Jobs / Healthcare / 29-1031.00

Dietitians and Nutritionists

Plan and conduct food service or nutritional programs to assist in the promotion of health and control of disease. May supervise activities of a department providing quantity food services, counsel individuals, or conduct nutritional research.

US jobs
77,570
Median wage
$76,400 a year
Job family
Healthcare

Can agents do the work of dietitians and nutritionists?

We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Healthcare:

  • Task levelPartialOne benchmark, from early 2025. On Stanford's MedAgentBench, where agents do clinical tasks in a simulated electronic health record, the best recorded model completes 69.7% of tasks (Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2). It has no maintained leaderboard, so newer models are not measured. No benchmark in our collection tests work with patients.
  • Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. GDPval includes nurses among its 44 occupations. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all occupations. No benchmark in our collection tests clinical work over days, such as managing a patient's care.

Benchmarks for the job family

These cover work in healthcare, not always this occupation's tasks.

  • GDPvalby OpenAIProject level · Wins plus ties against experts
    84.9%GPT-5.5 · Apr 2026
    Strong
  • GDPval-AAby Artificial AnalysisProject level · GDPval-AA Elo
    1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026
    Unrated
  • MedAgentBenchby Stanford UniversityTask level · Task success rate
    69.7%Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2 · 24 Jan 2025
    Strong

Typical tasks

From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.

  • Assess nutritional needs, diet restrictions, and current health plans to develop and implement dietary-care plans and provide nutritional counseling.
  • Evaluate laboratory tests in preparing nutrition recommendations.
  • Counsel individuals and groups on basic rules of good nutrition, healthy eating habits, and nutrition monitoring to improve their quality of life.
  • Advise patients and their families on nutritional principles, dietary plans, diet modifications, and food selection and preparation.
  • Incorporate patient cultural, ethnic, or religious preferences and needs in the development of nutrition plans.
  • Consult with physicians and health care personnel to determine nutritional needs and diet restrictions of patient or client.
  • Record and evaluate patient and family health and food history, including symptoms, environmental toxic exposure, allergies, medication factors, and preventive health-care measures.
  • Develop recipes and menus to address special nutrition needs, such as low glycemic, low histamine, or gluten- or allergen-free.
  • Coordinate diet counseling services.
  • Develop curriculum and prepare manuals, visual aids, course outlines, and other materials used in teaching.
  • Plan, conduct, and evaluate dietary, nutritional, and epidemiological research.
  • Plan and conduct training programs in dietetics, nutrition, and institutional management and administration for medical students, health-care personnel, and the general public.
Other job titles for this occupation (33)

Clinical Dietician · Clinical Dietitian · Clinical Nutritionist · Dietitian · Nutritionist · Oncology Dietitian · Outpatient Dietitian · Registered Dietician · Registered Dietitian · Renal Dietitian · Administrative Dietitian · Community Dietitian · Consultant Dietitian · Diet Consultant · Diet Counselor · Diet Therapist · Dietary Aide · Dietician · Dietist · Food Advisor · Food Consultant · Holistic Nutritionist · Menu Planner · Nutrition Consultant · Nutrition Coordinator · Nutrition Counselor · Pediatric Dietician · Public Health Dietitian · Public Health Nutritionist · Research Dietitian · Sports Nutritionist · Teaching Dietitian · Therapeutic Dietitian