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Nutrition consulting in the 21st century
ROSOVÁ, Monika
The topic of this bachelor thesis comprehensively summarizes the field of dietary advice in the 21st century. The topic focuses on a general description of nutritional counseling services, diseases which people come to counseling offices with, and general nutritional status as the specialization, today and in the past.Nutritional counseling offices are now very demanded and the demand for them is still increasing. That is why it is so necessary to pay attention when choosing and comparing the ratio of quality and price of services of individual counseling offices.The thesis is divided into two parts. The theoretical part describes general concepts such as healthy lifestyle or health. This part is devoted to the history of nutrition among other things, the issue of overweight and obesity, and to the knowledge about nutritional counseling. The thesis defines nutritional counseling and also the distinction between a nutritional counselor and nutritionist is mentioned. Other chapters are concentrated on the personality of a nutrition consultant and on the ethics, which is required, in this field. This paper has a goal to explore nutritional counseling and its services. There were four research questions stated. They were determined separately for advisory clients, and for nutrition counselors. We were analyzing what attitudes the advisors and clients have on the current status and quality of services provided by nutritional counselors. The questions are as follows: 1.How the clients are satisfied with the quality of services in nutrition counseling? 2.Is nutritional counseling financially accessible? 3.Do the clients follow the recommendation? 4.How a nutritionist feel about competition with other dietary advisers? In the practical part there is the main research realized. The research was conducted by a qualitative method using semi-structured interviews with respondents. The research group consisted of nutritional advisors and former clients of nutritional offices. In total, 14 interviews were conducted of which 7 clients and 7 counselors were approached. Trough the research questions I examined the satisfaction with the service quality of nutritional counseling and clients´ opinions about the affordability of the services. When asking the counselors, I was exploring how the clients follow the recommendations given and how does a counselor feel about the other counselors. The interviews with respondents were transcribed and then coded and categorized using the method of paper and pencil. From the research I have done, it can be concluded that the clients are satisfied with the quality of counseling services and also with the attitude of a nutrition counselor. When searching for an appropriate counseling office, the clients followed the experience of their acquaintances or reviews on the internet. By their opinions, the financial affordability is equal to the quality provided. In some cases, clients even did not find the affordability important. The results regarding nutritional counselors point to their range of services. Clients are primarily interested in weight reduction. By the words of consultants: "Most customers are satisfied with their approach if they complete the program". Consultants say that a third to a half of all clients fail to complete the program. This indicates that the clients did not follow the recommendations. The question of competition is very delicate, especially for smaller clinics. This is mainly caused by the lack of awareness and promotion. As I addressed differently sized clinics, the answers varied. Yet the advisors in the city of České Budějovice think there is no competition for them, nor any tends which would indicate that there is good competition.As a conclusion I would like to add that the clients are fully aware of the necessity to explore the quality of services, the education which the counselors have and the complexity of their services, when choosing a nutritional counselor.
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