In the early 2000s, a district policeman from a small Siberian town found the mystical treatise “Rose of the World” by Daniil Andreev in the backpack of a drug addict. The times were not easy – not only did the junkies think about the meaning of life, nor did healthy people. The police were therefore intrigued by the book, and a week later he shared his impressions of what he had read with a journalist visiting Moscow. “Anticosmos, gartungr, cathedral spirit … Andreev, your whole head was sick. Pipileptic! I say this like a pro! Like a professional!” Russia entered an era of full professionalism in this historical period.
People with specialties working collectively became professional managers. Extortionists are professional security guards. Builders were replaced by professional immigrants. And when graduates were replaced by certified professionals, shrewd C students turned into competent experts.
Not just twenty years ago, even today it is not necessary to buy even a certificate to become a recognized professional. Just one name is enough. Because the main condition for success is the ability to convincingly pronounce words, the meaning of which is often not necessary to know. That was until 2009, when there was a boom in creatives in the country, and 2012, when it was in favor of traders. A few years later, “experts” in cryptocurrencies were at the peak of success, and “psychologists” were at the height of the pandemic. Today coupons are cut by “nutritionists”, many of whom have barely learned to spell this word correctly.
The global health market is growing by about 10% per year, and its volume has already reached 1.5 trillion dollars – ideal conditions for the emergence of hundreds of thousands of “professionals” whose health is “pumped” in the field of healthy nutrition, diseases, drugs are “dissolved” or “absorbed”, the body is “cleansed”. Domestic nutritionists with 200 hours of online tuition and one day of training, for example, cannot work in the USA. Few will surely master the six stages you must go through to open your own office in a blind American town. The unified system of attestation requires higher education in nutrition, passing exams, spending 1,000 practical hours under the supervision of a government investigator, and participating in scientific research. Before opening a private practice, you need to spend several years in hospitals, social and rehabilitation centers.
Not a single medical university in Russia has yet graduated certified nutritionists. But private traders liked the idea – the niche has long been crammed with hundreds of training centers that have trained nearly half a million specialists in recent years.
In 2020, the number of nutritionists barely reached 10 thousand, now according to various estimates they are from 300 to 500 thousand, of whom less than 15 thousand receive higher medical education. According to these data, every three percent today is a Russian nutritionist … Education offices have earned at least 50 billion rubles in recent years from those who want to get a fashionable profession. But it is difficult to calculate how much money the so-called nutritionists managed to get from naive Russians. Just look at yesterday’s prices for the services of unemployed sales managers, bloggers, secretaries and hairdressers and multiply those figures by half a million specialists.
A nutritionist in Russia can receive any training. It is important that it has a certificate that allows it to accept clients. If a specialist is engaged only in diet and the choice of drugs, based on the opinions of doctors, the law does not prohibit such activities. But previously, nutritionists were much more successful in this regard and nutritionists were not needed, on the contrary, the number of scandals related to the work of healthy nutritionists was less. Doctors say that the interpretation of processes occurring in the body should be based on medical education. And they immediately ask themselves: How can a person who has studied anatomy at best from videos on more than 18 sites make a comment?
But even though the law allows it, training centers are churning out thousands of nutritionists. According to various estimates, from 7 to 9 thousand programs are currently used for their training.
“Functional products”, “the concept of absolutization of nutritional optimality”, “absorption of harmful foreign particles” … In the past few years, freshly baked “experts” in proper nutrition have simply encroached on the Russian language with nutritional idioms. .
All for the sake of maintaining an air of mystery. After all, it attracts us, the post-Soviet people. Every living thing is afraid of the unknown and we are so careless that we lose our confidence when we see a mysterious word and the name of an unknown “expert” in a newspaper. This feature allowed us to turn nutrition into show business in a matter of months. The top three of the five most common tips for novice nutritionists are: deal with insecurity, promote your blog, boldly raise prices for your services. In the fourth and fifth place – professional advice.
But in 2023, something went wrong. Apparently, the “experts” did not have enough knowledge and knowledge. If psychiatrists and psychologists, nutritionists, surgeons and narcologists, in a word, everyone who has studied their profession for many years, find a common language with a simple reader and TV viewer, nutritionists cannot do it. Pierced in the media.
As the news feeds began to morph into collections of made-up quotes, even the most gullible readers sensed a catch: “Nutritionist advises ulcers not to abuse alcohol”, “Experts recommend avoiding ice cream after diving into an ice pit”, “Experts oppose eating.” unwashed vegetables”, “Water is necessary for health”… As soon as nutritionists without medical training began to shine in the media, the aura of mystery surrounding this profession almost instantly dissipated. And finally the Russians became interested in the opinions of doctors.
In social networks, links to an American study began to appear more and more often, revealing that only a third of the authors of the top 100 best-selling books on nutrition graduated from a medical school or college. A list of the most misleading suggestions of these bestsellers was also published: “pasta and pizza help with weight loss”, “carbs destroy the brain”, “no breakfast, fatty foods, short sleep – the real way to recovery”, “obesity is the real cause of overeating” “Proper nutrition will change the composition of the brain, and after that, the brain will tell the body to lose weight regardless of what you eat.” It turns out that none of these books corresponded to scientific ideas. But it sold well.
Of course, almost the creators of medical trends have already figured out how to change the diet in a year and a half. And maybe sooner. Apparently, nutrition did not go to the Russians due to the not very complex presentation of information. Few people will pay a lot of money to a specialist so that almost any nutritionist from a district clinic can write a prescription for free. Of course, not everyone has yet realized that only a few of the thousands of nutritionists born spontaneously in the vastness of Russia are true professionals, that there is enough time to make extra money from charlatans. But the organizers of all this scam have already covered the losses, probably by selling professional certificates for the army of adventurers.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.