Four minutes after leaving the SM East parking lot while all her friends were still in their seventh hour, junior Mia Mosher is on the second floor of Village Pediatrics, about to walk into The Tasty Balance — a nutrition counseling and dietitian office.
She’s ready to take notes during meetings, watch the everyday life of a dietitian, shadow appointments and complete any tasks handed to her.
Mia started her internship with the nutrition counseling and dietician office at the beginning of her school year. After Mia expressed interest in being a nutritionist, her counselor told her about the business, as she knew the owner, and set up the internship.
Now, instead of taking notes during seventh hour, Mia sits in on marketing or financial meetings and sits in on different kinds of appointments.This has been helpful in exploring different career options she’s interested in pursuing.
“It's definitely not what people think of as the average high school experience, but I’m really grateful [for it all],” Mia said.
The Tasty Balance mainly works with clients who have eating disorders or are on weight-loss medicine like Ozempic, to help manage their diet and figure out what foods work for them. The internship serves as a way to explore her interest in nutrition, like learning what type of food is best in the right scenarios and has allowed Mia to look at potential career options.
Her primary career interest is sports nutrition and working directly with sports teams to create diets for athletes. Part of this interest developed from being a soccer player her whole life and committing to Ole Miss, which has a well known dietary program.
“I think [it’s] really interesting how different people’s bodies react to a Rice Crispy Treat versus an apple sauce,” Mia said. “I think a lot of people don’t realize how the things that they think are good for them aren’t necessarily good for them.”
Educating people, primarily athletes, about this is part of the reason why Mia is drawn towards being a sports dietitian.
Ariel Johnston, owner of The Tasty Balance, has noticed Mia’s communication, social media and leadership improve significantly in only the past three months of the internship. Some of these skills stem from ones she’s developed as a soccer player.
“Being an athlete, I think, definitely helps with leadership and being on a team and being able to work as a team member,” Ariel said.
Mia’s communication and social media skills help her contribute during team meetings where Ariel talks through finances and different marketing strategies to get more clients.
These meetings are when Mia is challenged the most through her internship.
“[When] I’m sitting in on those meetings, I really have to figure out what the key points are,” Mia said. “Whereas in school, the key points are just up on the screen, you don’t really have to think about it,”
Holly Mosher, Mia’s mom, has also noticed how the internship has made Mia more mature.
“[It gives] her, in general, more of a mature demeanor and greater vocabulary because of her exposure to a kind of niche employment,” Holly said.
Holly has watched Mia learn time management from years of competitive soccer, and with this internship added on, Mia only gets to work on it more.
Through the internship, Mia has learned professional skills and discovered possible career paths to help her decide that she wants to explore sports nutrition in college.
“I just became interested one day, and I was like, this would be really cool,” Mia said. “I thought [being a specific sport’s team’s nutritionist] would be something that’s really fun because you get to plan out their meals based on how much a player weighs, how much time they play for and how many miles there are in a game.”
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