Why Naturopathic Nutrition?
Naturopathic nutrition is an holistic therapy that treats everyone as an individual, taking into account the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being of the whole person when assessing health problems. Naturopathic nutrition recognises food selection and preparation as a healing art that seeks to address imbalances in the body. By creating the most favourable conditions to stimulate and enhance the body’s natural healing power through diet, lifestyle and possibly supplementation, a naturopathic nutrition practitioner can help people with a range of health problems.
Naturopathic practitioners aim to seek out and advise on ways to remove or reduce the cause of disease, rather than simply suppressing the symptoms. We passionately believe in this holistic approach that shifts the view of healthcare from one focused on the management of symptoms to one that aims to improve health and wellbeing; it is one of the fundamental differences between the naturopathic approach and conventional medicine.
The Naturopathic Nutrition Association is a member of The General Naturopathic Council (GNC), which has close ties with the European Federation of Naturopaths. The GNC has been working towards the establishment of a two-tier GNC register. The upper tier (Registered Naturopaths) is for practitioners who meet all the GNC’s core element requirements; the second tier provides a unique opportunity for practitioners, including members of the NNA, to become Associate members. Information about the GNC’s register can be found here. The NNA have an upgrade scheme for qualified naturopathic nutritional therapists who wish to become Registered Naturopaths - this scheme is currently on hold.
CNHC Registration
Although the law does not protect the titles 'nutritional therapist' and 'registered nutritional therapist', there are certain industry professional bodies and registers that use specific titles to portray registration and a high level of training. One such professional body is the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC), which was set up with government support to protect the public.
Members of the NNA may be eligible, depending on their qualification, to make an application for registration with the CNHC (Complementary & Natural Healthcare Council) for the Naturopathy and Nutritional Therapy registers and those that do may refer to themselves as 'CNHC Registered Nutritional Therapists'. To be eligible for registration, they must have undertaken training that meets the minimum national standards of practice - as set by the Nutritional Therapy National Occupational Standards and the Nutritional Therapy Core Curriculum.
The CNHC is unique because it provides a voluntary register of complementary therapists which has been approved as an Accredited Voluntary Register (AVR) by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care.
