When can I start feeding my child vegan baby food?
How do I prepare a sugar-free school breakfast?
And: How do I get my picky child to eat healthily?
Anna Isernhinke provides answers to these and similar questions on her Instagram channel.
There she not only gives a lot of practical tips for families who want to eat vegan, but also positions her company at the same time: the nutrition advice bean counter.
The qualifications a nutritionist must have in order to hold this title are not regulated, however. The job title is one of the so-called unprotected professions. This means that theoretically anyone could call themselves a nutritionist - without having to prove special expertise. The situation is different with protected job titles such as pharmacist, notary and master craftsman: Only someone who has learned the trade can call himself that. That even regulates the criminal code. And there are many more examples: The job titles teacher, lawyer and nurse are also regulated, as they require a state examination.
If you want to take up an unprotected profession, you can usually choose from a wide range of training courses. Duration, form and content differ immensely - from a few weeks to several years everything is included. Associations and chambers of commerce are ideal for an initial assessment. They provide information on guidelines on what you should bring with you for certain professions and what paths there are. Career advice, for example at the employment agency, also helps with the first steps.
The DGE, for example, is a good point of contact for nutritionists.
So far, she has trained around 1900 nutritionists, who then carry the addition of "Nutritionists / DGE".
In order to be admitted to the certificate course, prospective DGE nutritionists must, for example, have already completed a degree or training in nutritional sciences or nutritional science.
Better to take an exam as proof
Anna Isernhinke completed a distance learning course at the “Ecodemy” remote nutrition school to become a “vegan nutritionist”. “It was very important to me to do my apprenticeship at an institute that works with subject-specific content and doesn't just offer any weekend course,” she says. Because she knows that she has to prove her expertise. The trained educator has been vegan since 2015, so she can fall back on personal experience. When she had her fourth child, she took parental leave to deepen her knowledge and completed distance learning. The 38-year-old has placed the certificate prominently on her website. The lessons covered, among other things, nutritional science, body functions and advice per se. She invested around 1700 euros in the course.
"I find it difficult that actually everyone can call themselves a nutritionist," says Isernhinke. If it were up to her, she would like to take an exam to prove her competence and get state recognition for it. However, a number of professions cannot be classified into rigid categories: "Many activities are too complex for that," says lawyer Tim Hoesmann from the Berlin law firm of the same name. Especially newer job profiles such as tattoo artist or coach are often not regulated because they have only been around for a relatively short time.
Not only is nutritional advice all the rage, there are also more and more tattooists in this country.
“That is certainly also due to the fact that everyone can call themselves a tattoo artist,” says the Cologne tattoo artist Lana Aanstoot.
There is no prescribed route, theoretically everyone can take the needle in hand and stab it.
“There are a lot of good, professional tattoo artists who have high demands on their work.
But now there are more and more private individuals who call themselves tattooists, without professional training, and thus bring the scene into disrepute, ”says Aanstoot.
"No guidelines at all"
The Bundesverband Tattoo also says: Many areas of the industry are still inadequately regulated or not regulated at all. On the one hand, this bothers the authorities and, on the other hand, unsettles the large number of tattoo customers. The federal association therefore wants, among other things, to establish uniform work and hygiene standards and to offer training and further education.
Aanstoot came to the profession through her own tattoo artist - and also found out about his career path from him.
“It was clear to me early on that I wanted to work in a creative and human profession,” she says.
So she completed an apprenticeship in a tattoo studio.
But there were no real rules.
“So it can be that a studio owner has you tattooed after a short time or that it takes a few years.
There are no guidelines at all, and each studio owner decides how they train, ”she says.
She has been self-employed for five years and relies primarily on intensive advice for her customers.
Not only does it want to stand out from the competition, but also underline its credibility.