In Class: Dining Advisor
“It’s so satisfying to see a person… live a healthier lifestyle,” says professor Justine Karduck. (Image by Fred Zwicky)
I’m director of the undergraduate program in dietetics. Completing the program is the first step to becoming a registered dietitian. I do the academic advising for the program, and I teach five different courses. We have around 90 students, from freshmen to seniors. We’re a tiny program within the College of ACES. But we’re the No. 2 program of our kind in the country.
As freshmen, the students build an e-portfolio—a website where they showcase videos and food photography as well as projects from their classes. It’s a signature project of our program. I’ve had many students say that their e-portfolio got them into graduate school.
A lot of our students are interested in becoming sports dietitians. We have a partnership with Illini Athletics, through which our students intern with the registered dieticians who feed and hydrate the university’s 500 student athletes.
The university has a food assistance and well-being center with a food pantry for students who are food insecure. Our students help them put together healthy meals. People think college students must have money if they’re able to attend school here. But that’s not always the case. We have students who get their tuition covered, but don’t have enough to pay for three full meals a day.
My expertise is in diabetes management. I teach a graduate course about building empathy for diabetic patients and helping them manage the disease. There are so many things that someone with diabetes has to monitor every day—as many as 300 decisions. If someone is taking insulin, they have to think about when they ate last, what they ate and when they need to take more insulin. It’s a constant burden.
The biggest mistake people make with their diets is, I would say, skipping meals. You need to eat every three or four hours. A lot of adults try to diet by meal skipping. Or they’re just so busy with their work and their lives they forget to eat. But once it’s nighttime, the gremlins come out and then you’re at the fridge. It’s so easy to overeat while you’re watching TV or doing screen time and not paying attention.
It’s so satisfying to see a person change their eating habits and then live a healthier lifestyle, be happier and have a higher quality of life. Maybe they’re able to get around better, to work, to play with their children or their grandchildren. Maybe they’ve lost a lot of weight. It’s so satisfying to see people make those changes and say, “I just feel better.”
Edited and condensed from an interview conducted on Nov. 18
