Posted on: 2 June 2020
This week (1 – 5 June) marks Dietitians Week - the British Dietetic Association’s (BDA) annual celebration of dietitians, dietetics and those that work to support them.
Sue Potter is one of CNWL’s 31 Dietitians; she’s spent most of her career in North West London and has worked in Hillingdon in the community since 2015, coming here via Cardiff – where she was born – and then Birmingham where she had her first job.
Sue said: “I became a Dietitian primarily because of my two interests at school: One interest was nutrition; that is the science of food and health and dietetics is the clinical aspect of this; the other interest was chemistry.
“The other thing was that I had a wish to work out and about with people rather than in an office so Dietetics seemed a perfect match.
Speaking with Sue what’s clear is that the work of the Dietitian is more complex than simply saying lose some weight. It looks at your whole diet, lifestyle how to change behaviour. Nutrition and dietetics has come on a long way in the past 30 years.
“There’s still a lot we don’t know.”
When she was first interested in a career in dietetics in the late 1970s nutrition was “the” thing to be working in. It was new and fashionable. It was also the time when newspaper headlines started coming up with scary headlines linking saturated fat and health.
“Now we know more about different types of fat, some of which are good for you and that it’s not just fats, a Mediterranean type diet is best for heart health – more fruit, veg and fish.
“We knew that fibre in your diet was good for you but we had no idea in the 1980s why it was effective. Now we understand a lot more about pre and pro-biotics and the usefulness of gut bacteria in helping the body to fight cancers,” she said.
“The other big thing that dietitians are involved with is preventing and treating malnutrition. We know that malnourished patients are more likely to have other problems. We know that it’s a cause and consequence of disease and that a malnourished patient will cost the NHS three to four times the cost of the normal nourished patient as they will be at more risk of things like infections, pressure ulcers and overall debilitation.
“So a lot of my role now in Hillingdon is working with care homes and in spreading best practice in preventing malnutrition among residents.
“I look at the care home environment, what’s on the menu, what’s the chef doing to fortify the foods to make sure every mouth full matters, how are staff encouraging residents to eat and if I know of other care homes which are doing something really well I will spread this best practice.
“By promoting best practice this is what we can be doing to improve people’s condition. It’s basically about preventing malnutrition as much as treating it.
“This is more difficult now with Covid-19 as I can’t get into care homes and can only take calls from staff about residents they are worried about.”
She adds: “People need to be motivated to believe they can make changes that will make them better. You need to help people to set smart goals, make changes that are achievable for the long term, and that by making these small changes they will start feeling better.”
To find out more about Dietitians Week go to: https://www.bda.uk.com/news-campaigns/campaigns/dietitians-week.html or follow #WhatDietitiansDo on Twitter.