What is the difference between what dietitians do and what nutritionists do?
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Nothing, except the dietician completed a degree in nutrition to be able to give good nutrition advice. The nutrititionist *might* be giving good nutrition advice … but you lack any way of judging their reliability.
It’s like if you wanted to hire a mechanical engineer. You’d probably try to find one with a degree, because that degree means they studied the relevant coursework, and also demonstrated their knowledge of that coursework to hold the degree. That’s pretty much the point of a degree. Of course, you could hire someone without a degree who claims to have engineering knowledge – but you lack any way of determining whether they’re competent.
And, notably, because mechanical engineering degrees *do* exist, then if someone has a working knowledge of mechanical engineering, but doesn’t have any certification of that knowledge, it’d be reasonable to ask why that person did not pursue certification of some sort to demonstrate the knowledge they claim to have. So too, you have to wonder why a nutritionist does not pursue a degree in nutrition if they know about nutrition – it’d let them list themselves as a dietician, and not be confused with all the pseudo-scientists who call themselves “nutritionists”.
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