Career Opportunities with a Food and Nutrition Management Diploma
30/12/2013 16:10
What was earlier referred to as home science is now a well designed food and nutrition management program. With this, the scope of the course has also increased multiple folds. It's no longer restricted to studying how to ensure good health of your family or how to cook food in order to retain all its essential nutrients or how to effectively run a food establishment of your own.
The program opens doors to numerous attractive career options for graduates in forever growing healthcare and food service industry. Food and nutrition management graduates can work with hospitals, nursing homes, extended care facilities, senior residences, high volume catering services, airline food services, industrial cafeterias, food manufacturers, community agencies, public health nutrition and international food organizations.
Nowadays even schools, colleges and other childcare organizations have requirements for food and nutrition experts. Employers are keen in hiring graduates with well rounded knowledge and strong interpersonal skills, who could apply their knowledge of normal and clinical nutrition and business skills in a variety of settings.
About Food Service Program
You need to have a diploma in food and nutrition, in order to begin with a career in food service or manufacturing industry. A food service program prepares you to pursue challenging careers as managers in healthcare, fitness and food industry. You gain knowledge and skills related to
- Sanitation, safety and hygiene
- Kitchen production
- Food services
- Nutrition
- Food properties analysis
- Food service management
- Aging and society
- Purchasing for food services industry
- Medical nutrition therapy
- Supervision practices
- HRM in food services
- Recipe development and costing
- Labour cost control
- Healthcare menu planning
The course also familiarizes you with financial management and marketing and merchandising for food services operations. You also learn about practical aspects of quantity food preparation and service.
In addition to attending theory classes, you are also required to conduct various experiments from time to time to learn the physical properties of food.
Once you complete this two-year diploma course, you can either begin with private practice or choose to work with food manufacturing and service companies. You are expected to operate in accordance with the code of ethics set by the Canadian Society of Nutrition Management.
You will be equipped to pursue challenging careers in the fields of
- Food and nutrition counselling for weight management, healthy eating, diabetics management, eating disorders
- Food service
- Food and nutrition management at spas, hotels, schools, culinary schools, etc
- Food and nutrition consultancy for cookbooks, newspapers, magazines and other educational programs
- Sales and marketing
- Public relations for hospitals, food businesses, fitness centers, etc
- Research and development
- Community service
- Healthcare reforms with NGOs or government organizations
- Menu planning at hotels, restaurants, nursing homes, seniors' residences
- Procurement of goods and services with food businesses
- Food production procedures standardization
- Food distribution
Of late, fitness has become the buzz word. Food and nutrition planning cannot be separated from physical fitness and mental well being. You are what you eat. Besides, the career options associated with nutrition planning have made it one of the most sought after areas.