The Best Pediatric Nutritionists in San Francisco at Your Fingertips

Benefits Of Working With A Pediatric Nutritionist Vs Going At It Alone

It's a frequent misunderstanding that parents can resolve dietary deficiencies in children at home. If you want your child to be healthy, hiring a specialist is the best thing you can do. Working with a pediatric dietitian or certified nutrition specialist has 3 advantages:

Full Transparency Pros and Cons 

Going online nowadays gives you access to more nutrition options than you can count. But how do you know which one will work best for you or, more importantly, your kids? Here we discuss all the things you have to consider and their benefits and drawbacks: 

In-Person Consultations Vs. Online Nutrition

Safety: COVID-19 has made it impossible for the rest of the world to return to the way they were before. But people learned to adapt, and now, even medical consultations and nutritional counseling are done virtually. After all, it is the safer alternative, especially for individuals who have comorbidities and don't want to risk getting sick, by doing face-to-face consultations instead of going to health care facilities. Nowadays, finding a registered dietitian nutritionist is a lot easier too.

But as much as virtual consultations are safe, a video session may not be enough for your nutritionist to give you a complete examination. In-person checkups allow medical professionals to pinpoint the source of a problem based on evidence that is easier to examine in person (skin color, elasticity, abnormal marks, etc.)

Availability: You can do online consultation with a nutritionist running a private practice located thousands of miles away. If you're in San Francisco, you may want to start your search with a phonebook. It'll take time to get an appointment and even more time driving or traveling to get to your consultation and back to your home again.

Cost: When it comes to the price, there's no telling whether in-person consultations are better than online nutrition sessions and vice versa because the cost depends more on the experience of the specialist than the medium of consultation. More experienced nutritionists handling more complicated cases will likely charge more than dietitians with significantly less field experience.

Online Meal Plans Vs. Diet Companies

Is It Convenient? Online meal plans are easy because you can do a random search online, send a direct message, then have the food with your chosen calorie amount on its way to your home in hours. But, although this sounds amazing, you have to note that these plans don't take your kid's daily activity levels or sensitivities into consideration. 

Diet companies more or less provide the same service, but it might take longer for them to process your orders with their more extensive clientele. To maximize the products and services of both online meal plans and diet companies, use the advice of a registered dietitian in conjunction with their offerings.

Fees: Online meal plans or meal delivery services are often owned and operated by individuals. The meals are not prepared in an industrial kitchen, with no way to account for quality control. The fewer people and processes involved in the meal prep, the lower the costs. Diet companies have more complicated systems that involve more manpower, making their products more expensive.

‍Success: There are limited options for meal plans tailored to the needs of the individual ordering them. While there might be specialty services catering to keto and paleo, these companies are unlikely to meet their customers' nutritional objectives beyond measuring food macros. However, diet companies have a more comprehensive and well-organized menu, which you can consider an advantage. But ultimately, there is no human on the other side of that meal and their effectiveness still doesn't compare to care plans provided by registered dietitians.