I often see questions about sports nutrition come up when I’m perusing nutrition groups on Facebook or Reddit sub-threads. And every time, I am left frustrated by the comments and advice given by people not working in sports. They “personally” know a sports nutritionist for a pro team. Or they did an internship for two weeks with a sports nutrition program. Yet they feel qualified to scare the original poster with horror stories about long hours, little pay, and toxic work environments. All of which could be present at any nutrition job and, quite frankly, any job. And just like I shouldn’t discuss the experience of working in a hospital, a clinical dietitian shouldn’t give sports nutrition career advice. This blog post is to dispel (or validate) the rumors I’ve seen and provide a realistic picture of sports dietetics as a career.
Myth #1: Sports Dietitians work 80-100 hours a week.
I know this is an exaggeration akin to saying you are working “a million hours,” but we throw it around so much that I think people genuinely believe it. Do you know how hard it is to work 100 hours a week? Anyone who has ever had to log their hours knows that it might feel like you are working 75 hours when, in reality, it was 48. In a CPSDA salary survey, dietitians reported working an average of 58-63 hours per week, a far cry from the 80+ hours we often hear about.
9 am-5 pm = 8 hours a day x 5 days a week = 40 hours a week AKA typical work hours in the US
Say, as a sports dietitian, you work seven days a week.Â
9am-5pm = 8 hours a day x 7 days a week = 54 hours a week
Okay, but a college sports dietitian goes in for early morning lifts and stays for dinner, right? So make that 7 am -7 pm.
12 hours a day x 7 days a week = 84 hours a weekÂ
Are there dietitians doing that? I’m sure there are. But more than likely, their schedule is six days a week, five days full-time, and a Saturday morning. They may go in at 7 a.m. and leave at 5 p.m. They may have a two-hour break in the morning when classes are in session, where they get in a workout, shower, and lunch. And their schedule ebbs and flows. There are weeks when their schedule is 12 hours a day, six days a week. And then there are weeks when their schedule is half-days. The variety in schedule is enormous across the board, depending on the team, sport, setting, and dietitian.
Myth #2: Sports dietitians get paid very little
There’s no way around it – salary data is confusing.
Before we get started, it is essential to note that salary data gets pulled from many different sources. Each of these sources has biases that affect their accuracy and make it challenging to compare salary data sources.
How Do We Determine Salary Data?
Employment search engines, like Indeed, provide estimated salaries based on cumulative data from job postings that its algorithm deems similar to the job you are looking at. These jobs may not actually be similar at all. If you’ve ever seen an Indeed estimate that quotes a job as $30,000 more than you have seen from other jobs, that’s what I’m talking about.
Salary surveys are another significant source of salary data, especially in dietetics. These are usually conducted by professional organizations (AND or CPSDA) or groups with shared interests, such as sports conferences. These surveys are anonymous, designed to encourage honesty, but the responses are self-reported, and response rates are typically low. The most recent CPSDA salary survey had a 30% response rate, showing only a minority of the profession. The highest earners may submit their data hoping, to help the profession. The lowest earners may submit their data, hoping to see how they compare and use it to their advantage.
Pros and Cons of Available Salary Data
Lastly, salary data often doesn’t distinguish between essential factors such as cost of living, years of experience, degrees, or credentials. Even when data does capture differences in qualifications and geographical location, other nuances of the hiring process are more difficult to capture and may skew salary data. For example, a person promoted from within may have a higher than typical salary because their company saved money on recruitment, hiring, and training, and the employee was rewarded for loyalty to the company. However, there is no way to show qualitative data when looking at straight numbers.
Salaries may differ among dietitians who hold similar titles because each school and team will structure their department uniquely and utilize their dietitians differently. For example, suppose an RD covers one sport at one school, and another RD covers four sports. In that case, their salaries may differ because one has a lower caseload (number of athletes) than the other. Even still, a school may say “Sports Dietitian,” but that person has supervisory roles, whereas a “Sports Dietitian” at another school covers only their sports, and the supervising duties are solely for the Director and Assistant Director.
Regardless, of the drawbacks, the data we have is what we have, and we will sift through it to compare salaries as best we can.
Dietitian Salaries
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average salary for a dietitian in the United States in 2022 was $69,350, with a range from $44,140-$95,130. This website breaks down the highest earning industries within dietetics including, home health care, scientific research, wholesale and goods (food and supplement companies, medical device sales), and government. Not the typical dietitian jobs! And certainly not the ones that employ the majority of dietitians (medical and surgical hospitals, outpatient, food service, nursing homes).
Salary.com lists the national average for dietitians as $68,006 with a range of 56,348-$80,849. Now, I know a lot of dietitians that would refute that the lower range. Keep in mind it is based on aggregate data from postings, which may include diet techs and other non-RD jobs.
Based on these two sources, we can conclude that the annual salary for any dietitian is about 68-69,000, with a large range from about 44,000-95,000, depending on the industry.
Sports Dietitian Salaries
According to the CPSDA salary survey, the annual median salary for a sports dietitian in 2022 was $73,000. The range for sports dietitian salaries is all over the place as there are so many roles for sports dietitians in varying sectors and positions. Some dietitians work one sport, and others work multiple, skewing the data. Professional sports make 80,000 on average, with earning potential overall higher in college sports (136,000 to 107,000). Average hours per week are reported as 58-63.Â
Tactical dietitians and private practice dietitians tend to make more money than dietetics working at schools. Tactical dietitians work a strict 40 hours per week, while those in private practice work depending on their caseload.
It is always relevant to point out gender disparity. In sports nutrition, women make up 82.5% of the workforce, while their annual salary is 67,000 to 80,261 for men. So, as a male sports dietitian, you can expect to make well above the national average for dietitians. In contrast, female sports dietitians make about the same as the national average for non-sports dietitians.
Comparing Dietitian and Sports Dietitian Salaries
The recent legislative changes in pay transparency allow us to make anecdotal comparisons. On Glassdoor, the average dietitian in Boulder, CO, makes $68,246. A job posting for an Assistant Sports Dietitian job at the University of Colorado – Boulder lists a salary range of $68,000-$75,000. There are two things to note here. First, the sports nutrition range starts at the city average. Secondly, it is an assistant dietitian position, and the job description explicitly lists that this position works with the Director. This means this is an entry-level or mid-level position, suggesting a higher pay grade may be in store with more experience.
Let’s look at a management position. In Mississippi, the salary range for an Assistant Director of Sports Nutrition in 2023 was listed as $43,400-72,400. The requested experience was two to three years. Salary.com lists a salary range of $55,690-67,190 for dietitians in Mississippi, while Indeed states that dietitians with 1-2 years of experience make $47,209 in Mississippi.
I think it is safe to conclude that the average salary for sports dietitians is comparable to or slightly better than that for dietitians. However, I believe the reputation for low pay comes from entry-level positions in sports nutrition, where experience reigns king. Getting your foot in the door often means volunteering as an undergrad and then accepting an internship or fellowship for less than optimal (to put it nicely) wages. And while that sucks, it does appear that sports nutrition has a higher earning potential overall.
Entry-Level Sports Nutrition Pay
Let’s look at some of those intern/fellow positions to see what we are in for with these entry-level jobs. I looked at all the postings for “sports nutrition intern/fellow/graduate assistant” in May 2022 to pull this information.
$15/hour, 40 hours/week (typically means that 1.5% is offered for hours over 40). Meals provided.
$13.85/hour (minimum wage in this state). PTO, discounts, paid housings, 2 meals per day.
$15,000, PT temp, 25 hours per week.
$21,250 for 11 months
$17.44/hour, 30 hours, 11 months
$24,200-40,400, 12 months. Noted that this is called a Fellow but asks for 2 years of experience.
$3240/month
Again, it is important to note the wide net that sports nutrition casts. These numbers are all based on working at schools or professional sports teams. Sports dietitians can work in the military, in eating disorder clinics, in food service, as chefs, or in sales for sports food companies, and determining those salaries is so much more nuanced. And remember that sports dietitians can command significant hourly rates in private practice or counseling.
Sports Dietitian Benefits
I am trying to remain unbiased here, and I need to acknowledge that I don’t know all the benefits of a clinical or otherwise dietitian. But I want to talk about the benefits/perks of working in sports nutrition that are unique to this industry. For example, in the CPSDA salary survey, all the following were offered as options for perks: gear, continuing education, phone, computer, tuition waiver or reduction, car allowance, and annual bonus. Not every job has all of these, but most jobs in sports will have at least one. Additionally, some jobs may cover meals, conference travel, sporting event tickets (and often first-come tickets to other events at the sports venue), spouse or family travel expenses, and parking.
Myth 3:Â All Sports Dietitians are former athletes
Many people assume that all Sports Dietitians are former athletes or that you are more likely to get hired as a former athlete. This is my least favorite myth of them all. It is so silly to me! In no other profession would you say this!
If you were a cancer patient inspired to become an oncologist? Amazing! You can genuinely empathize with your patients, and without your lived experience, you may not have discovered this passion for your career. The same goes for an athlete. You may have never come across sports nutrition if you hadn’t encountered a sports dietitian during your playing career.
And you certainly understand what being an athlete is like. But being a former athlete doesn’t make you a good sports dietitian, just like being a former cancer patient doesn’t guarantee you will be great at oncology. If teams only hired former athletes, our field would miss out on some amazing women.
This next part is crucial: being an athlete at one level does not mean you understand being an athlete at a different level. Playing a high school sport may mean you know the game, but it doesn’t mean you understand the rigors of being a collegiate athlete. And being a collegiate athlete does not mean you understand what you put your body through to play professional sports. But you can learn from and talk to your athletes, lean on your retired player coworkers, immerse yourself in your sport, and succeed in those ways.
Can I be a sports dietitian without having a background in sports?
Does it help to have insight into a sport to work it? Of course, but like any job, you learn to adapt to your environment. I had no idea what I was watching when I was assigned volleyball. It took me an entire season to get the scoring down, and even after five seasons, there were still calls that confused me. But I asked questions, went to practice, and read a lot on Wikipedia. I read about the metabolic demands of the different positions. I learned about the system our team ran to understand who played the most rotations and, therefore, had the highest workload. The players answered my questions about plays, the coaches explained drills to me, and our strength coach taught me about the power demands of the sport. If you want to work in sports but were never an athlete, don’t let that stop you.Â
Myth #4 Sports dietitians make smoothies all day.
Oh boy. I do think there was truth to this a few years ago. As our field grew, young dietitians were hired by organizations as the sole RD without mentorship or guidance. They found themselves in a circle of food service without a way out, so they left those roles. Other RDs came in and were told, “Carrie used to do this,” and so they kept doing the food service jobs.
But I think we’ve made a lot of progress by becoming more respected on our teams, by showing our worth in other ways, and through the rise of sports science, which is a field that doesn’t have formal education requirements or a certification in the United States and usually falls on the dietitian or strength coach.
Sports nutrition encompasses many different parts of dietetics, and different skill sets are utilized depending on the setting a dietitian works in. Like everything else on this list, the job responsibilities depend on the job. A dietitian in the military likely does more sports science and research. A private practice or outpatient dietitian probably sees more clinical nutrition cases. And a high school dietitian might do nutrition education solely. A performance chef RD may solely do food service management. And now, some schools are employing larger staffs, which allows them to specify roles, so one dietitian might be the food service person while another is focused strictly on seeing clinical cases.
Myth #5 Sports nutrition is competitive; you can only get a job if you know someone
Sports nutrition is competitive; everyone knows each other, and you can only get your foot in the door if you know someone. There is some truth to this, and I hate it.
When I was starting, sports nutrition was in its adolescence. I wouldn’t say it happened by chance because I worked very hard, but I had some luck in getting the start I did with no experience.
There wasn’t a sports RD at my school and there were few sports RDs in the area so I couldn’t get experience working with an RD. Once, in an attempt to learn more about the field, I reached out to a pro sports RD near me to ask her some questions about her job, and she told me she didn’t have time. I emailed and reached out to people endlessly until I could find a virtual internship. Then I emailed schools endlessly until I found someone willing to take a chance on me AND pay for my graduate school since it wasn’t feasible for me to take an unpaid position.
Things have changed in the last ten years. Sports nutrition is exploding in growth. Nearly all D1 schools employ a dietitian, the MLB and NFL require each team to provide access to an RD, and other pro sports are adding positions. Larger schools now have large staffs of dietitians, and smaller schools are more commonly employing at least a consultant or part-time position. But, the interest in sports nutrition as a career has also grown, so it has remained a competitive field.
Building a Sports Nutrition Support Network
And it can be difficult to get your foot in the door, but I challenge the notion that everyone knows everyone. The last time I made it to a CPSDA conference was in grad school, and the only sports RDs I talk to are a few former coworkers and two fellow dietitians I met while working in the SEC. I’m not particularly outgoing as a person, and as a professional, I am even less so.
Despite that, I value the opinion of another sports RD highly. I trust they will give me truthful information about a person, and I will do the same for them. For this reason, if a candidate has experience with another sports dietitian, even just shadowing them. That person can vouch for them, “they seem hungry to learn,” “They had great feel in our locker room,” and “They were hardworking and coachable.” That would be endorsement enough for me to take a chance on someone without much experience. It is essential to get the first step.
It isn’t easy to get into this profession, but working at the top of your field isn’t easy. A clinical dietitian has to get their foot in the door and continue to show their worth to become clinical manager at a large hospital. Similarly, a sports dietitian has to start small and work hard if they want to work at the highest level in collegiate, professional, or Olympic sports.
What Now?
If you are a sports dietitian and any of these myths are truths for you, please reach out to me. If you find yourself consistently working a million hours or being stuck at below-average pay, I’ve been there. I know you love your athletes and your job, which is why you are settling for these conditions. And I know you are good at your job which is why we must keep you in this profession!
But I also know what it is like to need support and feel no one understands. I was lucky to have other RDs to call, vent/cry to, and ask how they were bettering their situation. And from those calls, I’ve learned a few things and know many people trying to make sports more sustainable, especially for women.
I was lucky enough to have found other RDs to call, vent to, and talk about how to better the situation. From those calls, I’ve learned a few things and know there are people trying to make sports more sustainable. So, please. If you are the sole dietitian at your institution, if you are building a program for the first time, or if you are new to the field, call me.
Please email me and vent to me, and let’s figure it out.