lekt. dr.
Martina Paradiž
Unit 1 – YOUR STUDY PROGRAMME
1. In pairs, discuss the following questions.
1. Why did you decide to pursue a degree in Nutritional
Counselling – Dietetics?
2. Take a look at the outline of your study programme at
your faculty’s website (in English) and comment on the topics you find most appealing.
3. Which elective courses are you taking this year?
4. What are some career prospects for the graduates of the Bachelor’s degree programme of Nutritional
Counselling – Dietetics?
2. Read the following text and translate the phrases in bold print into Slovene.
DIETITIANS
Dietitians are autonomous healthcare professionals who assess specific nutritional requirements of populations
or individuals throughout the life span and translate this into advice which will maintain, reduce risk to or
restore people’s health. Using evidence-based approaches dietitians work to empower individuals, families and
groups to provide or select food which is nutritionally adequate, safe, tasty and sustainable. Beyond
healthcare, dietitians improve the nutritional environment for all through governments, industry, academia and
research.
Dietitians are nutrition/diet experts working across all sectors where food and nutrition matter:
working with all age groups, guiding healthy food choices in a preventative role (community health,
active and healthy ageing);
managing acute and chronic illness through modified nutrition;
working with policy-makers on food provision and a healthy diet (health/public health and risk
reduction);
working with food service management and industry: safe, sustainable and nutritious foods.
3. Answer the questions about the text:
1. What are the main responsibilities of dietitians?
2. What kind of approaches/methods do they use in their work?
3. Which population groups and economy sectors do they collaborate with?
4. Match up the words to build collocations, as they were used in the text:
1 to reduce food choices
2 to restore requirements
3 to guide 1 risk
4 to manage nutrition
5 to modify health
6 to assess illness
5. Now transform the verbs into nouns and rewrite the phrases thus:
lekt. dr. Martina Paradiž
1. to reduce risk > risk reduction
6. Read the information given in this box and try to summarise it in simpler terms.
Evidence-based dietetics practice is about asking questions, systematically finding research evidence, and
assessing the validity, applicability and importance of that evidence. This evidence-based information is then
combined with the dietitian's expertise and judgment and the client’s or community’s unique values and
circumstances to guide decision-making in dietetics.
International Federation of Dietetic Associations (2010), [Link]
[Link]
7. Can you find the correct professional title for each description? Choose from the following:
Public Health or Community Dietitian
Diet Expert
Food Service Dietitian
Health-Care Nutritionist
Clinical Dietitian
Within Europe dietitians find themselves practising in three main areas. These are:
__________________________: a dietitian who focuses and works primarily within food service management
with responsibility for providing nutritionally adequate, quality food to individuals or groups in health and
disease in an institution or a community setting.
__________________________: a dietitian who has responsibility for planning, education, supervision and
evaluation of a clinically devised eating plan to restore the client/patient to functional nutritional health. Clinical
dietitians can work in primary care as well as in institutions.
__________________________ : a dietitian directly involved in health promotion and policy formulation that
leads to the promotion of food choice amongst individuals and groups to improve or maintain their nutritional
health and minimize risk from nutritionally derived illness.
Adapted from the European Federation of the Associations of Dietitians – EFAD (2019), [Link]
of-a-dietitian/
8. Which ones were not included and why?
lekt. dr. Martina Paradiž
9. Find out more about the differences between dietitians, nutritionists, nutritional therapists and diet experts
as applied in the UK and take notes on the following points:
Dietitian Nutritionist Nutritional Diet Expert
Therapist
Title protected by
law?
Qualifications
Quality assurance?
Places of work
Treatments offered
10. Search the Web to find information on the situation in Slovenia.
11. Watch the video clip (e-classroom) on the misconceptions regarding the work of dietitians and complete
the notes in the table:
Misconceptions Facts
Speaker 1: optimization of health and well-being
managing chronic disease
Speaker 2: food police
Speaker 3: helping those who are malnourished
Speaker 4: dietitians are the only regulated health professionals
lekt. dr. Martina Paradiž
Find definitions for:
nutrition
dietetics
food technology
food safety
food pharmacology
know -
process -
absorbe -
analyse -
require -
recommend -
prevent –
diagnose -
treat -
Clinical nutrition is the discipline that deals with the _______________ (prevent), _______________ (diagnose)
and _______________ (manage) of _______________ (nutrition) and _______________ (metabolise) changes
related to acute and chronic diseases and conditions caused by a lack or excess of energy and nutrients.
In the diagram below, some parts of words have been deleted. Can you complete the diagram?
