Community Nutrition Educators

Job opportunities for community health workers (a category that includes community nutrition educators) are projected to grow by 13 percent from 2023 to 2033, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. This rate is much faster than the average for all careers.

Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control regarding obesity levels in the United States reinforce the need for more nutrition education. Nearly 42 percent of Americans were classified as obese in 2017–March 2020. Obesity-related conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and certain types of cancer rank among the leading causes of preventable, premature death in the United States. Government agencies and other organizations are increasingly hiring nutrition and other health educators to help teach people how to improve their eating habits and promote overall good health.

Finally, food insecurity remains a major problem in the United States. Forty-four million people in the United States (including 13 million children) experience food insecurity annually, according to Feeding America, a nonprofit network of 200 food banks across the country. This number is expected to increase in the next decade, which will prompt the need for nutrition educators to work with food insecure populations to teach them how to identify low-cost foods that provide the best nutritional payoff.