A different path?

As I had mentioned before, in the field of nutrition, there is little knowledge concerning veganism and there is also very little focus on using nutrition to prevent disease. They like to wait until disease occurs, then diagnose a diet. I recently posted a topic on a forum at dietitiancentral.com to see what kind of responses I get back. I'll share the responses with you also as soon as they arise. Read this post, I think you are going to like it:

"I am currently a student working towards my RD. While I am extremely interested in nutrition, I am more interested in preventative nutrition rather than therapeutic. In my opinion, we need to focus more on eating to prevent disease, rather than waiting for disease to occur, then diagnose diets that probably won't be followed anyway. For this reason, I have no intention of working in a clinical setting, yet I feel that I am being pushed in that direction through my education. I am the type of person that is going to do what makes me happy no matter what, so I'm not worried about working in a job that does not interest me. My question is whether or not there is a large market for private nutrition counseling. I believe there is, but I am constantly being advised not to venture in that direction for various reasons by my professors. I also am going to specialize in vegan nutrition, as I already have an extensive background on the subject and have been vegan for 2 years and vegetarian for over 10. The second part to my question is whether or not a code of ethics is being broken if an RD were to be advocating and promoting a vegan lifestyle. From what I can comprehend it's okay to promote a specific diets on the basis of it's health benefits, but not on an ethical/humanitarian level. As many of you probably know, many studies are beginning to show amazing health benefits of a completely plant-based diet and there are a handful of RD's and MD's using it as a nutritional therapy. Am I crazy for not wanting to do clinical and wanting to promote veganism as an astounding preventative nutrition method? In private nutrition counseling would advocating such a "political" way of eating and living be breaking any professional ethics? If it does, then so be it. I don't feel that I need my credential or the ADA to be successful. As I had mentioned, I am extremely in tune with following my own personal goals to bring purpose in my life, so I am going to do what I want regardless of what anyone else thinks. I would just like to see where others stand on this position and get some professional opinions. Sorry for the lost post, but I hope to get a lot of responses on this one."

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