Real Talk: Non-Diet Dietitians Share Ideas on Why Changing Behavior Is So Hard

Point 1:  Emotional/Cognitive Background of Changing Health Behaviours 

• Recognizing lots of emotional challenges when changing eating/lifestyle habits
• It's not about giving information to someone one time and that's enough to change their life and for behavior change to occur, it has to be over a time period 
• Majority of folks know what they want to do, but hard to put into practice 
• There is a cognitive and emotional element that may hinder behaviour change/ putting it into practice 
• Most people know that exercise is good, eating right is good
• It's trying to tap into emotions or feelings hindering you from making it happen over the long term
• Refocus on how you can maintain maximum health and knowing that it will take a long time
• Trying to make it more of a lifestyle so in the long term have the health goals you desire 
• Few and far between the number of people that can get information and incorporate that into their life permanently 

Point 2: Physicians Need to Changing the Message 

• Most people coming to dietitians so they can lose weight due to doctors telling them this
• Doctors tend to wait to give advice until there is a problem
• What if doctors changed the messaging for people to change healthy lifestyle habits from a reactionary standpoint to a preventative standpoint 
• For most people, weight loss tends to be the goal 
• The doctor might give an intervention diet tip sheet without taking into account anything about the patient 
• Focus should be more based on behavior as opposed to weight
• Doctor won't have all of the information the person needs 
• Either the person does nothing at all, or person offered medicine, people offered a diet sheet, or they go to a dietitian 
• Lots of nutrition information out there, some true and some isn't
• We live in a diet culture world where weight loss is the messaging and many people don’t have expertise 
• Very conflicting information when it comes to healthy living 
• Many don't know where to find reputable health information 
• Confusing to find information if you have multiple comorbidities 

Point 3: How Professional Training has Affects Personal Approach 

• Philosophy is trying to simplify a healthy eating lifestyle 
• Trying to have more balance with eating and being more in tune with it 
• Many women may feed kids great and feed themselves poorly or many are overly restrictive 
• Knows when to meal prep and when grocery shopping is done but also know when it might be more difficult to do these things 
• The mistake is giving so much information and not knowing how it fits into people’s lives 
• Instead of making huge drastic changes in one time, trying to include it so it becomes more of a lifestyle 

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