A career in functional nutrition

Have you ever wondered why the incidence of chronic diseases has been increasing so rapidly despite major advances in medical science?

The clue lies in the name: “chronic lifestyle disease”. Modern urban lifestyle is the biggest reason behind the increase in chronic diseases worldwide. A highly sedentary lifestyle, locked indoors away from the Sun, eating mostly processed foods, polluted air, water and household products and nutrient-depleted soil, to name a few.

But rather than changing our diet and lifestyles and working to replenish nutrients and eliminate toxins, we turn to pharmaceutical drugs for solutions. The pharmaceutical lobby largely corrupts today's conventional medical system, thus prioritising symptom suppression through drugs instead of addressing the root causes through diet and lifestyle therapy.

Functional nutrition is a form of holistic treatment that uses advanced testing and root cause analysis to reverse diseases and eliminate the risk of the disease. Root cause analysis is the process of identifying the underlying reasons behind the emergence of diseases. A functional nutritionist uses more sophisticated assessment protocols known as optimal ranges for assessing results. These ranges are based on research to formulate the most optimal values for health.

Global certifications

Functional nutrition and functional medicine are forms of holistic medicine. There is no regulatory body that is the authority on these terms. Functional nutrition follows the same principles as functional medicine, except with a focus on nutrition. Functional nutrition is a specialisation of nutrition, so ideally, one should do a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in nutrition or a related field beforehand.

Additional skillsets

While skill requirements vary depending on the job role, the following are the most commonly required skills.

Patient communication skills — the ability to explain why something is significant and persuade someone to take a problematic action (eat properly, exercise, meditate).

Competence in programme design or the capacity to design a programme with clinical impact that a patient can follow.

Lifestyle coaching— the ability to mentor and inspire clients to make changes.

Setting an example. You need to be in good health if you wish to work in this field, especially if you are working as a practitioner. This means having a healthy diet and lifestyle and having your health parameters at optimal levels.

Ability to read and interpret lab test results for all kinds of tests. If pursuing a research and development role, you need to be able to read and analyse medical research papers.

(The author is the CEO of an online nutrition course)