Weight Concern

Nourish & Thrive dietitians treat their clients’ concerns about weight seriously. They recognise the often difficult and long journey that has led a client to reach out for professional support.  They are therefore very invested in supporting clients to create a sustainable, happier, healthier approach to eating.

We can help in the following ways:

Nourish and Thrive dietitians utilise the principles of Intuitive Eating and the Non-Diet Approach to help support their clients to ditch restrictive diets and learn to trust and find joy in food and eating.

Is Intuitive Eating right for you?

Do you:

• Find yourself constantly on and off diets or identify as an “all or nothing” eater?

• Wish you could stop counting calories, macros or points?

• Feel confused, stressed or overwhelmed about food decisions?

• Experience anxiety, guilt and shame after eating certain foods?

• Regularly feel worried about your weight?

• Experience difficulty in connecting with your signals of hunger and fullness?

• Find yourself feeling out of control around food?

• Identify as an emotional or mindless eater?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you may benefit from a new and sustainable way of eating and taking care of your body. Intuitive eating is an evidence-based approach that helps people move toward a more positive relationship with food, movement, their bodies, and themselves.

Find the principles of Intuitive Eating here: https://www.intuitiveeating.org/10-principles-of-intuitive-eating

Whilst everyone’s journey with intuitive can look very different, this approach can help you to:

• Learn to connect to your appetite signals such as hunger, fullness and satiety

• Enjoy all foods without a sense of anxiety, guilt or shame

• Nourish your body with a wide range of different foods

• Recognise and reject diet culture

• Explore how feelings and emotions impact on your eating

• Work out the foods that support health conditions such as PCOS, diabetes or IBS

• Feel less out of control, stressed and overwhelmed about food

• Plan meals and snacks based on the foods that are enjoyable, satisfying and suitable for your own nutrition needs

• Find ways to be kind and compassionate to yourself and your body

• Learn to enjoy moving your body in a way that feels good

• Live a fulfilling life not dictated by food rules and the scales

Find the principles of Intuitive Eating here: https://www.intuitiveeating.org/10-principles-of-intuitive-eating

Nourish & Thrive dietitians are very sensitive to the impact of weight and body-related conversations on children, especially when they are connected with food.  Our perspectives and practices are informed by:

• Non-Diet Approaches

• Neurodiversity affirming and responsive feeding frameworks

• Trauma-informed practices

• Strengths-based practices

• Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility (sDOR)

We will therefore ask you not to bring your child to a dietitian appointment where there is a weight concern, in particular the first appointment.

It is vital that parents can speak freely about their concerns.

Our dietitians’ role is to guide and support parents to understand their child’s individual growth pattern, their nutrition needs and create a safe, enjoyable food and eating environment. This includes helping parents and carers to have child-friendly, appropriate and non-stigmatising conversations about weight, bodies, appetite, food and eating.

We will help you to navigate weight concern for your child and support them to:

• Feel good about and take care of the body they have, regardless of size or shape

• Have positive mealtime experiences

• Explore new foods with curiosity and without judgement

• Build awareness of body cues

• Discover and use their own internal motivation to develop food and eating skills

• Improve their relationship with food and mealtimes

• Feel competent with eating

• Explore and experience enjoyable ways of moving their body

• Optimise their physical, emotional and psychological health