The Struggle is Real: Providing Weight-Inclusive Clinical Care in a Weight-Centric World

While a consult for weight loss is common practice in the healthcare setting, patients losing and sustaining weight loss is not. Supporting patients in adopting restrictive eating patterns and rigorous exercise regimens may result in short term weight loss, but the more common outcome is long term weight cycling, disordered eating thoughts and patterns, and feelings of failure and hopelessness.

Weight-centered policies saturate the healthcare industry, resulting in stigmatizing care, missed diagnoses, and misinformed healthcare decisions. Many dietitians are choosing to reduce harm by providing nutrition care through a weight inclusive lens, taking the focus off of the scale as a measure for health and instead helping patients find sustainable health-supporting changes.

In this session we provide tangible strategies for delivering ethical weight inclusive care that honors the patient's health and well-being, along with tips for communicating this paradigm shift with the other members of the healthcare team. We address common practices within clinical settings that are steeped in weight bias and give examples of strategies that can reduce the incidence of weight stigma and discrimination, ultimately supporting the health and well-being of patients seeking clinical care.

Planned with the Committee for Lifelong Learning

CPE Level: Level 2 (intermediate knowledge/experience)
CPEU: 1.5

Performance Indicators

• 4.2.2 Reflects on own values, beliefs and biases.
• 9.6.1 Assesses client/patient nutritional needs and appropriateness of the counseling.
• 9.6.3 Applies counseling principles and evidence-based practice when providing individual or group sessions.

Learning Objectives

• List at least three qualities of weight-inclusive care.
• Provide at least two examples of health-supporting changes that are directed at managing disease signs and symptoms and not directed at changing body weight.
• List at least three ways to advocate for weight inclusive care within your healthcare setting and environment.

Moderator

• Crystal Vasquez, MS, RD, CNSC, NWCC, FAND

Speakers

• Dawn Clifford, PhD, RDN
• Kasuen Mauldin, PhD, RD
• Tara Lovinger, MS, RD