101 Nutrition Niche Ideas

To Niche or Not to Niche, That is the Question

If you consume any sort of business-related content, you know that the advice for many years has been to niche down. We have all heard by now that, “the riches are in the niches.” Are you ready to find your nutrition niche?

Even though nutrition is only a piece of the health and wellness space, it is still a very broad industry. While it may seem counterintuitive to decrease the size of your potential client pool, this can actually be a very successful business tactic.

Benefits of a Specific Nutrition Niche

There are a lot of benefits  to narrowing down in terms of both marketing strategy and job satisfaction. Here are some highlights:

• Less competition – Let’s face it – there are countless people on the internet providing nutrition advice. However, there are a lot less people providing services for prenatal nutrition, as an example. Less competition means more business for you.

• You can stand out – Just based on the math, if you have less competition, you are more likely to stand out. You can end up becoming a familiar face in the field and even the go-to expert, after some time. 

• More targeted marketing –  As they say, “if you’re speaking to everyone, you’re speaking to no one.” Once you have a specific niche, you can learn about your ideal client’s pain points and provide specific marketing towards that. This is much more effective than a general message such as, “I help people with their nutrition to make them feel good.” People need something deeper than that  in order to connect to you.

• Have satisfied clients – The more honed in you are to your niche, the more you are going to be able to help the people you serve and give them better results. Your clients are going to feel that you “get it” and will feel more confident in your expertise as well.

• Truly be an expert – The deeper you niche down, the deeper your expertise will be as well. You will gain more knowledge and experience when you see the same types of clients over and over again. It is also easier to stay on top of the research when you are only focusing on one thing.

• Waste less time – If you are seeing clients with a wide range of medical conditions, it can be a lot to juggle. You can end up spending your whole day preparing for appointments and looking up things afterwards. This is not only a waste of time but a waste of energy.

• Less burnout – Once you have niched down, honed your skills and gotten the trust of both your field and clients, things can become smooth sailing. You can be a much more confident clinician knowing you do not need to know everything about everything. Your ideal client will start to find you rather than the other way around.

101 Nutrition Niche Ideas

Are you convinced you need to niche down? Here are some ideas to get you started:

1. Sports nutrition
2. Teenage athletes
3. Weight lifting
4. Endurance athletes
5. Endocrinology
6. Diabetes
7. Type 1 diabetes
8. Diabetes remission
9. Prediabetes
10. Gestational diabetes
11. Women’s health
12. Men’s health
13. Reproductive health
14. Pregnancy
15. Preconception nutrition
16. Infertility
17. Postpartum nutrition
18. Lactation
19. Weight loss
20. Bariatric surgery
21. Heart health
22. High cholesterol
23. High triglycerides
24. Hypertension
25. Geriatric nutrition
26. Osteoporosis
27. Weight gain
28. COPD
29. Oncology
30. Dysphagia
31. Renal nutrition
32. Kidney stones
33. Pediatrics
34. Lactation
35. Infant nutrition
36. Toddler nutrition
37. Picky eating
38. Failure to thrive
39. Eating disorders
40. Binge eating disorder
41. Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder
42. Disordered eating
43. Substance abuse
44. Intuitive Eating
45. Healthy at Every Size
46. Functional nutrition
47. Menopause
48. Gastroenterology
49. Inflammatory bowel disease
50. Irritable bowel syndrome
51. Constipation
52. Diarrhea
53. SIBO
54. Gastroparesis
55. Gallbladder disease
56. Eosinophilic esophagitis
57. Pancreatitis
58. Fatty liver disease
59. Cirrhosis
60. Gout
61. Interstitial cystitis
62. Thyroid disease
63. Epilepsy
64. Parkinson’s Disease
65. Organ transplant
66. Plant-forward
67. Vegetarian
68. Vegan
69. Low sodium
70. Low FODMAP
71. Intermittent fasting
72. Keto
73. Macro counting
74. High protein
75. Mediterranean diet
76. DASH diet
77. MIND diet
78. Pureed diets
79. Tube feeding
80. Colostomies
81. Food allergies
82. Celiac disease
83. HIV/AIDS
84. Anemia
85. Polycystic ovary syndrome
86. Hypothalamic amenorrhea 
87. Endometriosis
88. Cystic fibrosis
89. Down syndrome
90. Nutrition for people using weight loss medications
91. Nutrition for families with young children
92. Nutrition for empty nesters
93. Nutrition for avid travelers
94. Nutrition for single people
95. Nutrition on a budget
96. Nutrition for college students
97. Nutrition for busy professionals
98. Homesteading/gardening
99. Sustainable eating
100. Culinary nutrition
101. Meal prep

The General Practitioner: The Anti-Niche

Not ready to commit to a niche? There’s nothing wrong with that! Providing general nutrition services is a great place to start to learn what you like (and don’t like!). 

Some nutrition professionals never specialize, and that is OK too. Depending on your services and marketing strategy, this actually may make the most sense. 

Staying as a general practitioner keeps the workweek interesting due to the variety. Some people thrive on the challenge of being a jack of all trades. 

From my personal experience, it seems that doctors’ offices are more willing to refer to dietitians that are generalists, as it is an easy handoff. There is no need for them to consult a list or memorize what dietitians provide what services. Having one go-to dietitian to tell patients about is as uncomplicated as it can get. 

The “Semi-Specialist”

Being a semi-specialist, as I like to call it, is where I personally have found my comfort zone. I have my areas of expertise, but I see patients outside of this as well.  

I am a Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist (CDCES) and have a lot of experience working with people with diabetes. This is highlighted in my website, marketing materials as well as conversations with referring healthcare professionals. However, I also regularly see patients that have different chronic health conditions and nutrition concerns.

I do refer out patients with eating disorders, the need for sports nutrition and certain gastrointestinal issues. I feel I do not have the competence in these areas to truly help these people in a deep, impactful way. I want people to have an amazing experience working with a dietitian, even if it is not me!

My semi-specialty practice works really well for me. I have the benefits of being a generalist, but people still seem to know me as “the diabetes dietitian.” I don’t feel the pressure to know it all, because I don’t have to see all patients that try to make an appointment with me. 

How Narrow Should You Niche?

Now that we have explored the general practitioner and the semi-specialist, we can discuss the fact that niching down is more of a continuum rather than simply having a niche or not. Think of your niche like a funnel where the top is a more generic, broad topic (e.g. diabetes nutrition), while as you go down the funnel it gets more specific (type 1 diabetes nutrition for athletes on insulin pumps). At the end of the funnel you have a hyper-focused micro-niche. 

How Deep Can Your Niche Get?

Let’s go through a specific example. We can break women’s health further down into women’s reproductive health, then into the specific disease state of PCOS. Even PCOS can be broad though, as people with PCOS have a wide demographic with varying goals. Here are some PCOS micro-niche ideas:

• Helping people with PCOS lose weight
• Helping people with PCOS get pregnant
• Lean PCOS
• PCOS in teens
• Athletes with PCOS
• Treating PCOS with a HAES approach
• Treating PCOS with a functional approach
• PCOS in the LGBTQ+ community
• PCOS in the BIPOC community

How Narrow a Niche Should Go Depends on Business Type and Strategy

The In-Person, Local Practitioner

If you are a brick and mortar private practice in a small- to medium-sized town, having a niche of treating athletes with PCOS is going to be way too narrow. You may only be able to get a handful of clients. Broadening to women’s health, sports nutrition, or being a general practitioner or semi-specialist is going to make more sense in this situation.  

The Nutrition Influencer

If you are an online business using social media to attract clients, a very specific niche is ideal. PCOS may feel specific enough, but from a potential client perspective, it may not be. Think about a teenager just diagnosed with PCOS. They find an Instagram account about PCOS and see a ton of content around trying to get pregnant – this is not going to speak to them. They are looking for information that pertains to their goals and pain points, and pregnancy is most likely not it. 

Other Online Entrepreneurs

If you are a nutrition blogger and want to monetize with display ads, affiliate links and sponsored posts, finding somewhere in the middle may be your sweet spot. You want to be narrow enough where you can have topical authority and a specific audience that will bookmark your site. However, you do not want to be too niched down, where there are minimal topics without any search volume to write about. 

You Can Always Change or Adjust Your Niche

The worst case scenario is that you pick a niche you end up hating and decide to completely pivot. For dietitians and other nutrition professionals, this is possible. Unlike physicians that do residencies and fellowships to become very specialized, dietitians are trained to do it all, so you can switch from one specialty to another without needing to do anything with your registration or license.  

Summary of Niching Your Nutrition Business Down

While having a specific nutrition niche is not required, it does have a lot of benefits. There are so many niches inside the nutrition field – what is your niche going to be??

References:

How to Become a Doctor

Becoming a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist