Life as Community Dietitian

So I am now in my third week of community rotations. As some of you may know, community nutrition is what I'd ideally like to find a job in. Unfortunately, even though we have 4 weeks of community, there's not really enough things that the internship director can find for us to do, so I have had a lot of time off. It has been nice to have some days off-I took one of those days to go to Jordan Creek and shop with my mom and my sister which was fun. The down side is that I feel like I'm not getting to see as much stuff in community as I'd like. But I have had some good experiences.

The first place that we went was to a prison. A few miles from our house is the Iowa Medical & Classification Center, which is a high-security prison that houses about 900 prisoners while they are being classified and sent to various prisons throughout the state. I have never toured a prison before so it was interesting to say the least.

Here's some of the interesting facts I learned:

• When prisoner's misbehave they are punished by having the food served in different ways. If they get really bad, they take all of the food-veggies, fruit, meat, potato, etc.- and mash it up and bake it all together in a loaf and then serve it to the prisoner that way. I've made a mental note to file that one away for when I have kids someday! :) (Just kidding!)
• Each of the prisoners in the general population at the prison (those who stay there to fulfill the sentence instead of being sent to another prison) has a job. According to the dietitan there, sex offenders often make the best workers. Not violent offenders like rapists, but more like pedophiles. Who'd have thought?
• When men are locked in prison cells and haven't seen any women for awhile, a group of 5 women in their early twenties is a really big deal. It was strange to walk into a unit and see grown men just pressed against the cell windows like animals. Strange and creepy too.
• Since the prison is expanding they will be hiring one, possibly two more dietitians. While the prison is a few miles from my house, I don't think I'll be putting in my resume for that one. Prison work is NOT for me.

I've also gotten the chance to give nutrition education at a couple schools. Giving a presentation about the food pyramid and portion sizes to a group of about a hundred 8th graders during the last period of the day on a Friday is NOT an easy task. However, I've found that I love teaching. (Most of my family is thinking BIG SURPRISE! They probably knew that about me already.) I also got the chance to go to WIC on Monday and Tuesday this week. WIC is a really cool federal governmental program that provides healthy food packages and nutriiton education to lower income mothers and their infants and young children. This is definitely a place I want to work. I talked to the director about possibly doing my practicum for my MPH degree there. By the way, the WIC director (a dietitian) is a man named Chuck. He also happens to be the breastfeeding promotion coordinator for Johnson county. Yep, women get advice about breastfeeding and various breast pumps from a guy- just found that to be interesting. Especially since about 95% of dietitans are females.

So anyways, that's what's been going on in my life. Tomorrow I go hang out with one of the Hy-Vee dietitians in Cedar Rapids. Next week is spring break. I'll be spending most of the time working on various homework and my seminar for the internship. I'm presenting on the role of parent's child feeding practices (like whether they are pushy about making their kids eat or more relaxed) on obesity and disorded eating attitudes in children. Interesting stuff- To me at least!!