Infuse Infuse 10 December 2019 | Page 32

The Nuts and Bolts
of Weight Neutral
Nutrition Counselling
with Fiona Willer AdvAPD, Accredited Practising Dietitian and academic in Nutrition and Dietetics
Weight neutral frameworks like Health at Every Size and
intuitive eating are hotter than ever, with a growing number
of dietitians incorporating these principles into their practice.
We talked to dietitian and PhD candidate, Fiona Willer, about
her research into non-diet nutrition counselling.
‘[Dietetic counselling] made me realise how
unhealthy my internal dialogue around
food was’
‘I liked the way the dietitian I was seeing was
discussing the relationship between food and
emotions, and the goal was better eating, not
necessarily losing weight’
‘Diets do not work and eating a more
balanced variety of food is more important’
© Dietitian Connection
32
These were some of the comments that
I heard from clients of dietitians when
I investigated the suitability of health-
centric size acceptance approaches.
Traditionally dietitians have provided
weight loss advice for larger-bodied
people and size-accepting lifestyle
advice for smaller-bodied people.
However, with the rise of the Health at
Every Size (HAES) and intuitive eating
movements, this is changing.
Infuse | December 2019