Nutrition is just like other health sectors, although it is often lost in the confusion of different titles. For example,
Doctors can be:
- "almost doctors" such as the Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants with 4 to 5 years of training
- General Physicians who have done the fuill medical school training and internships
- Specialist doctors such as an eye surgeon, a bone surgeon, a kidney specialist, or a pediatrician...they have all done further specific training, internships and are "board certified" in their speciality.
- A doctor with years of experience or not - experience makes experts, same as in any other career.

You get the idea - the same applies for complementary medical care, there are different types of acupuncturists, homeopaths etc..

With the Nutrition profession, here is how it goes:

The titles "nutritionist" and "nutrition consultant" are unregulated in most states, so they are used by many individuals who lack the experience or the appropriate training.
In addition, a small percentage of licensed practitioners are engaged in unscientific nutrition practices. The best way to avoid bad nutrition advice is to identify and avoid those who give it.

*An Integrative Health Nutritionist - If you need support for healthy nutrition with a green angle and like cooking, these are the folk. They do a part-time 8 month course with Joshua Rosenthal's Integrative Nutrition school on nutriton. A large part of their course is on business, how to market themselves and sell "programs". The training includes tools and websites to market themselves.. The "guest lecturers" from recognized institutes give a few lectures which are used as the basis for credibility (they slam down other nutritionists, especially RDs).
*A Holistic Health Nutritionist (HHN) - The word "holistic" means looking at the whole lfiestyle, the premise is nutrition is part of daily life. So if you need to change other aspects of your life that a qualified busy professional may not have time for, these are the folk for you. Be aware their qaulifications maybe based on personal experience and some short course.
* A Registered Dietitian /dietician (RD) - Like other health professions, a registered Dietitian goes through a degree course, internship and a national examination to learn in detail nutrition for health and disease. Many continue on to specialize in specific segments such as Cancer nutrition or child nutrition. The majority work in hospitals with patients. These are the experts who know how to interpret the science with your specific health, lifestyle and medications>
RDs when they have time, they provide the whole "holistic" integrative approach, a busy hospital RD may just refer you for other aspects of your lifestyle to specailists in that area.

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Registered dietitians are Nutritionists (but not al Nutritionists are Registered Dietitians)
* A Functional Nutritionist
* A Health and Lifestyle Counsellor
* An Optimum Nutritionist
* A NY State Certified Nutritionist
* A clinical Nutritionist
* A Medical Nutritionist

A registered dietitian can examine lab values obtained by the physician and may also ask for additional nutritional assessments if these are missing data that relate to your nutritional and immunological health
Dietitians need to take a variety of physiology, chemistry and biochemistry courses in addition to food science and nutrition.