Student Corner Interview

Jamie Tade
Dietetics student
Dominican University, River Forest, Illinois

Tell us yourself, education, your background, and your current interests.

My name is Jamie Tade and I’m 23 years old and I’m from a little suburb outside of Chicago called Elmhurst. I graduated from York High School in 2003 and joined the Army just weeks after graduation.  I served with the famed 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, KY, and deployed with them to Baghdad, Iraq in September 2005.  Since leaving the Army in December 2006, I have started my college education and am currently a sophomore and Dietetics major at Dominican University in suburban River Forest, Illinois.  I love running and bodybuilding, and find myself often glued to ESPN to catch my favorite Chicago sports teams (Go White Sox!).  I love the whole field of sports and nutrition, and I’m currently studying to get my personal trainer certification.  Outside of health and fitness, I’ve been playing bass and guitar since I was ten years old and love everything from rockabilly, punk, to country. 

How did you become interested in nutrition?

I think it kind of happened by accident.  When I was deployed to Iraq, I was in the gym five days a week trying to lose the weight I had gained back after basic training.  I discovered the importance of a healthy diet and it’s relation to athletic performance and became really captivated by the whole thing.  I loved seeing the results I was getting through a proper diet and wanted to learn more and more.  Before going to Iraq I was totally oblivious to any basic nutrition and that resulted in the weight gain I would soon regret yet overcome.

You have served in the military. Tell us about how that experience relates to your interest in nutrition. 

I was just another soldier that ate whatever he wanted to with no education or care for proper nutrition.  Once I started eating healthy, I started to notice the poor diets of the soldiers working around me, and found it even more motivating to not only help myself, but to try to help others so that we can stay an effective fighting force.  The discipline I received in the military definitely has stayed with me in my health and fitness endeavors as well. 

Have you had other experiences that influenced your decision to become a registered dietitian?

Definitely. I look around the country and it is no surprise why America has one of the highest childhood obesity rates in the world.  Kids are more sedentary than ever before, and I feel compelled to do what I can to help change that.  Mind you, I was not very active when I was a kid either, but now I see the importance of it and I want to reach out to these kids before it’s too late.  I also see health problems in my family that could have been prevented through a proper diet and I feel obligated to help them and anyone else I can, too.

What are your professional goals? Once you become a registered dietitian, what kind of work do you want to do?

With a field that offers such a variety of work, I would be happy with anything.  But primarily I would like to be a sports dietitian, whether it is for professional sports teams, bodybuilders, marathoners, or Olympians.  I love seeing how performance can be maximized through diet and want to help athletes do their best and become role models for our youth. I also find myself obligated to the childhood obesity epidemic and would love to work with children to get them to become more active and to lead a healthy lifestyle. 

Is there anything else you would like to share with other students?

I believe we should lead by example. We should be active, we should eat right, and we should be okay with eating a piece of cake every once in a while!

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