Q&A with Amy Freel �����������������������

Advocacy in Sports Dietetics: Q&A with Amy Freel

MEAGAN NIELSEN

MS, RDN, CSSD, LDN

INCOMING NEWSLETTER EDITOR

Amy Freel is the executive director for the Collegiate and Professional Sports Dietitians Association (CPSDA). Amy was one of the founding members for CPSDA in 2010 and was awarded the CPSDA Excellence Award in 2016. Amy additionally served as the first registered dietitian as an Ad Hoc member of the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports (CSMAS) for two years. Previously Amy spent six years at Indiana University developing a comprehensive nutrition program geared toward improving the training, performance and recovery of Indiana's student-athletes. As the senior assistant athletic director for sport medicine and sport performance she oversaw sports medicine, sports nutrition and sport psychology services for the Hoosier athletes. Prior to Indiana, Amy spent ten years building the same program at Virginia Tech. Amy was the fifth full-time sports RD in collegiate athletics and has been passionate about creating full-time sports RD positions in college and professional programs.

Tell me what it means to advocate for sports dietetics.

Amy Freel: Advocacy is about education� Figure out how to educate people who have a lack of information or knowledge regarding what we’re capable of doing and how dietitians can be integrated within an already-established team�

Advocacy is the way you present dietitians and the value that they bring� Change your education message based on whom you’re speaking with – knowing what their triggers are� For example: athletic directors are focused on the health and safety of the athletes, while coaches want to keep injuries down� Know what your different messaging points are based on what drives whomever you’re talking to and what his or her mission is�

Advocacy is the way you present dietitians and the value

that they bring�

Tell us how you came to your work in advocacy.

AF: It started when I was working in the collegiate setting in the early 2000s� I attended meetings and realized that I was part of a very small group of sports dietitians working in the full-time collegiate arena� We decided we needed to advocate for sports dietitians as being the nutrition experts within the collegiate, professional and tactical areas� We needed to educate, inform and advocate to athletic directors, strength and conditioning coaches, team physicians, chief medical officers, and athletic trainers about what a sports dietitian can do� We also needed to convey what value sports dietitians bring to the table that other practitioners within the department aren’t able to provide� We wanted to show that sports dietitians are the authorities in nutrition and that area shouldn’t fall under someone else� Honestly, early on we were fighting for nutrition as being a valuable component within the fueling and recovery of athletes!

What have you seen change over the course of your career due to your advocacy efforts?

AF: A lot has changed in a short amount of time� It’s been a fun journey to see the types of jobs that have evolved because of our advocacy effort, the changes in NCAA bylaws, and other things that are crucial for allowing sports dietitians to help athletes to fuel and recover as best as they possibly can�

See a nice timeline of these bylaw changes at sportsrd�org/cpsda-advocacy�

The crazy thing is when the fruit, nut and bagel rule was created, these were just supposed to be examples of what could be provided to athletes. But the NCAA made the bylaw very cut and dry to the point that you couldn’t even provide peanut butter. You could only provide crushed peanuts!

When deregulation happened in 2014, budgets expanded fast� This led to a staffing shortage, which then led to restructuring sports dietitian jobs - to not only provide meals but also MNT, counseling and other valuable services�

What advice would you give as to how and where to start when advocating for our profession?

AF: Go back to what your passion is� What ONE thing can you really start to advocate for? A lot of people try to advocate for the big picture, but that makes it hard to see progress� Choose a smaller item and start the process� Do your homework: find out why it hasn’t changed, what has been the struggle, what has been tried in the past and what has been the rebuttal� Get the history to find out why something has been established (why it’s been that way)� If others have attempted to change it in the past, what has been the pushback?

Have conversations with your colleagues� Explain your passion to them and ask how they see it� Are there enough people onboard with how you see it, or can they shine some light onto a different perspective? A narrow-focused advocacy is much better than a broadfocused one because it’s hard to have action items when the focus is too broad� Figure out whom to target: sometimes you need to work together with parallel organizations/individuals to get the ultimate well-rounded advocacy piece�

A narrow-focused advocacy is much better than a

broad-focused one

You must be passionate to continue to advocate for change� It’s so amazing when you can even make small strides in the advocacy effort�

What is one “call to action” for RDs to drive further success for either themselves or our career as a whole?

AF: Most people don’t understand what a dietitian does� Break it down� Describe your education and convey what you bring to the table with your credential(s)�

Meagan Nielsen, MS, RDN, CSSD, LDN, is a sports dietitian, private practice owner, and is the team dietitian for USA Weightlifting� In her free time, she enjoys picking up heavy things and then putting them back down (AKA training/ competing in powerlifting)�

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