You are what you eat. We've all heard this saying. In fact, eating well helps to reduce the risk of physical health problems like heart disease and diabetes. If you want to be one of the key drivers in improving the health of others, a good way to do that would be to become a nutrition educator.
Nutrition educators promote health by teaching nutrition techniques and designing nutrition education programs. They work in a variety of settings, including colleges, corporations, hospitals, long-term care facilities, outpatient clinics, and community centers. To do their jobs, these educators need to have a thorough understanding of human nutrition, physiology, and metabolism, along with public health.
As a nutrition educator, you'll have a chance to implement and market nutrition education programs and services, assess family and patient nutritional needs, and work one-on-one and in group settings to educate at-risk patients about nutrition.
If you're interested in becoming a nutrition educator, you'll need to obtain a Bachelor's degree, preferably in nutrition, nutrition science, dietetics, or a related field. Many positions also require a graduate degree, such as a Master of Science in Nutritional Science.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a nutrition educator. For example, did you know that they make an average of $15.95 an hour? That's $33,185 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 11% and produce 155,000 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many nutrition educators have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed critical-thinking skills, writing skills and interpersonal skills.
If you're interested in becoming a nutrition educator, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 73.7% of nutrition educators have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 11.3% of nutrition educators have master's degrees. Even though most nutrition educators have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a nutrition educator. When we researched the most common majors for a nutrition educator, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on nutrition educator resumes include associate degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a nutrition educator. In fact, many nutrition educator jobs require experience in a role such as internship. Meanwhile, many nutrition educators also have previous career experience in roles such as volunteer or research assistant.