Building a Legacy in Nutrition Communication: A Conversation with Barb Mayfield
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[00:00:00] I am here today with Barb Mayfield, the founder and president of Nutrition Communicator, LLC, leading Nutrition professionals to be confident and compelling communicators. Barb is the editor of Communicating Nutrition, the Authoritative Guide, published by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, leading a team of 60 experts in nutrition communications now being updated for a second edition.
She considers this book a Legacy of her years teaching Future Nutrition Professionals to be Effective Nutrition communicators. I'm excited to be part of the Expert Authors. I'm a co-author for this book, and I hope you enjoy today's episode. Barb, I'm so happy to be here with you today and, if you would like to add anything that I left out in terms of introducing you, as an author and all the great work that you do with nutrition communications. I am just delighted to have this conversation with you today, Libby. Let's just see where it goes.
Okay, wonderful. the first thing I'd like to [00:01:00] talk about in terms of your background is the significance of nutrition communication since I've known you, which at this point has been, I guess seven years or so, you've always represented nutrition communications, which I think we can agree is a topic that not all dietitians are familiar with.
They don't always associate. Communication as being one of the most important facets of dietetics. Would you agree? Absolutely. And I think it's partly because most dietitians or nutrition professionals haven't had nutrition communication as part of their training. Even though we all talk, when we all eat, it doesn't mean that we're experts in either one.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's true. I can speak to my experience as a dietician with a master's degree in clinical nutrition. I had one course on counseling that overlapped with. Communication, but that was it. So the emphasis was absolutely on diagnosis and evaluation and not as much on communication.
So I can speak to my personal experience and I'm sure the listeners have their opinions as well. And I know that you've done a lot of work with, dietitians in the field to [00:02:00] discuss this, which we'll get to in a minute.
Absolutely. And in terms of what you would like dietitians to know, what would you say that dietitians are missing when it comes to this topic and what do you think are important things they can take away, even if it's simple? I think what dietitians are missing is how fundamental communication is to absolutely everything that you do.
So we know a lot about food and nutrition. But how do we communicate that to an audience that we're working with, whether it's a peer, another healthcare professional, a client, a consumer. We have to be able to take that content and meet that person or those people where they are. How do they
Understand this topic, what do they need to know? What do they not need to know? how do we make it relevant to them in their life at the stage that they're in, whether they're a new parent [00:03:00] or whether they're a empty nester or working or anything in between.
So I think that, and this is my opinion, let me know what you think about this. There has been more discussion about one of the branches of communication that's motivational interviewing or counseling techniques. And I believe that's a facet or a branch of communication. But I don't know if dietitians see it that way.
Do you think that communications is just too big of a term and we need to break it down more? Similar to business is the term and marketing is one of the aspects of marketing. Do you think that's the issue? Not really translating that possibly is part of it because, for instance, in the book on nutrition communication, I make mention to the fact that counseling isn't what this book is about.
We have lots of excellent books on counseling. And counseling is an aspect of communicating in a very intimate one-on-one type of patient healthcare provider. Interaction communication's bigger in the same way that [00:04:00] you said business is bigger. So communication includes the way that we speak, the way that we listen, the way that we write, the way that we create a video or a whole instructional module about something.
So communication is very large. It includes media. It includes social media, it includes giving presentations, writing books. So it's really dispelling the myth to dietitians that communication is not, I personally think that I would bundle communication and counseling in a very similar category.
But I understand what you're saying is that there's so much more, and we'll get to the book in a minute. 'cause you've done such a good job of coordinating how you can educate, dietitians and food and nutrition professionals. Not just dietitians alone about the different aspects of what communication means.
Now, let's just say if a dietician is not aware of communication and they're not actively practicing forms of communication, what do you think some of the, setbacks can be? What have you seen? Some of the concerns might be if you're not good, or understanding what communication means.
If you're not proficient as a communicator [00:05:00] in dietetics, it's gonna depend on the setting. But let's say for example, you are. Called upon to give a presentation about a topic to an audience. Maybe they're a group of food service employees that work in your hospital and you don't have a good grasp of.
How to communicate what they need to know, using words that they understand and doing it in a compelling way, and being able to support your message with examples that are relevant, have activities that get them engaged. So there's all kinds of aspects. To creating communication that is effective. It's not just crafting a message that's clever.
Yeah. I would say if you're in a, setting where you are an employee, if you're not able to communicate, you might not be able to negotiate the. Terms you want for the employment. You might [00:06:00] not be able to set boundaries with staff and if you're working at your own business, although I know that's, we don't wanna only focus on business, we wanna talk about broadly dietetics in general.
There can be a lot of issues as well with how you market yourself, how you present yourself. So it really does across the board impact your skillset as a dietician. so that's a great segue to talk about the book. So if you could share your process in the book and how it's used, that would be really helpful because I would love to tell the audience more about the Communicating Nutrition, the authoritative guide published by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
So the book came to be. in 2016, I had just retired from Purdue and I taught nutrition communications and the academy approached me saying that they had a lot of requests from both practitioners as members of the academy as well as educators who taught future dietitians, that we needed a [00:07:00] communications book.
They had written a couple of small communication books. That had gone way outta print. They hadn't been around for a couple of decades, and so was I interested in this? I had taught this course for 32 semesters without a book, and I was like, this is something that's needed. And I'd written a textbook before, so I knew the work that was involved.
In fact, I used to tell people, I will never do that again. This was near and dear to my heart and I wanted to be able to leave something behind as I was. Finishing up my profession that could really help our profession and communication. There's nothing more that could help us beyond that. And so I worked very hard with that initial book to make sure that it had many voices.
We had 57 authors as part of that. original book because I knew, even though I had taught that subject matter, I wasn't an expert about everything and I didn't have experiences that other people could bring to the table, nor did I want to write [00:08:00] 700 pages all alone. So we brought that group together.
I love organizing people. I enjoy that kind of an effort. So it wasn't something that was like herding cats. The process of writing a textbook takes about four years from doing a needs assessment, creating a table of contents, drafting chapters, doing peer review, doing another review, doing copy, editing, proofreading, indexing, laying it out in a book.
There's just a lot of pieces that go into something that big. So I'm, really glad that you were able to step up and be the leader in the book. And it's on what revision now? Is it at the, this time it's, we're just doing our second edition. So this is the first time it's being revised.
And that also was. Initiated by the academy, they realized that there was some new content. probably the best example of new content is the whole thing with artificial intelligence. Yep. [00:09:00] That's not even mentioned in the first book. It was published during COVID and so another thing that has, changed dramatically in the last five years is how much more we do virtual. Types of communication. And so even though that was in the book, it's going to be more there's other things that are updated, but those are two good examples of things that have changed quite a bit. And is your role, obviously coordinating it is a huge milestone and it's quite the job and thank you for doing it.
No, I actually, there's 18 chapters that I was either a sole author or a co-author, and I will continue to do those chapters, although I am. Mentoring co-authors to do more of a role in those chapters. as I think I mentioned to you on a previous conversation that we had, I'm hoping to work myself out of a job.
That I want this book to continue for years past my lifespan. And so we have to keep passing the baton to the. New people [00:10:00] in the profession. Absolutely. And you've said that this book is your legacy, so is that correct? Yes. So what you're doing is you're helping train peers to then take more of leadership role and they're lucky because you didn't have that when you were offered this position.
You started from scratch in 2016, right? 2017. What I had to start with was what I had taught and so I did have, I had all my. Teaching notes and the things that I had done. And so that's what I started with. In fact, I used to create a notebook that the students got. You could ask a former student, they might have it on their shelf.
And it had a lot of content in it. And so that did give something to start with, but nothing like. What this book has and, yeah. Thank you for doing that. And you said 32 semesters of teaching. And that's, it's incredible to be able to take that knowledge, not only be an author for 18 chapters, but also I love what you said.
Get folks together to help contribute and create a well-rounded, Book because everyone has different experiences, right? You're not just reaching for academic, you're also looking at media and marketing [00:11:00] and other facets to really have a great, well-rounded book to communicate how nutrition and communications means so much more than what we might expect.
how is this book being used, Barb? So it has two audiences, which can be a little tricky, but in addition to being a textbook. To be used by universities either in a course on nutrition communication, which is actually rare. not the majority, but the minority of colleges have a course like this, although some are adding it.
It can also be used across the curriculum, so it can be used in a variety of courses. It is also a book written for practicing nutrition professionals, so someone who already is out in the field. It's very. User friendly. Easy to read. You're not gonna feel like you are reading an old textbook with lots of heavy reading.
it's chockfull of evidence, but it's also chockfull of very practical. Usable advice [00:12:00] and steps to take, et cetera. and where the listeners can't see, 'cause this is a podcast, I'll just explain that some of the text is broken up with case studies and with beautiful visuals to reference previous chapters.
if this topic feels like I'm a little light on it, then I can go back and reference another similar, sister chapter To really get that information to sink in. So it is an easier read because the way the text is broken up. So that is helpful and practical to flip through.
And that was a big part of my job with the first edition, and it'll continue to be in the second edition, is coordinating how chapters work together. So to give an example, one of the things that I feel very strongly about is we don't lead into a communication project without doing a needs assessment.
We figure out who our audience is and what do they need. There's an entire chapter on that, and so you can refer back to that chapter 11 in dozens of other chapters without having to repeat how to do that. and that [00:13:00] is quite the job for you to see how it all, you obviously have a big picture perspective as well as details to see how it all fits together.
that's a lot for you to process, so thank you for doing that work and then also working with how many authors again, 30. So there were 57 on the first, and we're, we have 60 plus on this second edition. It increases. I added a couple today. Yes. And I am, a proud co-author and I can say, Barb, that is, I can imagine that's a lot at work for you.
You have, different personalities, people with different preferences. it's a lot. So one of the things that you may have noticed is that the Table of Contents really organizes the book In a very structured way. Every chapter has the same kind of layout. It has the same kind of principles of how you go through the content, and so it gives it a very similar feel.
I think that when you read the book, it sounds like it's speaking from one voice, even though it's many [00:14:00] voices, but it's a collective voice as well, and it has a friendly, tone to it. and I help polish every chapter, all 42 of them. I. Had my touch. That's quite the legacy to leave. And, are you doing any work to see that more colleges or courses are using the book, even if it's not a direct communication course, like you mentioned it can be used in other courses.
Is that part of your advocacy or that's separate from all the work you do with the book? So one of the things that the Academy provides if a, someone instructs with the book is they can get what we call ancillary materials or instructional materials that compliment the book. And so those are resources that are all digital or online.
So it's reading questions for every chapter. There's PowerPoint slides, there's activities to do in your classroom. There's assignments, there's a semester long project, and these are all based on things that I used when I was teaching. And so it was a relatively easy thing to put together, and that will also be [00:15:00] revised for the new edition.
And then. I do a lot of work with other educators, so one of the things that I did the first four years, I haven't done it so much this year, is twice a month I would host Zoom calls that educators could just hop on and for an hour we would just brainstorm and people would bring up problems or situations and we would converse and we really, we developed some great friendships.
That's so nice, Barb. That's wonderful. Now, I've been out of academia almost 10 years. That's hard to believe, but you can lose touch with what their issues are and so to be in that kind of dialogue.
I also have, since it Became published. I have an Instagram team of students, so every single year I have a new group of five students. Our Instagram page is called Talk Nutrition for Students. We meet about once a month on Zoom and they take turns one week at a time posting content about the book.[00:16:00]
And so the Academy gives each of them a book at the beginning of us working together. So if anyone knows of a student, I'm gonna be soon looking for my next school year's team. And they've been from all over the world. I've had a student from Ghana, New Zealand, Canada, and maybe missing a country all over the United States.
Really cool. And That's another way of me staying connected to that audience of students. And so it's very important that you are. Hearing and listening to what your audience needs. a needs analysis as covered in the book and you're doing it not just from the student's perspective, but from the co-authors perspectives in terms of Zoom meetings for them, and then Zoom meetings also as you mentioned, for the educators if and when necessary.
And then for the students, one quick question. I know the Academy is American, how are the students from other countries allowed to do that? Or it just depends on what their rules are for where they're [00:17:00] licensed. 'cause I know it can get tricky for them doing education, internship, credit in other countries so they aren't getting credit.
Okay, this is something that they're volunteering. It's okay. Got it. They're like an internship, so that's so fun. One of the things that's really, when I think about my career as a dietician, the internet wasn't around when I was in college and probably the first couple of decades of being a dietician, but it's opened up the world to us
Given us the opportunities to do things like we're doing today, but also to work with people around the world. So we have several global dietitians that are a part of the book. Yeah, that's incredible. And you're right. And that's why nutrition communication is more important than ever because as you've mentioned with the revision of the book, you've had to add post telehealth landscape facets of, AI and what telehealth means.
And now with communication being more broad with the internet in general, it's just changing How we communicate and what that means for the dietician and for the public. So it's an exciting time to [00:18:00] be a leader in this space. Barb and I thank you for the legacy that you've built. I wanted to ask you for somebody who's interested in participating, growing their career and being a part of something as amazing as what you've built in this book, how do they become a co-author?
What are some of the things you're looking for if somebody wants to contribute? So primarily we're looking for expertise in a particular area. So when we sent out surveys to different dietetic practice groups that were related to communication or to education, one of the things that we asked was whether or not they would be interested in being a reviewer or an author.
And so we got lots of names that way, but we also get names from someone like yourself who says, oh, I know someone that has expertise in this area That's probably how I've gotten most of the names is somebody knowing somebody else. And so then I'll reach out. I'll often have a one-on-one zoom call type of a thing to feel them out a little bit more, and I don't even require that [00:19:00] they have a lot of expertise in writing.
That's something that we learn. How to do as we do it. I was mentored when I wrote many years ago, and you just keep getting better by doing it in the same way that we get better at everything we do. if someone is weaker in that area, they might do a smaller part of writing.
It might only amount to. A column in a particular chapter where they describe a case study type of thing. We call them words of experience boxes, That's great because it opens up if you're not saying you have to be an expert or have had written X amount of words or whatever the criteria is, as for authorship, you're increasing the window for who could contribute as an expert with some help in terms of the writing.
And I love that you scale it down. If this doesn't work for a full chapter, you can do, case study or an excerpt or something of that nature. and that's really nice and I just wanna add that for the folks that are saying. How do I become one of those names? If you ever want to contribute, it's probably important to [00:20:00] network, to show up, to build your brand, whether it's online or offline, because your name can still get passed around if you're making connections, getting involved in practice groups, things of that nature.
'cause Barb, I've known you for seven years now. I mean's been a long time and I met you through a mastermind that we did, when I was still working as a clinical dietician. Every single job that I've gotten has been a connection.
Yeah, I agree with that. a lot of dietitians are scared, to do that. They might not know how, we might not have the training to do that. and it might feel uncomfortable. and it really opens up the door for opportunities and really career enhancement and feeling really proud about the work we do.
'cause at the end of the day, it's not just about getting better opportunities, it's about enjoying the work that we do as well. And I like to do roles that are fulfilling, that feel good. I also, to make money too, of course, but I like to enjoy the work. That's right. and so you all those together.
Alright, Barb, any other thoughts you have or things you'd like to [00:21:00] leave for the listeners, whether they're looking to get inspired in their career or they wanna learn more about academia or nutrition communication? So if my website is nutrition communicator.com and on my website, I have all kinds of information about the book and lots of free resources that go with it.
So if you wanna get a little taste of what the book has and some materials that go with it, I encourage you to visit that and just be in touch with me. thank you for being so accessible and for all the, legacy building you've done in the field. It's much appreciated.
Thank you, for what you do.
