POLOKWANE – Juanita Mamaila’s interest in food and cooking inspired her career choice.

The 24-year-old recently relocated to Polokwane in pursuit of her dream career. She is a consulting dietitian at Dietitians24. She has always wanted to work in the health sector and she realised that becoming a dietitian is one of the options that she has. The decision to become a dietitian was further cemented by her father who has a vegetable garden.

“My father has a small garden where he harvest vegetables, he always says these vegetables are healthy we should eat them, so that made me want to understand more about health and foods, and how they connect,” she said.

Juanita explained that her job entails giving support to people who want to improve their health by providing expert nutrition and dietary advice.

“The one thing that I love most about being a dietitian is helping people to become healthier by changing their relationship with food, from being a negative relationship to a positive one,” she explained.

One of the difficult aspects of being a dietitian is having to correct the misconceptions around food because there are so many opinions about food which are not always correct.

“We have the task of correcting these misconceptions, because everyone has something to say about food and more often than not, the information is incorrect and not science-based,” she said.