Infuse Issue 8 June 2019 | Page 4

From the Desk
of Maree Ferguson
Founder & Director, Dietitian Connection
E
ver get excited when you
hear of a male studying
dietetics and do whatever you
can to encourage him to stick at
it? Even if just because it’ll help
shorten the female bathroom
queue at a future dietetics
conference!
Society continues to fight for women to
enter historically male-dominated fields, like
engineering, information technology, and
construction. Yet, what about encouraging men
to enter historically women-dominated fields?
Some 96% of Australian dietitians are female,
with similar statistics in the USA and UK. Since I
graduated 25 year ago, the percentage of males
in dietetics has hardly changed. So, why don’t
men choose dietetics as a career?
(L-R) Images taken at Dietitians Unite Conference;
Dietitians Tim Crowe and Shane Jeffery.
"... let’s warm-up the dietetics
climate to start a ‘man change’!"
© Dietitian Connection
4
Infuse | June 2019