Collaborating on Health and Well-being

By: Krystal Register, Director, Health and Well-being, FMI

Growing up as an athletic math nerd with a love of science I knew that I felt better and functioned best when I was taking good care of myself—eating right, running around, drinking water and sleeping. I attribute my built-in yearning to become a healthcare professional to my mother, a registered nurse, the model of health and caring with a knack for education and details. My undergrad environmental science degree was the perfect way to complete pre-med requirements, explore the outdoors, and embrace as many lab science courses as possible.

Ultimately, my passion and mission transpired to help people stay healthy by preventing illness and managing disease. I quickly found out that there was no such thing as a “preventive medicine” doctor; so maybe nursing was my calling? One of my first pre-requisite classes for nursing school was “Introductory Nutrition” and I was SOLD. Everything made perfect sense. I LOVED the many, many opportunities for a registered dietitian with so many spokes off the wheel.

Off to grad school, followed by an internship in a hospital. I found my niche as a dietitian, a health-promoter, a disease-preventor and a caring professional. I am fortunate for so many varied experiences through the years from WIC clinic to nursing home, burn/trauma unit to food allergy cooking class, and ultimately to the supermarket. Landing in the retail space was an unexpected dream come true with continued opportunity to provide food solutions, promote health and prevent disease.

Retail dietitians are equipped with the unique ability to build trust and loyalty by taking the swirling complexities of nutrition to create sound advice and guidance in “easy to digest” tips right in the aisles. Consumer-friendly suggestions might seem simple on the surface: “Add vegetables to dinner by always keeping frozen veggies in the freezer.”  Rest assured that below the surface, a retail dietitian might simply be talking about vegetables, but the real connection between food and health lies in the many complex details driving that message: nutrients, fiber, antioxidants, labels, metric conversions, ingredient statements, blood pressure reduction, diabetes management… on and on.  

Retail dietitians also have the skill set to contribute at the corporate level as advisor, innovator, executive, research digestor, able to balance a simple message with a voice grounded in science. There is a health and well-being synergy in the retail setting between store operations, nutrition, pharmacy, food, health and culinary when it comes to making a difference.

I am most excited in my new role at FMI to connect with so many others working to better serve all aspects of the food industry as together we embrace solutions for health and well-being. There has never been a more important time to collaborate and learn from each other as we gather around the table to nourish and connect.

Contact Krystal