April 26, 2012

Dr. Holben talked to us today about the Board of Dietetics since our original speaker got lost on her way to Athens.  The Ohio Board of Dietetics protects and regulates the practice of dietetics in Ohio.  The Board regulates nutrition and dietetics practice to protect the public from harmful, incompetent, or negligent nutritional practices. The funding source of this program is obtained by license fees. The mission of the Ohio Board of dietetics is to effectively protect the public by regulating the practice of dietetics through licensure, and by fairly and consistently enforcing the laws and rules governing nutritional practices. The role of the clinical dietitian is that the executive director has to be an RD. This agency will affect my dietetics practice and future career by protecting the public through dietitians obtaining their license before practice and by enforcing laws. I would not be interested in doing this type of work.

April 24, 2012

Francie Astrom who a registered dietitian at WellWorks was our guest speaker in class today. WellWorks is an Ohio University wellness program that was formed by merging together two similar programs. The funding source of this program is by university wellness funds and is also supported by membership fees and fees for services like massage, nutrition counseling, and personal training. The purpose of this program is to provide a wide variety of programming, be wellness focused for clients to achieve optimal health, improve health status through health risk appraisals like Healthy Ohio, and provide risk reductions to find out health risks and how to reduce them. WellWorks mission is "to be the highest quality wellness program for our customers and to combine academic and experiential learning for our students".

The types of services and programs WellWorks offers are a fitness center, massage, personal training, wellness coaching, worksite wellness, blood pressure screening, cholesterol screening, and HeartWorks. Any OU faculty or staff, OU retirees, corporate members, full time graduate students, and medical students can join WellWorks. Community members can join, but at a higher cost. The RD is integral to success of the wellness program to provide up to date nutrition information, review and interpret current literature, and act as a change agent to clients. Nutrition services provide nutrition education/counseling and counseling for disordered eating.

This program will positively affect RD's in the Athens community; it will not particularly affect my future career since I am not planning on staying in Athens once I graduate. There are many beneficial services and programs provided through WellWorks to improve the health of their clients. If there was a program similar to WellWorks where ever I may be in the future I would be interested in doing this type of work because it is a great program and really positively affects people's lives.

April 19, 2012

Today everyone in class discussed and informed us on their agency. First off, I had no idea that this many agencies even existed and can't imagine how many more there are. I enjoyed listening about what each agency is about and their missions. It is very comforting to know how generous our country can be to help others and decrease hunger in America. In the future I hope these agencies are still available to our society and provide even better assistance than they do now to end hunger.

April 17, 2012

Nick Claussen the Community Relations Coordinator at Jobs and Family Services came to our class to speak about the food assistance program, nationally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), in Athens County. SNAP is a government program that is sponsored by the USDA. This program is intended to provide food assistance among low-income households to promote their health and well-being. The program planning, monitoring, and evaluation is conducted by the state government through reports. Nick also stated that there is not a nutrition professional in the program.

I found it disappointing to hear that there was no nutrition professional in this program, especially since RD's can help make such a difference in the nutrition of people receiving these benefits. If this program began hiring nutrition professional, I can't see myself being interested in that type of work since I already have an idea of where I want my career path to go.

April 10, 2012

Today we began a lecture and discussion about health and nutrition policy. In this lecture we learned that national nutrition policies are how nutritional needs will be met and how certain issues will be addressed in American citizens through the use of guidelines. National nutrition policy's are clearly shown in food assistance programs, national nutrition and health objectives, FDA, dietary guidance systems like My Plate, etc.. The policy cycle figure is a good representation of how policy making occurs by making decisions to address a problem through the cycle's 6 stages. These policies are channeled by the outcomes of surveys; then the information is nutritionally assessed, monitored, observed, and screened. Survey information can be obtained from many sources of the NNMRRP, National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Program, but the major survey used is the NHANES, which stands for National Health on Nutrition Examination Survey.

April 5, 2012

Today in class we met with our groups to discuss what we wanted to plant in our garden. We still need to do more research on our group and what we will be able to grow in our garden. Dr. Holben also went over a food security power point and we learned what the definition of food security is and is not and how food security is measured with the 18 item set of indicators.

Community Garden. April 3, 2012

Today our class went to the community garden for the first time. Megan took us on a tour around the garden and ended in showing the plot we will be using. The first thing I thought was this will not be fun because it was just weeds and I had no idea how to garden, but after talking to my group I realized it will be fun and a great experience to be able to grow produce for the population we are interested in.

Community Nutrition Class

I think community nutrition is about food and nutrition choices among communities of people around the world and the study of those choices and how they differ from others. Community nutrition is also about interventions, for example nutrition education. What I hope to learn in this class are the major health problems and concerns among communities in the United States and the impact it creates on themselves, their families and their community. I also hope to learn about factors that influence community nutrition and in turn how dieticians can influence the community based on interventions they develop.