A former rower shares the skills needed to be a good dietitian
Elizabeth Avery has worked in teaching hospitals, outpatient clinics, schools, health clubs and nonprofit organizations. Now, she has a private practice.
In a small private office on Newbury Street, registered dietitian Elizabeth Avery helps clients navigate the confusing and often frustrating realm of health.
Are juice cleanses healthy? Does fasting cause weight loss? How much exercise should the average person get?
An initial assessment with Avery costs clients $125 and includes a food journal analysis, a body fat measurement, and an assessment of their calorie, protein, and fluid needs.
Whether her clients struggle with weight loss or gain, eating disorders, cancer, or triathlon training, Avery assesses their health and nutrition statuses by using food journals, diet and medical histories, anthropometrics, body fat percentages, and activity levels before coming up with a plan to help them meet their health goals.
She didn’t always know she wanted to study nutrition, however, and thought she’d be a photographer or cultural anthropologist before her career as a college rower turned Avery toward nutrition to improve her performance.
Now, Avery has her own private practice and works part-time as a dietitian for Emerson College.
“I’ve always loved working with college-age kids because they’re young enough to not know what they’re doing but old enough to implement skills you give them, so it’s a fantastic age group to work with,” Avery said. “They’re leaving the nest and need to know what to do to take care of themselves. It’s a great compliment to having my own practice, which has a very flexible schedule.”
Avery’s degrees hang on a wall beside her desk at 129 Newbury Street.
Avery’s lifelong passion for sports means she often meets with Emerson’s athletic teams in addition to working with athletes one-on-one. Their concerns are usually about optimizing their performance, but Avery said her advice varies greatly. A football player trying to gain muscle mass needs a different diet from a marathon runner.
Working with such diverse clients has given Avery a trove of skills.
“To be a good dietitian, you need an aptitude for math and science, good listening and communication skills, creative problem solving abilities, cultural sensitivity, good time management, and social perceptiveness,” she said.
But don’t let this laundry list scare you off. Avery said she highly recommends dietitian as a career path for people passionate about health and fitness.
“It’s always easier if you realize what you want to do earlier on, but I was in grad school with people in their 40s or 50s,” Avery said. “I don’t think you should ever give up on what your passion is. I admire people who make changes for the better, even later in life.”
The Omron body fat analyzer lets patients track body fat percentage and body mass index.
“Helping people achieve their goals and improve their health, and being told I helped make a positive difference in somebody’s life is incredibly rewarding,” Avery said of her profession, but it can also be challenging.
Avery said she sees a fair amount of people with disordered eating habits, and finds that clients often get incorrect information from the Internet and nutritionists who — unlike registered dietitians — are unregulated.
“Whenever I meet with a client and they say, ‘Well my nutritionist said this,’ I’ll ask, ‘Were they a registered dietitian?’ and they will often say, ‘No,’ but I’ll already know that based on the advice they were given,” Avery said.
Working with people from different cultural backgrounds can also be difficult, Avery said, since cultural norms and geography can play a huge role in how people eat and what their perception of “healthy” is. Avery described an international Emerson student who said he was eating fast food for every meal because of how cheap it was, without any idea what the fries and hamburgers were doing to his body.
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What does Avery consider “healthy?”
“I’d say a person who is physically active and eats a well balanced meal,” she said. “I’m not too specific because there are thousands of options out there; it’s not like you must eat this, this, and this to be healthy. There are so many types of physical activity to be healthy. A lot of people want a specific prescription, to be told exactly what to do, but that’s not how it works.”
Avery herself is open to moderation. Her favorite indulgence is chocolate covered strawberries. Growing up, her family was not obsessed with health. They were pretty obsessed with sports, however.
“My mom was an amazing athlete and always involved me in tons of sports,” Avery said. “My parents took us to lots of sporting events and I really enjoyed them. I played tennis, swimming, soccer, basketball, and volleyball, but my main sports in high school were tennis and volleyball. And gymnastics.”
As an adult, Avery has competed in more than 35 road races, numerous marathons, rowing regattas, tennis and volleyball tournaments, and an Olympic-distance triathlon. She likes to run and practice yoga to unwind.
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