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One major competency for the community section of my dietetic internship is to teach an education class to the public. The program I am currently interning with assigned

me to write the curriculum and present two different classes at the Fresh Start Women’s Foundation. The first class was “Healthy Eating on a Budget” and the second one was “Balancing Food and Fitness”. Personally, this has been one of my favorite assignments of the whole internship (it also happens to be in my last two weeks so maybe that makes me a little more enthusiastic?!) as it gives me the opportunity to teach other women something I am passionate about and see them get excited about it, too.

While teaching the women, I too have the chance to learn new things about myself and be exposed to a population I otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to work with. While planning the classes, I had to consider the different learning styles that women would bring to the class and how this effects the way I am presenting the information. Last night one woman told me she lived solely on fast food and convenience foods for almost 20 years and admitted that lifestyle almost killed her. She has since lost 80 pounds and is constantly looking for new ways to be healthy. Hearing stories like this is why I love my profession. While talking about various fresh produce, some women had never heard of various vegetables I was mentioning. I loved seeing how excited they got when learning about new foods and ways to prepare quick, easy meals. It was inspiring to sit in a room full of women and see their ‘ah-ha’ moments of how they can make better choices for a healthy lifestyle.

On the drive home I was thinking about what a great experience this assignment had been and how thankful I was to be given the opportunity. Thanks to these women, in the process of teaching them I was learning things about myself.

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