Using Trauma Informed Care When Discussing Weight in Clinical Practice

This product is free for Diabetes DPG members.

This webinar was presented live on April 9, 2024.

Discussing weight in a clinical setting is a difficult task for most health care providers, yet nearly 75% of Americans have some weight-related struggle and conversations about weight are inevitable. Poor communication about weight results in increased internalized weight bias, delayed access to care and lower patient motivation and autonomy. Given the high rates of weight-based stigma in the US, most patients with weight concerns will have faced some form of discrimination, bias, stigma or outright abuse/neglect during the course of their lives, including in healthcare settings. Such experiences are a type of traumatic stress that has long lasting effects. Additionally, there is a well-studied correlation between adverse childhood events (ACES) and obesity. As such, implementing a trauma-informed care (TIC) approach to weight-based conversations in clinical practice is likely to enhance both patient satisfaction and autonomy, reduce internalized weight bias, and increase access to effective, evidence based obesity care.

CPE Level: 2
CPEU: 1
Performance Indicators: 8.34, 1.73, 8.2

Learning Objectives

• After this webinar, the attendee will be able to identify the trauma/obesity connection including naming possible mediating factors
• After this webinar, the attendee will be able to name the three “E’s”, four “R’s” and four “C’s” of Trauma Informed Care
• After this webinar, the attendee will identify and challenge his/her own assumptions and barriers to applying Trauma Informed Care

Speaker

Robyn Pashby, Ph.D.

Robyn Pashby, Ph.D., is a clinical health psychologist who specializes in the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional aspects of health behavior change. Dr. Pashby is experienced in the use of evidence-based interventions for eating and weight concerns including Interpersonal Psychotherapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Her clinical specialization is in the psychological treatment of obesity, binge eating disorder, internalized weight bias, pre- and post-bariatric surgery concerns, and anti-obesity medication use. Dr. Pashby is currently the owner and director of Health Psychology Partners, a group health psychology practice located in Washington, DC that offers telehealth therapy around the country. She also serves on the National Board of Directors of the Obesity Action Coalition. She has presented research and clinical trainings at both national and international conferences including: the Society of Behavioral Medicine, the Eating Disorders Research Society, the Obesity Action Coalition Your Weight Matters conference, the International Conference on Eating Disorders, the Health Disparities and Social Justice Conference, and the Annual Australian Universities Community Engagement Alliance National Conference. She previously served as the assistant director and senior psychologist for the National Center for Weight and Wellness and as a consulting psychologist at the George Washington University Weight Management Program. She was previously on the board of the Washington, DC Psychological Association and as an advisory board member for the Making Our Vitality Evident (MOVE) program at the Mautner Project in Washington, DC designed to support sexual minority women in making health behavior change to reduce obesity. Dr. Pashby earned her Ph.D. in both medical and clinical psychology from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS), F. Edward Hebert Medical School. She completed her post-doctoral training at the Washington, DC Veterans Hospital and her post-doctoral Fellowship in the Eating Behavior Lab at USUHS.