What to Know: A Day in the Life of a College Sports Dietitian

Often, those interested in pursuing a career in performance nutrition reach out to learn more about my education and career path, and what I do in a typical day. In part one of this series, I wrote about advice to interns and fellows, plus a new lens to look through regarding their approach to their ongoing education.

Now, we’re going to review what I did in a typical day working as a sports dietitian in the collegiate setting.

In this article, I’m going to review the following:

• For starters, what does a sports dietitian do?

• What is a typical work schedule?

• A day in the life means understanding the annual cycle of your sport(s).

What Does a Collegiate Sports Dietitian Do?

In part one, I noted the importance of medical nutrition therapy. This is the cornerstone of what a sports dietitian does.

Athletes are humans first. A short list of what athletes meet with the sports dietitian for: eating disorders, body dysmorphia, food allergies, unintentional weight loss and gain, emotional eating, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and its medication’s impact on appetite and fueling, type 1 diabetes, and all of the injuries and surgeries that come with being an athlete. This is the clinical skills of a dietitian working on an orthopedic floor and managing hip replacements. The sports dietitian also works with other medical professionals and needs to competently communicate care and concern with them.

As a clinically-minded dietitian, the job in sports is the same:

• Assess athletes at baseline: Evaluate for any nutritional concerns, past medical history, labs, medications, supplements, and discover the athlete’s goals for their health and performance.

• Create a counseling schedule based on athlete acuity: Eating disorder athletes will likely be once weekly appointments whereas an athlete focused on weight gain may not need 1:1 counseling time, but brief weekly check ins at practice or a drop-into-your-office weigh in.

• Plan to communicate regularly with the medical team on athlete updates: Often there are reoccurring medical meetings to review athletes of concerns, separate meetings for eating disorders, etc.

• Chart, chart, chart.

Then there’s the sporting angle.

Whether or not you learn this knowledge and skill set in school, a diploma program like the International Olympic Committee, dietetic internship, or fellowship, you’ll be expected to know and perform the following, often in addition to what was listed above in the clinical section. This is not an exhaustive list, but a snapshot of skills and duties:

• Perform body composition assessments: This could be ISAK skinfolds, bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) (e.g., InBody), Bod Pod (read my articles here and here), and/or dual x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) (read my article here).

• Indirect calorimeter testing for resting metabolic rate.

• Set goal weights and timelines to achieve those goals for athletes.

• Create nutrition performance plans, helping athletes adjust their plans as needed: Weight, fat, and/or muscle gain/loss for health and/or performance needs, weight descent plans for coxswains and wrestlers, and practice day versus competition day fueling plan.

• Testing for sweat rate, sweat content, and/or hydration.

• Counsel athletes on ergogenic aids and understanding third-party certification (read my article here). The dietitians also select what supplements and brands they order for the athletic department.

• Write departmental policies and protocols (e.g., body composition and weighing, supplements).

• Game day support, including plate coaching at pre-game meals; hydration, fueling, and supplement set up and distribution; halftime fueling; and post-game catering and recovery.

• Practice support, including recovery beverage coordination, snack carts, and athlete check ins.

• Catering support by selecting appropriate menus for the team’s schedule (there can be reasonable differences between pre-game and post-game menus), accommodating for athlete allergens and preferences.

• Fueling station management, menu creation (and the inventory, ordering, and invoicing that goes with it); recruiting, scheduling, and training staff; and managing food safety initiatives.

• Meeting with dining hall chefs and staff to create and review menus. The dietitian attends meals to evaluate meal quality, ensure foods labels are correct, and plate coach the athletes.

• Depending on your level within the organization, advocating for new positions; hiring, training, and managing dietitians, fueling station workers, and student workers; being a preceptor for dietetic interns and organizing their schedules; and meeting with administration and working on visionary projects for them (e.g., future staffing needs, budget requests).

• Some teams will also travel a dietitian, involving them in menus at the hotel, restaurant, and airplane, and coordinating pop-up fueling stations and practice/game nutrition support.

• Collect various data points and work in the sport science arena, often with strength and conditioning, to help connect the dots of what's hindering or helping an athlete's development and performance.

Reviewing any of the current job descriptions on the American Sports and Performance Dietitians Association (ASPDA) job board will provide you with a current understanding of the variety of roles a dietitian can work throughout sport, plus specific tasks and expectations.

If you don’t understand a concept or concepts listed above, consider those current knowledge gaps and an area to begin learning more about.

The Typical Work Schedule

The sporting environment for a dietitian is demanding and compared to the clinical realm, there aren’t as many jobs. In the college setting, it's common to work most weekends, holidays, through Thanksgiving and Christmas, and consistently log >8-hour days.

Sports can be a major commitment, so for those who value a contained Monday to Friday, 40-hour week, and have plenty of flexibility for vacation regardless of time of year, ask a ton of questions during the interview process about the program’s expectations, travel, and your boundaries. Some programs may not be a good fit for your career goals and lifestyle whereas others may be a great fit.

For instance, within the realm of collegiate sports dietitians, working in football a privilege. If you can progress to the NFL, it's the best salary a sports dietitian can receive. At the college level, for those wanting to work with one sport and one team, that job is football. Yet, I never felt like I connected with the sport and I didn't see myself running a football nutrition program. When I left college athletics the first time, it was to gain experience working as a sports dietitian for one sport. That non-football clarity helped me in my job search and I ended up working in professional baseball.

The “Typical Day” Relies on a Team’s Annual Cycle

A “typical day” is hard to define. What collegiate sports dietitians do is in response to the team and where they’re at in their annual cycle, plus how the nutrition department approaches overall athlete and medical care. Most collegiate sports dietitians are assigned to multiple teams—meaning their team schedules are overlapping, with some in season while others are in offseason or preseason mode. During my time working in sport, I worked with 3-19 teams at a time.

For instance, if working with a fall sport, they’ll arrive to campus for mandatory training in late July or early August. The team will train daily, often two-a-days, for 1-2 weeks before their first game. The beauty of the fall sport is that the student-athletes aren’t overwhelmed with school (yet) and the dietitian is usually working with only 1-2 teams at that point. There's plenty of time to spend with teams, educate, and do more fun sport science initiatives. If working with a spring sport, they’re still on summer vacation and nowhere to be seen.

If working with a football or basketball team, they’re around most of the year, including summer. They compete over Thanksgiving and December, leaving for only a few days around Christmas. These teams often travel their dietitians.

Fall teams tend to have a mini spring season (e.g., soccer, volleyball). Other teams have what I call split seasons, where they officially compete in both the fall and spring (e.g., rowing, tennis, golf, beach volleyball, golf).

For the most part, the fall is the busiest time of a collegiate dietitian’s year. This is when the new freshmen and transfer students mainly arrive, and you need to dedicate time to screen them for any nutritional concerns, onboard them to your program (e.g., tours of the fueling station and training table), running any body composition assessments, doing your best to get them up to speed with fueling, and then building out your follow-up plans for higher-needs athletes. On top of that, the returners blend back into your counseling schedule. You’ve also planned your team programming for each sport and are executing it. For instance, when are you strategically planning hydration and sweat rate testing, body composition, team talks, cooking demos or classes, and attend practice and lifts?

Keep in mind that when a team is not in season, they’re still a team you need to connect with. Although a dietitian’s time will be lopsided to those in season and competing for a national championship, the offseason is when the athletes are in a better position to learn and make changes. This is the money time to educate.

Pulling it All Together

College athletics is busy, but it's an exceptionally rewarding experience. Working with 17-24 year olds, the sports dietitian is supporting an athlete transitioning to adulthood and can educate them with nutritional habits they'll carry into their future. You have the opportunity to steer an athlete away from disordered eating or an eating disorder and help flag concerns that can change the course of an athlete's medical care (e.g., you notice an athlete is unintentionally losing weight and during a consult you learn they have a family history of celiac disease). The impact of the collegiate sports dietitian is massive.

The jobs I've held in college athletics have been the most challenging, but have led to an immense amount of professional growth. Never did I think I would manage a staff of dietitians, learn how to effectively advocate for a larger staff, manage budgets upwards of a million dollars, and learn new sport science technologies and roll them out through an athletic department.