Membership is open to anyone working in dietetics, in nutrition, or who has an interest in diet or food, throughout the world. We represent the whole of the dietetic workforce - practitioners, researchers, educators, support workers and students.
The BDA seeks to ensure the fair and equal treatment of all members, including fair representation and access to services and participation. We will seek to protect the rights of all members to be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. We will promote the equality of opportunity for the dietetic profession, and work to remove barriers to career progression.
The earliest dietary observations in hospitals go back to St Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1687. Evidence of the first therapuetic diet comes from the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, in 1837 when observers noted 'the diet which suffering and exhausted nature sometimes requires after operations (mutton chops)'. However 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 known hospital to develop a dietetic department in 1924 with Miss R Pybus appointed as its first head. Indeed the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary was again a leading institution in dietetics when the first dietetic diploma course emerged around ten years after the creation of its dietetic department.
The BDA’s history also emerged around the same time. The very first meeting of the Association was held on 24 January 1936 at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. Since then the BDA has grown into an internationally respected and valued organisation with influence in all four UK countries as well as overseas.
Throughout this whole period we have been fortunate to have witnessed great pioneers and leaders in public health and human nutrition. We have also lived through radical changes in diet and attitudes to food and health.