Posted on: 11 June 2021
Kuldip Rai, who has been a Dietitian since 2006 and works with Ealing Community Partners, shares his personal journey to roundoff Dietitians Week for 2021.
My personal journey as a male South Asian Dietitian
My health journey began in 1997 when at the age of 27 I suffered an acute inflammatory reaction, where I was signed off from work for two months. Research led to experimenting with exclusion diets eliminating dairy, nuts and fish, which resulted in a rapid decline in symptoms namely, reduction in boils, itchiness, skin rashes and lethargy.
The time off work also allowed for some inner reflection, which revealed I was unhappy at work and in my personal life. I put these down to be a major cause of the illness with food exacerbating the issue. At the time, I didn’t realise but this was the catalyst to becoming a Dietitian.
I re-located from Brighton to London, this time working in the City of London. After a year of rush hour commuting and working in a high pressure, commission-focused environment, I left the financial sector for good and became a bicycle courier in 2000.
I was typically cycling 100 miles a week, burning lots of calories and had become a vegetarian. Over the years, I had re-introduced dairy and nuts with nil ill-effect other than occasional itchy lower legs. During my job as a courier, I’d visit health shops in Central London, talk to people about food, try different recipes and ideas, research plant-based sources of protein and healthier fats - all of which resulted in more energy and greater clarity.
That year I also enrolled in evening classes at Victoria College to do an International Therapies Education Council (ITEC) course in Nutrition, which I thoroughly enjoyed. This was the formal start on my road to becoming a Dietitian. In 2001, I did a Sciences Access Course at Westminster College and in 2002, I enrolled in a four-year Nutrition and Dietetics degree at the University of Surrey.
If you’d like to know more about my journey and general take on health and well-being, please visit the Newtrition Perspectives podcast series on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1HVU8tIWZaFeU7ehUzo1je
With such diverse career opportunities why the limited attraction from male Dietitians?
When I was attending the interview for my degree, I came to realise the dietetic course was full of women. Initially, this was a talking point but over time I became adjusted to the environment. Fortunately, there was one other male student on the course so we tended to hang out together like allies in a foreign land.
Roll on four years and graduation in 2006, I decided to work in the NHS. Dietitians fall under the banner of ‘Allied Health Professionals’ namely physiotherapists, speech and language therapists and occupational therapists. With perhaps the exception of physiotherapists, the majority of the workforce are women.
With only 4-5% of UK Dietitians being male, it may be that our voices are underrepresented. It may also be that certain stereotypes surround the profession. It has always surprised me because dietetics has such wide and diverse career opportunities. From working in the NHS; private freelance; food industry; education; research; sport; media; public relations; publishing; NGO’s as well as government, I questioned why this attraction was having a limited effect on promoting male Dietitians to the field.
Why dietetics is a great and fulfilling career
Dietetics is a great and fulfilling career and as such it should be an obvious choice for men. We all need to shout about our wonderful profession and recognise the food challenges faced by society. We need to help people overcome barriers and make a difference not just in their life but to those around them.
After all, we all need to eat. Where there’s food, there’s people and human beings coming together in different shapes and sizes with many religious, cultural and societal beliefs. A diverse workforce is happier and more balanced.
“Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and test of our civilisation.”
- Mathama Gandhi