Men and nutrition: Beyond protein shakes

Source: Nida Al Watan

At the gym, a young man knows how much protein a chicken breast contains, tracks his calories on his phone, distinguishes between cutting and building muscle mass, and asks about creatine, supplements and body fat percentage more often than he asks about many other aspects of his health. On the surface, he appears deeply immersed in the world of nutrition.

But move the scene from the weight room to university lecture halls or a nutritionist’s clinic, and everything changes. The strong male presence that fills the fitness world diminishes considerably within the profession itself.

This is where the paradox lies: why does nutrition successfully attract men as a field of knowledge related to the body, muscles and performance, yet largely fail to attract them as a university degree and a healthcare profession?

The figures indicate that this phenomenon is not merely a Lebanese impression. In the United States, a study published in 2025 in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics found that 94% of practitioners in the nutrition field were women. The study included 1,065 male dietitians, representing approximately one-third of the registered men in the country. Although 84.1% did not consider being men in the profession a major problem, around half described the field as clearly gendered, while a similar proportion reported gender-related barriers or isolation.

In the United Kingdom, women accounted for 91% of dietitians for whom gender data were available in 2023, compared with approximately 7% of men. In Australia, men represented only around 7% of accredited dietitians.

A profession dominated by women

In Lebanon, the Syndicate of Nutritionists and Dietitians does not publish detailed national statistics by gender, making it impossible to establish a definitive percentage. However, the available studies paint a very clear picture.

A Lebanese study published in PLOS One in 2026 on workload and job satisfaction among nutritionists had a final sample of 138 practitioners, all of whom were women. Another Lebanese study published that same year, involving 177 clinical nutritionists, found that 168 were women, representing 94.9%, compared with only nine men.

These samples do not constitute a national census, but they confirm that men remain a clear minority within the profession.

The gender gap behind the science

The problem does not lie in the nature of the discipline itself. Modern nutritional science is based on biochemistry, physiology, metabolism and medical nutrition therapy. It extends to diabetes, heart and kidney diseases, gastrointestinal disorders, cancer, public health and sports nutrition.

Yet its popular image often remains stuck on the weighing scale, weight loss and lists of forbidden foods.

Culture plays a fundamental role. Food, caregiving and meal preparation have historically been associated with women. As nutrition has evolved into an advanced health science, its social image has not changed at the same pace.

What is striking is that the same elements become gendered differently as soon as the language changes. When the terms are “dieting, fitness and weight loss,” the message appears primarily directed at women. But when the vocabulary shifts to “protein, muscles, performance, strength and supplements,” the audience becomes overwhelmingly male.

The science is the same, but the way it is presented is different.

“I never saw it as a career”

Twenty-two-year-old Tony Shaheen sums up this paradox. He exercises regularly and follows everything related to protein, calories and supplements, but he never considered studying nutrition at university.

“I read about nutrition more than many of my friends, and I pay attention to what I eat every day. But when I chose my university major, nutrition never crossed my mind. I associated it with clinics and weight loss, and I saw it as a field that more girls tended to pursue,” he told Nidaa Al Watan.

His first point of reference for nutritional questions is his trainer. “I see him every day, and he knows my training routine and my goals, so I naturally ask him what I should eat and which supplements I should take.”

However, his perspective changed when he learned what the discipline actually involved. “If I had known in school that it included metabolism, biochemistry, sports and diseases, I might have looked at it differently.”

If this experience is repeated, the issue is not that young men reject nutritional science, but that they are not even introduced to it as a career option.

The trainer fills the gap

This is where the fitness world becomes central to the problem. The trainer is present every day, monitors the trainee’s body and progress, understands their goals and speaks their language. As a result, questions about food naturally end up being directed to them.

But where does sports advice end, and specialized nutritional practice begin?

A study involving 286 exercise professionals found that 88% provided individualized nutritional advice beyond their professional scope of practice, while 40% had received no additional nutrition training after their initial qualifications.

These findings reveal another paradox: the qualified scientific profession is predominantly female, while part of the nutritional advice directed at men reaches them through trainers and influencers, many of whom are men. In other words, men have not turned away from nutrition; some of their nutritional knowledge has simply reached them through a different route.

The gym is not enough

The need for scientific knowledge is not merely theoretical. A study at the American University of Beirut involving 385 male students aged 18 to 24 found that 47.8% had poor dietary quality, 47.3% had moderate dietary quality, and only 4.9% achieved a high level. Furthermore, 32.3% were overweight or obese, even though 64.7% engaged in physical activity at least twice a week.

This challenges a common assumption: going to the gym does not necessarily mean that a young man eats well.

The question then becomes: who reaches him first? The nutritionist, the trainer, the influencer or the TikTok algorithm?

Does the profession offer enough?

Another factor cannot be quantified with certainty, but deserves to be part of the discussion: financial returns and opportunities for career advancement.

A Lebanese study published in PLOS One found that 42% of the female participants earned between $100 and $1,000 per month, while satisfaction with pay and promotion opportunities was low.

These figures do not prove that men avoid nutrition because of money, nor should they be turned into a ready-made gender-based explanation. However, they raise a legitimate question: when a social image that considers the profession “feminine” combines with potentially limited earnings and promotion opportunities, does it become harder to persuade a young man to choose it?

The goal is not to turn nutrition into a “male” profession or manufacture an artificial numerical balance. The issue is freedom of choice, free from preconceived stereotypes.