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ADA REPORTS

President's Page: Challenging the futureur 1993-94 theme, "Challenging the future: Shaping food andnutrition choices for a healthier America," was selected tokeep the Association's leadership focused on the future and

to link strategic decision making to our mission and vision. As weapproach the year 2000, our profession faces excitingopportunities and enormous challenges. To accom-plish our mission, we must turn opportunities intorealities and address the challenges that may other-wise detract us from achieving our professional goals.Dietetics leaders of the 21 st century must be proactivein monitoring the external trends that will shape theirenvironment and the very essence of their profession.

As we look at future opportunities and challenges,Marshall McLuhan cautions us that "we're movingfaster and faster into the future, trying to steer by usingonly the rear-view mirror (1)." McLuhan was referringto our propensity to study history and tradition at the expense offoreseeing our future. Although history has provided us with asolid foundation, clearly the rate of change in our society hasaccelerated so dramatically that history lessons alone are notenough. The society that emerges in the 21st century will be verydifferent from what we currently know. To demonstrate thesedifferences, one need only reflect on the rapid growth of con-sumer interest in nutrition over the past two decades. A few yearsago, many professional meetings addressed the lack of interest innutrition and health. Today, the dynamic and turbulent consumern nutrition market underscores the necessity of expecting, accept-ing, and creating change. Although our profession's mission hasalways focused on food, nutrition, and health, we have onlyrecently seen major consumer interest in our business. Today,consumers want help in shaping food and nutrition choices.

CONSUMERS OF TOMORROWInformation sources that will allow us to track and study theconsumers of tomorrow will help us shape our professionalservices to be more responsive to consumer needs. These needswill go beyond traditional food and nutrition boundaries.Tomorrow's consumers will be more affluent and more highlyeducated; they will be less cautious and less conservative; theywill live longer and healthier lives. Cetron and Davies (2) predictthat by the year 2000 people will continue to work hard, but thepace will not be as frantic as that set by the yuppies of the 1980s.They foresee a 32-hour work week and a more leisure-orientedlifestyle. The consumers of tomorrow will also be more restlessandl more willing to seek out change. They will not be brand loyal;they will want new products and services and will easily abandonthe old. They will want nutrition services 24 hours a day in theirhomes, automobiles, hotel rooms, and around the world.

Foods and eating patterns will continue to reflect the conflictbetween what individuals ought to do and what they prefer to do.Our nutrition education and intervention strategies must addressthe gap between knowledge and behavior while considering theconsumer's time and product dependency. This will make amarked difference in how we achieve our professional goals.

TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGESTechnological changes are already reshaping and restructuringconsumer markets and consumer demand for services. Althoughtoday nutrition messages from the media far outnumber thosereceived through person-to-person counseling, the creation of afiber optic super technological highway will provide us with newopportunities to deliver our message. Personal robots will be inthe home by the year 2000, along with wireless computers, faxes,and telephones. Imagine how these changes will provide consum-ers with a means to "buy" convenience. Technology will also open

a global marketplace, allowing us to consult with experts or tocounsel consumers from all over the world in a matter of minutes.In 1988, IBM and Sears introduced Prodigy software, which allowsat-home access to such services as shopping., weather infonna-

tion, airline booking, and health services. Picture dieti-tians similarly working with consumers on nutritioncare plans, menus, and nutrient analysis via multime-dia interactive home computers.

These demographic and lifestyle changes point torapidly shifting markets for food and nutrition ser-vices. Technological factors will create and destroymarket segments and rapidly render current productsand services obsolete. The emergence of newnutritionservices will provide narrow windows of opportunityfor those willing to capitalize on innovation. Lazur et albelieve consumer and technological changes will

present agonizing threats and unheralded opportunities (3).

IMPLICATIONS FOR DIETETICS PROFESSIONALSI see tremendous opportunities for members to develop newconsumer-responsive products and services if they do so cre-atively and quickly. We need new foods, new approaches tonutrition education, new software, and new targeted programs forkids, families, minorities, men, women, elders, and dual-careerfamilies. As new technologies reshape how, when, and where wepractice, we will be able to reach a larger portion of our society inour endeavor to shape a healthier world population. Our futureoffice mayvery well be our home. Practitioners will have to rethinkold assumptions, question old traditions, abandon old processes,and embrace a new vision for how they will offer services.

The 21 st century will require dietetics professionals to developfuture-oriented skills. We must be willing to take risks and tobecome more aware of how environmental changes affect dailylives. We are in the midst of one such change-health care reform-that will dramatically affect our practice. Health care reformand changing consumer values have shifted us away from thephysician-centered health care paradigm of the 970s. Individualswill now assume more responsibility for their own health needsand decisions. The complexities of the changes in a restructuredhealth care industry must be addressed by individual members ofour profession and by the leadership.

Our greatest danger is to deny the reality of a constantlychanging environment. We must call on our leaders to envision thefuture, not to predict it, and to propose multiple directions if weare to accomplish the mission of ourprofession. E. Neige Todhmunter,ADA's 1957-1958 President, said: "Imagination is what keepsindustry going in this country.. .Without it we will not survive, butbe relegated to the museum along with the horse and buggy. ..Thisis a world of change, very different in philosophies, values, andmethods from what it was even a few years ago. It is not enoughto keep up with the times-we must move ahead" (4).

The wisdom of Todhunter's words holds true today: she did notsuggest clinging to the security of the past. Father, she calledmembers of our profession to be direction-setters, agents ofchange, and mentors-a key to meeting our future!-SAA C.PARKS, MBA, RD

References1. Nanus B. The Leader's Edge: The Seven Keys to Leadership in aTurhule't World. Chicago, Ill: Contemporary Books; 1989.2. Cetron M, Davies O.American Renaissance: Ootlr Life at the Turnof the 21st Century. New York, NY: St Martin's Press; 1989.3. Lazur W, LaBarbera P, Machlan J, Smith A. Marketing 2000 &Beyond. Chicago, Ill: American Marketing Association: 199(0.4. Todhunter EN. Our profession moves ahead. J Amr Diet Assoc.1957;33: 681-684.

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