Recently, two news about nutritionists have attracted people's attention: First, the media disclosed that the National Nutrition Regulations being formulated stipulates that the dishes in canteens and catering units with more than 100 people are no longer directly prepared by chefs, but must be completed under the guidance of nutritionists; Dining halls and catering units with more than 300 people must be equipped with special nutrition administrators. The other is that starting from this month, Shanghai will issue professional standards for nutritionists, and relevant personnel of primary and secondary schools, community service centers, kindergartens, nursing homes and food production enterprises in Shanghai will take up their posts after receiving 200-300 hours of training. This means that the profession of dietitian will officially enter the room. In the future, you can no longer "become a monk halfway", but you need to go through professional training and become a "professional player" before you can take up your post.
Professional nutritionist has a gap of 400,000
According to Shanghai Nutrition Society, nutritionists are mainly responsible for nutrition guidance, dietary nutrition collocation and nutrition management. It is indeed a good thing for professional nutritionists to enter the people to improve their living standards, but there is a serious shortage of professional nutritionists at present.
It is understood that China's population is 654.38+0.3 billion, but there are less than 2,000 professionals engaged in nutrition work. On average, there are 1 professional nutritionists for every 650,000 people. In Japan, there are 1 nutritionist for every 330 people, and the number of nutritionists is 2.4 times that of clinicians, reaching more than 400,000; In the United States, the treatment of hospitalized patients must also involve nutritionists.
In a densely populated city like Shanghai, the shortage of nutritionists is even more prominent. The reporter learned from the relevant departments that there are less than 300 nutritionists who have passed the nutrition professional and technical qualification examination in Shanghai, most of whom are located in hospitals and other institutions, serving the special needs of the population and facing the general public. Many restaurants in Shanghai have senior chefs and first-class chefs, but few are equipped with nutritionists. So do educational institutions. Except for a few large kindergartens, there are no special nutritionists in other primary and secondary schools and kindergartens.
According to the standard of "/kloc-canteens with more than 0/000 people must be equipped with nutritionists", catering units, schools, institutions and enterprises with more than 0/000 people all over the country have demand for nutritionists. Roughly speaking, there is at least a gap of more than 400 thousand. In the next few years, dietitian will become a hot job.
Dietitians have higher requirements for employment.
Although the career prospects of nutritionists are promising, the entry threshold is not low. Liu Genxi, a nutritionist at the First People's Hospital of Shanghai, told the reporter that the nutritionist's job is to study the complex relationship between food nutrients and human functional needs, involving nutritional collocation, nutritional complementarity and nutritional balance, which is a science. According to the different research fields and contents, nutritionists can be subdivided into child nutritionists, adolescent nutritionists and elderly nutritionists. Therefore, there are certain professional requirements for the knowledge and skills of employees.
Specifically, a qualified nutritionist is a "trinity" of doctors, nutritionists and chefs. He should have knowledge of medicine, nutrition, food hygiene, food safety and nutritious cooking, be able to combine different nutritional recipes for different groups of people, and be familiar with food hygiene laws and regulations. Generally speaking, self-study is difficult because of high employment requirements and professional training.
Shanghai's professional training is obviously insufficient.
The lack of nutritionists has promoted the prosperity of the nutritionist training market. It is understood that at the end of last year, the first professional qualification training course for nutritionists was held in Guangzhou. Without much publicity, it attracted more than 80 students, most of whom were food directors of medical institutions and educational institutions. Chengdu has established a special nutrition training school; Hainan has established a health nutritionist certification; Because of the strong market demand, Shenzhen has held four consecutive nutritionist training courses.
In contrast, Shanghai, which has a great demand for nutritionists, is not strong enough in professional training. It is understood that there is no training institution involved in nutritionist training in Shanghai at present. According to the person in charge of a well-known vocational training institution, we have also considered offering relevant training, but the training program is not mature, and the teaching materials and teachers are very problematic. And the current training institutions pay attention to efficiency. Although nutritionists are in short supply, they don't know to what extent and how much training they need. Therefore, we dare not act rashly.
This situation has attracted the attention of relevant departments in Shanghai and taken measures. Starting from this month, Shanghai will issue professional standards for nutritionists, and relevant personnel from primary and secondary schools, community service centers, child care institutions, nursing homes and food production enterprises in Shanghai will take up their posts after receiving 200-300 hours of professional training. It is expected that the first batch will produce more than 6,000 nutrition instructors. This will effectively alleviate the shortage of nutritionists in Shanghai and promote the development of nutritionist training market. It can be predicted that more and more training institutions will set foot in this field in the future under the strong call of government departments.
Three ways for nutritionists to further their studies
As the saying goes, far water can't put out a near fire. So how can interested people learn further under the current limited training channels for nutritionists? Professionals recommend the following three channels:
■ Academic education
At present, Shanghai Second Medical University, Zhejiang Medical University, Zhongshan Medical University, Tianjin Medical University, etc. Medical nutrition or nutrition and food hygiene have been set up, and Zhengzhou University has also set up a postgraduate major in nutrition and food hygiene.
Suitable for people: high school graduates who are interested in dietitian career and undergraduate graduates who are interested in developing in this field.
vocational training
At present, there are three national vocational training programs related to dieticians: 1, and national dietitian vocational qualification certificate. The Ministry of Labor and Social Security is responsible for * * * in five grades. Those who pass the examination have obtained the professional qualification certificate of dietitian issued by the national labor department. 2, nutrition and health care teacher certificate. It is jointly developed by the National Talent Flow Center of the Ministry of Personnel and the china health care association Mental Health Professional Committee, and is divided into three grades: junior, middle and senior. The national unified examination is held four times a year in March, June, September and June, 65438+ February. The exam consists of three parts: written test, evaluation and interview. Those who pass the examination can obtain the national numbered, electronic registered and universal professional certificate of nutrition and health care technicians issued by the National Talent Flow Center of the Ministry of Personnel. 3. Nutritionist qualification certificate. The "National Health Professional and Technical Qualification Examination" organized by the Ministry of Health also has the "Nutritionist Qualification Examination" project.
Suitable for people: people who have been engaged in teaching, scientific research, food or health food production and management, nutrition catering, nutrition consultation, etc. Personnel engaged in nutritious food, nutrition education and management in hotels, restaurants, institutions, schools and medical and health units; Enterprises, institutions or other people who are interested in dietitian career.
■ International courses
Some universities such as Holland, Japan, France and South Korea. Courses related to nutrition were offered. People in China can learn the latest nutrition knowledge and understand the global trend of nutrition research and management by studying such courses abroad.
Suitable for the crowd: people who are interested in further improvement in this area and have strong economic ability.
Second, the employment prospects of nutritionists
With the continuous development of economy and the continuous improvement of people's living standards, medicine will not only maintain health, but also pay more and more attention to how to further improve people's physique and enhance their intelligence. With the further development of nutrition, ecology, psychology, biology and eugenics societies, nutrition talents will become more and more popular.
Judging from the development trend of China's economy and medical and health undertakings, there is a great demand for nutrition professionals. In order to adapt to the development of society and the improvement of living standards, Japan, the United States and other countries have also held short-term "female nutrition universities" to scientifically evaluate and guide national dietary consumption, which shows that they attach importance to nutrition. With the development of society, the traditional concept of nutrition and the original lifestyle can no longer meet people's needs, such as unbalanced diet and excessive fat intake, which seriously harms human health. People began to pay attention to diet and health care, demanding more knowledge of nutrition and health care, and needing professional guidance and research. For example, district hospitals and community service centers all need professional doctors who know both clinical and nutrition. Shanghai has entered an aging society, and more and more nursing homes need nutritionists.
It can be seen that graduates of this kind of major will have very broad employment prospects.
There is a huge career gap for nutritionists in China (industry concern)
Relevant experts told reporters that although most people are concerned about nutrition, they still lack the necessary nutrition knowledge. Although they eat well, they eat unhealthy. Most people are over-nourished, but the related occupation-dietitian is extremely scarce, and its proportion in the total population is seriously unbalanced. It is not uncommon for nutritionists to adjust people's daily diet abroad. However, in China, the profession of dietitian is facing a serious gap.
300,000 people, one nutritionist.
Nutritionists are divided into public nutritionists and clinical nutritionists in the health system. The so-called dietitian usually refers to a public dietitian. After SARS, people began to really pay attention to nutrition, which also pushed the lack of nutritionists to the forefront.
Mr. Yue Wei of the World Federation of Health Consultants revealed that there are about 4,000 nutrition and health professionals in China, that is, there is one nutritionist for every 300,000 people. Among the limited 4000 people, most of them also become monks halfway, and there are few professionals. This is far from developed countries such as Switzerland and Japan. There are more than 400,000 nutritionists in Japan, and there is one nutritionist for every three or four hundred people.
Teacher Qu of the Vocational Skills Appraisal Guidance Center of the Ministry of Health said that the units that should be equipped with nutritionists include kindergartens, schools, communities, hospitals, enterprises and institutions, but the actual situation is worrying. It is understood that in Beijing's kindergartens, except for a few large-scale kindergartens, other kindergartens are not equipped with nutritionists. This is especially true at school. A person from the Ministry of Health admits that it is difficult to find nutritionists in school canteens all over the country, and many school canteens are contracted to individuals.
Not only kindergartens and schools encounter the embarrassment that nutritionists are hard to find, but hospitals and communities also face the same problem. A recent survey by the Nutrition Society of China shows that only 47% of the 403 hospitals visited have nutrition departments, and more than half of them have no nutrition departments at all, let alone provide nutritionists. There are 1722 nutrition-related staff in the hospital, but only 392 people have obtained the qualification of dietitian, accounting for only 22%. Community work is numerous and trivial, and nutritionists' problems are too busy to attend to.