Swazi Observer

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CECE A THRIVING DIETICIAN

By Ayanda Dlamini | 2022-01-23

Dietitians give food nourishment and sustenance information and support everyone to maintain a healthy diet for people to improve their everyday living.

They give advice on provisions and suggest a change in everyday diets to help oversee conditions. For example, diabetes, coronary illness, overweight and weight, malignant growth, nourishment hypersensitivities, and bigotries are the medical conditions when a dietitian comes to rescue. Where profession of a dietitian is amazing and beneficial for the community it in many ways benefits the dietitian as well.

The benefits of being a dietitian revolve around how to eat good food and get benefited from healthy eating routines. Your knowledge is connected to yourself just as your patients. Most dietitians are surrounded by other health experts in different fields and they are easily available to them in clinics or where they work.

So by helping others in their everyday routines, diet plans and curing other ailments, dietitians receive similar favours from the people around them. These are just a few generic benefits that dietitians can incur out of their professional connections. In a number of other ways, being a dietitian is helpful in your personal life.

Healthy Eating

Healthy eating is the core to live a healthy life. Healthy eating is all about taking in the foods that are good for health and avoiding all those foods that can cause problems for you. For instance, dietitians are aware of the benefits that fresh foods and vegetables can bring in. a healthy diet is instrumental to avoid health issues that ultimately cause severe health issues, such as, cancer, diabetes, blood pressure, etc.

Most of these diseases have proven a link with the bad diet and uncontrolled eating habits. People fall prey to these diseases because of being unaware of their everyday eating habits.
Today we have Celiwe Nsibande, and she is a Registered Dietician. Being a nutrition professional isn’t something she always known or wanted to be. It happened purely by accident.

"I am grateful life aligned that way for me because I don’t see myself in any other career besides Dietetics. I got to study Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Cape Town as a post graduate choice of study after completing my BSc in Human Physiology and Biochemistry. Until then, I wasn’t aware that one could study and become a Dietician as a career option, probably because it is not exactly a popular career choice amongst black people.

However, upon learning that Nutrition and Dietetics could be a potential post graduate study option for me, I instantly knew that being Dietician is something I was meant be. Being a human nutrition professional as a career choice is an amalgamation of my love for food and fascination with the physiology of the human body."

Nsibande is currently practicing locally as a Clinical Dietician, registered with the Eswatini Medical and Dental Association.
"Dieticians have a number of roles and responsibilities, depending on their job setting. I’m based at a public hospital where I work as a Clinical Dietician providing medical nutrition therapy to critically ill patients.

Other job settings for Dieticians include Public Health, the food service industry, pharmaceutical industry, media and academia.
"Absolutely love the flexibility in the roles you can assume as a Dietician.

This is one of the things that drew me to the career since I don’t perform well at routine and repetitive jobs. I also enjoy the fact that being a Dietician makes you some sort of superstar because it is not a popular career choice , and in as much as some people may know about Dieticians, they’ll still be in awe when they meet an actual real life Dietician."

The challenges with my career
"Off the top of my head, also considering the work that I do, I’ll say lack of resources. This is a job that depends entirely on the availability and constant supply of the resources we need in order to do the job well, otherwise one is basically rendered useless, which is the unfortunate part.

"People definitely think good nutrition is complicated, expensive and impossible. I’d say that’s due to the lack of accurate information on good nutrition. In as much as there’s so much information on the web, very little of it is accurate and evidence based, hence people have accepted all this misinformation, misconceptions and myths on good nutrition as truth.

This is an area that we as nutrition professionals have to zone in on and try to give as much education on good nutrition as we can."

Tips on how one can adopt healthier eating habits in 2022
1. GET INFORMED – once you’ve made the decision or resolution to eat healthier, reach out to a Dietician for a counselling session where they will share with you the important information you need to know. Nutrition education is an essential first step because it will touch on the what, how and why of good nutrition.

2. COMMITMENT – commit yourself to your goals. Understand that it won’t happen unless you make it happen. Just as with any positive habit, prepare yourself to put in the necessary time, effort and self-discipline. Get an accountability partner if you must.

3. TAKE THINGS SLOWLY – adopting good eating habits requires a complete lifestyle overhaul. If you try to do so much at the same time it will greatly frustrate you. Take things one meal at a time ; ensure that your first meal of the day meets your nutritional goals…then on to your second meal, and so forth. Ensure that your first grocery shopping list of the year reflects your goals.

4. DO THE BASICS CONSISTENTLY - practice doing the basics of good nutrition daily. Your Dietician will assist you in this regard. It’s important to understand the difference between what is essential for you to do in order to achieve your nutritional goals vs what you can choose or prefer to do to still meet those goals. Doing what’s basic & essential lays a good foundation for good eating habits.

5. PRACTICE DOING THE GOOD BEFORE FIXING THE BAD – trying to limit, restrict or cut out anything out of your diet before you’ve established good dietary practices is setting yourself up for failure. Before you cut out foods you assume are the cause of your nutritional problems, find out more on that particular food and how you can consume it appropriately for good health. There’s never a need to cut out any food - at all, inf act that is not a good eating practice.

6. BE PATIENT WITH YOURSELF – it took time to develop your current eating habits, it will take time and patience to change them. Give yourself time. Take things one step at a time. Celebrate small wins, such as a full day of getting things right. If you do it consistently , overtime you’ll get better and more confident with your food choices.

Fundamentals of a good dietary lifestyle:

1. Increase your fruit, vegetable intake – practice adding fruits and non-starchy vegetables at every meal, including breakfast. Fruits and vegetables are highly nutritious and low in calories.

2. Drink plenty of zero sugar beverages such as water. Limit your consumption of high calorie and sugar sweetened drinks such as alcoholic beverages, sodas, fruit juices and concentrates.

3. Increase your fibre intake from fruits, vegetables, legumes, pulses, grains and cereals – plenty of fibre is essential for a good digestive system and weight management.

4. Eat more plant protein (legumes and pulses) and less animal protein (meat). Choose lean animal protein such as chicken and seafood. – plant protein is highly nutritious and has less to zero fat, sugar and salt.

5. Limit your consumption of convenient and processed food products such as confectionaries, fast food and packaged.

6. Limit your salt consumption from food stuff such as bread, processed meats, stock cubes, packet soups and salty condiments.

7. Choose healthier food preparation methods most of the time such as grilling and sauteeing.

8. Practice portion control at every meal – the rule of thumb is as follows : starchy grains/cereals/vegetables portion should be the size of your fist, lean protein portion is the sized of the palm of your hand and fruits and non-starchy vegetables should make up half of your plate.

9. Non-nutrition but also increase your physical activity levels. Set aside time daily for physical activity.

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