Varsity Tutors Scholarship: Baby Steps by Shannon

Varsity Tutors Scholarship: Baby Steps by Shannon - June 2014 Scholarship Essay

It has been a long time goal and dream of mine to one day write a book and have it published. Stories of wild fantasies or shocking science fiction have always inspired my creative juices, but I ended up not choosing a career in writing. Although writing was, and still is, a passion of mine I discovered another one. I found that I have a strong passion to help others. So it was through this realization that I ultimately decided to pursue a career in dietetics to help people live healthier lifestyles. However, my love of writing did not go away and I wished there was a way to combine my drive to help others and my passion to write. That’s when I came up with the idea of writing a book called ‘Baby Steps to Total Nutrition’.

I realized that although I may not be able to write books on the fantasies that enticed me when I was younger, it didn’t mean I couldn’t write a book at all, I just had to find a way to apply it to my chosen field. This is a book that I truly hope I will be able to write once I graduate college and get some field practice. There are so many people in the world trying to lose weight or who are just simply trying to become healthier, but they don’t know how. Of course, there are plenty of books on nutrition but a lot of them can be hard to understand if you do not have a background in nutrition, or they are unfortunately very bland and dry reads. It is my goal to write a book that thoroughly explains all aspects of nutrition as simply as possible while still making it fun by adding humor and voice. Excellent health is something to be excited over so why not show this in the writing? Also, a healthy diet doesn’t have to be so complicated like so many people make it out to be. You just have to take the information slow, or better yet in baby steps. I am going to group the information in my book in small sections which I will call baby steps. The logic behind this is that a) people will be able to process smaller bits of information easier and will retain it better, and b) if people try taking on the different aspects of their health in small parts, they can then focus on them individually so that it is easier to actually change to healthier lifestyles. After all, it’s easier to change one thing at a time than try to take on multiple changes at once, which can often result in nothing being changed.

Even though health and nutrition may come off as convoluted and boring, this doesn’t have to be the case. I intend to prove this notion wrong by writing my book on total nutrition and by making it simple and fun. In the long run, I hope that my book will also be able to help people live healthier lifestyles.