Cheetos and Milky Way bars marked the beginnings of my 40+ year academic, professional, and publishing journey in the field of nutrition. An assignment in a high school English class to create a survey prompted me to find out what students ate for lunch. Truthfully, I wasn’t overly interested, but it seemed like a good topic and an easy survey to conduct. The results revealed that while students ate all types of food from sandwiches to hot meals offered by the school to family meal leftovers, the two additional foods that were most frequently consumed were Cheetos and Milky Way bars. Most likely purchased from the vending machines in the cafeteria (which aren’t allowed in public schools these days) not sent by their parents. Part of the assignment required discussing the implications of the survey findings and it was really the first time I thought about the nutritional value – or lack thereof – of the foods we choose.
Fast forward to starting college and the perceived pressure to choose a major. Seeing a class on vitamins in the catalog was enough to make me decide to major in nutrition. After finishing my undergraduate degree, I went on to complete a dietetic internship, pass the registration exam to become a registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN), and earn a master’s degree in foods and nutrition. Over the next decade or more, I gained experience in the clinical setting, conducted research, served as a consultant to several food companies, and helped manage a workplace health promotion program. I even co-authored several popular “diet” books in the 80’s and 90’s with a health psychologist colleague.
These experiences helped build a foundation for stepping into the classroom to teach nutrition at Vanderbilt University as an instructor in the year 2000. Being an educator and having the privilege of speaking into students’ lives about the science and practice of eating well as a registered dietitian nutritionist has been the most rewarding part of my career. I started with an overhead projector and 27 students, but within a few years the course grew to fill one of the largest classrooms on campus with almost 250 students and a waiting list. As the university didn’t offer nutrition as a major, none of the students were majoring in nutrition, but had an interest in the subject or were taking the class to fulfill a pre-requisite or science requirement. It was exciting and challenging to engage and effectively instruct the diverse class, so I began integrating more real-life examples and relevant illustrations of scientific concepts. I also began dabbling in classroom technology and was one of the first instructors to make use of student polling devices as a tool to engage students and assess understanding.
Enter an acquisition editor with W.H. Freeman/Macmillan Learning in 2012 who invited me to coffee at a Starbucks to discuss the prospect of authoring an introductory nutrition textbook entitled “Nutrition for a Changing World” that used a journalistic style with science content weaved into relevant stories written by professional science writers. He said my publishing history, approach in teaching, and Rate My Professor ratings (ha!) were among the reasons he came to me. I was to provide the science content and work alongside a science writer and editors to create a unique approach to teaching nutrition to students that may not be majoring in nutrition.
Writing a textbook is an ambitious endeavor and early on I realized that I needed the help of a co-author to add their perspective and expertise on content as well as vision for infographics and art for the book. Steve Nizielski, PhD, joined me on the project and we’ve worked as a team through the first two editions, a digital update, and currently, a third edition of the book. Nutrition for a Changing World was awarded the STEM Product of the Year for its first edition and received a Textbook Excellence Award from the Textbook and Academic Author’s Association for the second edition. It’s been gratifying to see the book evolve and serve as a source of credible and applicable nutrition education for thousands of students from across the country.
Little did I know that a survey in high school and a course catalog in college would be the start of an almost five decade fulfilling career as an RDN– or bring such varied opportunities to share knowledge and to foster an appreciation of the evolving science of nutrition with others. Here’s to National Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Day 2025!
