James (J.R.) Oliver, MS RDN LD

Hello! My name is James Oliver, but I prefer going by J.R. I am a San Antonio native who decided to take the scenic route for ~15 years before finally making my way back home.

My passion is teaching and has always been the case for as long as I can remember. As a dietitian I love to teach individuals the foundational principles of nutrition that support a high quality of living at any age. My approach focuses on simplifying nutritional concepts into actionable knowledge, dispelling dis- and misinformation, and pairing my patient’s growing knowledge with specific resources and evidence-based behavior change strategies that allow for small, progressive, and realistic changes over time that add up to the desired results.

Personally, I consider myself a bit of a goofball with a slate of interests that would’ve made Professional Student a worthwhile degree if it existed – psychology, economics, and sociology are high on the list, and I’m a voracious consumer of podcasts related to them – Freakonomics, No Stupid Questions, and Hidden Brain are some of my personal favorites.

Aside from being an overly academic nerd, I also love language, music, theatre, and dance – so much so that I completed a Vocal Music Education degree at Texas Tech University during which I performed in numerous recitals, operas, and musicals, and then spent close to 3 years teaching English in South Korea – all before I learned that nutrition was even a field of study. While I’ve been a steady karaoke fiend and regular Duolingoer since finishing my music degree and returning from Korea, I recently got back on the stage with the Wonder Theatre (formerly the Woodlawn Theatre) in their 2023 productions of Grease and Meet Me In St. Louis, so you may spot me in a show sometime!

All in all, my love for nutrition really stems from how it interacts with and has helped me unite my wildly variable interests all through a lens of teaching and helping to improve the lives of others. Whether through formal presentations, learning to craft engaging and informative animated videos, leading cooking classes, rewriting popular musical tunes to convey a nutrition principle, reimagining classic advertisement tropes, or simply having genuine one-on-one conversations, nutrition education is my heart’s happy place and a passion I am excited to be able to share at JTA.

Prepared a Shrimp Fra Diavolo recipe for dinner with my parents!

Playing one of the T-Birds (Roger) in the 2023 Wonder Theatre production of Grease! Photo by: Siggi Ragnar