The American Dietetic Association (ADA) is the United States' largest organization of food and nutrition professionals, with nearly 72,000 members. The American Dietetic Association is officially changing its name to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The announcement was made Saturday, September 24, 2011 at the Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo in San Diego, Calif. The change will go into effect January 2012.[1] Approximately 72% of ADA's members are registered dietitians and about 2% are dietetic technicians, registered. The remainder of ADA's members include researchers, educators, students, nurses, physicians, pharmacists, clinical and community dietetics professionals, consultants and food service managers.
ADA was founded in 1917 in Cleveland, Ohio, by a group of women led by Lenna F. Cooper and ADA's first president, Lulu C. Graves, who were dedicated to helping the government conserve food and improve public health during World War I. It is now headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
ADA's mission is "Empowering members to be the nation's food and nutrition leaders." Its vision is "Optimizing the nation's health through food and nutrition."
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Requirements include the following items:
Approximately 50% of RDs hold advanced degrees. Some RDs also hold additional certifications in specialized areas of practice, such as pediatric or renal nutrition, nutrition support and diabetes education.
DTRs work with RDs and undergo similar training though the education requirement is a minimum of an Associate's degree.
ADA's Commission on Accreditation for Dietetics Education (CADE) is recognized by the Council on Higher Education Accreditation and the United States Department of Education as the accrediting agency for education programs that prepare dietetics professionals. CADE accredits and approves more than 600 undergraduate and graduate didactic, dietetic technician and supervised practice programs.
The American Dietetic Association Foundation (ADAF) was established in 1966 as a 501(C)(3) public charity. Its mission is to advance public health and nutrition utilizing the expertise of Registered Dietitians. The Foundation's vision is "we all eat right." ADAF achieves its goals by providing support for research, education and public awareness programs.
ADA publishes position papers on public health regarding pediatric (children's) health, food technology, food safety, geriatrics (elderly) health, health-care reform, obesity and the full range of food and nutrition topics. The association also sponsors National Nutrition Month in March in the U.S. To help better communications with the US government, ADA has offices in Washington, DC.
ADA and the ADA Foundation launched their first joint initiative, Kids Eat Right, in November 2010. This member-driven campaign is dedicated to supporting the efforts of the White House to end the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation. Kids Eat Right is a two-tiered campaign aimed to mobilize ADA members to participate in community and school childhood obesity prevention efforts, and also to educate families, communities, and policy makers about the importance of quality nutrition.
The ADA receives some percentage (approximately 10% according to its most recent annual report[1]) of its funding from food companies, including Abbott Nutrition, CoroWise, General Mills, Kellogg's, Mars, McNeil Nutritionals, Pepsico, SOYJOY, Truvia and Unilever. In addition, the ADA lists Aramark, The CocaCola Company, The National Dairy Council and the Hershey Center for Health and Nutrition as partners.
The ADA has claimed that these partnerships with food industry groups do not affect its diet recommendations:
"It’s important for ADA to be at the same table with food companies because of the positive influence that we can have on them. For ADA, relationships with outside organizations are not about promoting companies’ products; they are about creating nutrition messages that people can understand and act upon to improve their health and that of their families."[2]
However, many people have criticized these partnerships. Marion Nestle Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, has written:
"Respected ADA colleagues: as long as your organization partners with makers of food and beverage products, its opinions about diet and health will never be believed independent (translation: based on science not politics) and neither will your's. Consider the ADA's Nutrition Fact Sheets, for example, each with its very own corporate sponsor (scroll down to the lower right hand corner of the second page to see who paid for the Facts). Is the goal of ADA really the same as the goal of the sponsors - to sell the sponsor's food products? Is this a good way to get important scientific messages to the public? ADA members: how about doing something about this!"[3]
Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber of The Center for Media and Democracy (an independent, non-profit, non-partisan media and consumer watchdog group) claim the ADA "has learned not to bite the hand that feeds it" [4]
Joan Gussow, a former head of the nutrition education program at Teachers College at Columbia University writes that "They (the ADA) never criticize the food industry" [5]
The Weston A. Price Foundation avers that, “Registered Dietitians generally get a bad rap in the alternative medical and nutrition communities.”[6] They suggest that dietitians are trained to promote and dispense processed foods, many of which are unhealthy.
The Journal of the American Dietetic Association (JADA) is a monthly peer-reviewed publication involved in the dietetics field, with original research, critical reviews, and reports on dietetics and human nutrition.