The making of a nutrition professional: the Association for Nutrition register

Abstract

Objective: Nutritionists in the UK are at the start of an exciting time of professional development. The establishment of the Association for Nutrition in 2010 has presented an opportunity to review, revitalize and expand the UK Voluntary Register of Nutritionists. In the UK and elsewhere, there is a need for a specialist register of nutritionists with title protection as a public safeguard. Design: The new structure will base professional registration on demonstration of knowledge and application in five core competencies. Initially, there will be five specialist areas: animal; public health; nutritional scientist; food; sports and exercise. The wording and requirements linking the specialist areas to the competencies have been carefully defined by leading individuals currently on the existing register in these specialist areas. These have been evaluated by a random sample of existing registrants to check for accuracy of definitions and examples. Other work aims to establish a clear quality assurance framework in nutrition for workers in the health and social care sectors (UK Public Health Skills and Career Framework Levels 1-4) who contribute to nutrition activity, such as community food workers, nutrition assistants and pharmacists. Students, co-professional affiliates and senior fellows will also find a place in the new Association. The title 'nutritionist' is not currently legally protected in the UK and it is used freely to cover a range of unregulated practice. Conclusions: The establishment of a professional register to protect the public and to provide a clear identity for nutritionists is a vital step forward.

Building systemic capacity for nutrition: training towards a professionalised workforce for Africa

“…It has a set of standards for registration as a nutritionist and for the accreditation of courses. The course accreditation criteria cover core knowledge and skills for courses and the registration criteria cover core knowledge, skills and competencies for practicing nutritionists ( 21 ) . An important component of the latter is that it includes information on institutional quality assurance processes, staffing capacity and facilities ( 20 , 22 ) .…”

Undergraduate UK nutrition education might not adequately address weight management

“…Relevant competencies: CC3c, CC3e, CC3f The participants (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8) suggested that organising and structuring their lives was important to ensure adherence (nine references) and that when that structure was challenged, adherence became difficult. A lack of structure, organisation and time management led to previous failures for some:…”

“…Some participants revealed that stressful life events led to binge eating in the absence of sufficient coping mechanisms and comfort eating was problem for some. Social situations were revealed unanimously to threaten consistency (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8) and the following examples were described as coping mechanisms for such occasions: driving instead of drinking, limiting food choices, flexible restraint and increasing exercise:…”

“…To become registered in the UK, nutritionists must register with the UK Voluntary Register of Nutritionists, which is regulated by the Association for Nutrition (AfN) (3) . The AfN also accredits undergraduate Nutrition degrees, which must adhere to strict professional and ethical standards, and provide evidence that the AfN's score competency criteria for undergraduate degree courses have been embedded into the curriculum (3,4) .These competencies were established to define the areas of knowledge and expertise of UK nutritionists (2) ; reflect an international drive to develop standards for practice and workforce development (5) ; and were developed from research highlighting the breadth of knowledge required by professionals and that the role should be defined in terms of specialist proficiencies (2) . The first of the competencies is 'Science', which contains seventeen sub-competencies (CC1a-CC1q) that describe the scientific basis of nutrition and nutritional requirements.…”

A robust and knowledgeable workforce is essential for public health nutrition policy implementation

“…We have included two more workforce development papers in this issue. The first one, by Janet Cade and colleagues, looks at the British Register of Nutritionists, which is one of the very few systematic attempts to register nutritionists, and in this case includes public health nutritionists ( 7 ) . The paper by Kandelwal and co-workers maps nutrition teaching and training initiatives in India, indicating the gap in public health nutrition training ( 8 ) .…”