, RD
Culture, Equity, Diversity, and Race in Dietetics (CEDAR)
Is American Dietetics a White-Bread World? These Dietitians Think So
“Fearing the Black Body” by Sabrina Strings
How to Talk about Race: Eric Deggans at TEDxBloomington
FNCE 2019 Session Recording Combatting Unconscious Bias and Preventing Microaggressions: A Professional Duty (Free for Academy Members)
ACTIONS TO ENACT POLICY CHANGE
Vote in your local and state elections. Visit vote.gov to learn more and make sure you are registered to vote.
ACTIONS TO TAKE
EXPAND YOUR EDUCATION
- Ask your DPD or Dietetic Internship faculty for cultural competency training, or more in-depth training if it already exists.
- Check your assumptions of what's healthy from a cultural foods perspective.
- Understand the importance of community nutrition. Get experience in food banks, WIC, or other programs that work with underserved populations.
- Demand anti-racism education materials, not just cultural competency training.
- Invite black dietitians and nutritionists to speak at you nutrition club events.
- Explore the concept of diet culture and its roots in racism.
DIVERSIFY YOUR EXPERIENCES
- Work with local organizations to volunteer and provide nutrition resources to those that don’t have adequate access to this education.
- Get involved in your local food bank and help fight food insecurity.
- Consider starting a hunger organization on campus. Our non-profit, All Access Food, has resources to help you do this.
- Volunteer to do a talk at a high school or middle school where you can educate minority populations about what a dietitian is and how to become one.
SUPPORT YOUR CLASSMATES
- Try listening and believing your black and brown students and colleagues when they call out racism and microaggressions. Resist the urge to make excuses in an effort to avoid feeling discomfort.
- Offer peer mentoring to black student nutritionists.
- Actively seek ways to support future dietitians of color, such as sharing resources in your student club, recruiting them for leadership positions, asking for their perspective, and increasing awareness of groups such as Diversify Dietetics and the Academy's NOBIDAN member interest group to join.
- Share meals with your fellow classmates at different ethnic restaurants. Learn about the cultural foods outside of what textbooks might cover.
- Identify scholarships and provide financial assistance resources for dietetics programs.
SOCIAL MEDIA THINGS TO DO
- Promote Black social media accounts.
- Follow Black-owned businesses.
- Diversify your feed with Black dietitians.
- Go to @allaccessdietetics highlight "Diverse RDs" to follow the list
SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES TO SHARE
Have more ideas to add to this page? Email jenny@allaccessdietetics.com.
