ALES 204 Online Class

Hi, my name is Alyssa VanKooten. I am in my second year of Nutrition and I am really excited to be starting this blog!  I am hoping to use this blog to connect to Dietitians in the Edmonton area, as well as fellow Nutrition students. The blog is something I will use beyond this class, for career and entertainment reasons. It would be cool to blog about my studies and, in the future, about my career and life. As of now, I don't use too much social media. This ALES class has introduced me to Twitter but, before that, all I have had is Facebook. Communication plays a huge role in my field of study. To be a Dietitian you have to have people skills and be warm and understanding. It is also crucial that people in the Nutrition field be able to report any research findings properly. If there is a problem in communicating, for example, the amount of Vitamin B12 someone should be taking, they could end up seriously sick. Communicating in the Nutrition field isn't always verbal, it is also digital. Lately, nutrition has become a popular topic among the media. More and more studies are coming out about how unhealthy the first-world population is becoming due to poor nutrition. This has sparked many positive articles, news stories, TV shows, diets and web-sites. In addition to this, the awareness of nutrition issues to the public has resulted in a lot of false studies and 'facts.' These things have to be watched for carefully, and show how important it is to communicate that your facts and research are verified. Web sites are a great way to share information about nutrition. For example, this is an informative and reliable resource: Health Canada. Communication is essential to the Nutrition field, and I hope that ALES 204 helps me become an expert on using communication techniques to the best of my abilities.