Nutritional science

The British Dietetic Association (BDA) is a professional association and trade union for dietitians in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1936 and became a certified union in 1982: it is affiliated to the Trades Union Congress and the Scottish Trades Union Congress. Dietetics really started from the middle of the nineteenth century when Florence Nightingale observed the importance of diet and nutrition to convalescence from the wars at that time. Following the appearance of the first dietitians in the United States at the start of the twentieth century we know that the first UK dietitians came from nursing sisters, then working in hospitals. The Edinburgh Royal Infirmary was the first hospital known to develop a dietetic department in 1924. The Infirmary launched the first dietetic diploma course around ten years after the creation of its dietetic department