The year I fell out of love with nutrition (and how I found my way back)

The year 2015 was the year that I lost my passion for nutrition.

What an odd time to lose it, during the middle of my combined graduate degree program in foods and nutrition sciences and dietetic internship. It seems like it would be the time that I would care about nutrition the most, doesn’t it?

But for some reason, I didn’t have the same feelings for it that I did while I was doing my undergraduate degree. I barely read any of the daily emails from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics about community updates or recent nutrition news, choosing to read these digests weeks, if not months after they had piled up in my mailbox. I had forgotten much of what I had learned in previous years, all of the minute and precise details of nutrition like what exactly the RDA for niacin was or what were dietary recommendations for the different stages of chronic kidney disease. I was in a rut.

Looking back, I can see where things went astray. My perceptions of graduate school and the reality of graduate school were quite different. I had expected to get a better specialization in certain topics of nutrition and to keep learning more about this field I had decided to commit my career to. Instead, I got more training on skills. Statistics, proposal writing, communicating science, interacting on an interdisciplinary level with students in other fields. Useful information to have, expanding upon the research background I obtained during my undergraduate years. But I wasn’t learning anything that I was excited about, things that I thought would be helpful if I decided not to go the academic and research path. When I had a period of school-related apathy in the spring semester, I knew things had to change.

Things improved with the dietetic internship hours. I enjoyed working with SNAP-Ed and EFNEP, for the county school nutrition program, and also at the hospital systems. I felt greater joy in the application of dietetics to individuals and the community. I was learning some of the things that I wanted to learn through supervised practice.

The latter half of the year, fall semester, had its ups and downs, also related to research. My project was changed. The population was different. Data entry. Analyzing data. New thesis questions. Lots of work, and only some progress. This time, however, I was able to take a class that I actually cared about related to counseling (and learned much, although many counseling theories and situations are out of my scope of practice as a future dietitian). I started writing some articles for an online food publication. Our department’s seminar topics were interesting and I didn’t fall asleep during any of them. For my semester internship hours I was able to do individual nutrition counseling (which I absolutely love). It was here that the impact of not having the passion for nutrition really hit me. Sometimes clients would ask me questions about food and I really had to search my mind for the answers, or postpone their questions for a future meeting. I knew that there were times that I could have been a much better counselor to my clients, and it’s unfortunate.

During the winter break, I decided that I would start learning about nutrition again. And this is where I had my real a-ha moment, a la Oprah Winfrey:

I wasn’t happy about nutrition because I was dependent on other people to teach me rather than self-directing my own education.

The light switched turned on.

I got out one of my first nutrition textbooks and started reading it. Macronutrients. Water and fat soluble vitamins. Major and trace minerals. I could feel myself returning to the excited dietetics student I was in prior years. Emails were read, articles caught my attention again. I read national and international dietary guidelines. And even now, when I don’t have the entire day to be in front of my computer and read articles all day, I still try to learn or read something related to nutrition daily. I have (some of) the answers because I searched for them myself, unprompted, and found the drive to care about nutrition and food. All I have to do now is share that information with the world.

Today I feel ready to take on the last leg of my graduate degree and complete a thesis that I am truly interested in, publish more articles, and complete the rest of my dietetic internship. I have (once again) found the motivation for self-directed learning which I will need to complete my CPEs as a future dietitian. Having a sense of control in what I am learning, whether it is nutrition or otherwise, makes me feel more fulfilled in what I am doing.

I can’t believe it took me so long to be able to recognize and then change the circumstances that were making me feel unhappy during graduate school, but it’s better late than never, right?

I look forward to making my mark as a dietitian and continuing as a self-directed learner.