If you’re confused on what exactly “intuitive eating,” “mindful eating,” and “health at every size” mean and want to learn more, you’re in the right place. Below is a quick intro to these approaches along with lots of links to helpful resources. My practice is grounded in these approaches which are backed by science (check out articles at the bottom). Weight-inclusive health care promotes respectful and ethical treatment of patients and clients of all sizes, abilities and identities.

The goal of using these approaches as a registered dietitian nutritionist to is to provide patient-centered care that results in sustainable, realistic lifestyle behaviors that optimize physical and mental well-being, as well as empowering individuals to prioritize their internal cues and self-care rather than following fad diets or trends.

Intuitive Eating

• • Developed by two registered dietitian nutritionists in the 1990s

• • Text is on its 4th edition and there also is a workbook to go along with it

• • Evidence-based approach to sustainable healthy lifestyle habits that prioritizes internal cues rather than body weight

• 10 principles:
  • • Ditch the diet mentality
  • • Honor your hunger
  • • Make peace with food
  • • Challenge the food police
  • • Discover the satisfaction factor
    • Respect your fullness
  • • Honor your feelings without using food
  • • Respect your body
  • • Movement – feel the difference
    • Honor your health with gentle nutrition

Related posts:
–6 Common Questions about Intuitive Eating
-How to Balance Ethics and Intuitive Eating
–How to Honor Your Hunger
–How to Eat Intuitively on a Budget
–How to Practice Intuitive Eating as a Vegan
–Intuitive Eating for Busy Professionals
–Intuitive Eating is Not a Hunger/Fullness Diet

Mindful Eating

• • General term, not “owned” by any people or organizations

• • The Center for Mindful Eating has created principles for guidance:
    • • Allowing yourself to become aware of the positive and nurturing opportunities that are available through food selection and preparation by respecting your own inner wisdom.
    • • Using all your senses in choosing to eat food that is both satisfying to you and nourishing to your body.   
    • • Acknowledging responses to food (likes, dislikes or neutral) without judgment.
      • Becoming aware of physical hunger and satiety cues to guide your decisions to begin and end eating.

• “TCME does not endorse any philosophy or program that includes or promotes weight loss measures or procedures because evidence does not support that it deepens or improves an individual’s mindful eating practice.”

Related posts:
–What is Mindful Eating?

Health At Every Size®

• • Weight-inclusive approach to health trademarked by the Association for Size Diversity and Health

• • Social justice framework

• 5 principles:
  • • Weight inclusivity
  • • Health enhancement
  • • Respectful care
  • • Eating for well-being
    • Life-enhancing movement

Related posts:
–Fatphobia and Weight Stigma are Real, and They are Harmful
–How to Build a Healthy Relationship with Exercise
–What it Means to be a Non-Diet Dietitian
–What is Intuitive Movement
–What to Focus on Instead of Weight Loss

Suggested Reading & Resources

• • Books
    • • Intuitive Eating
    • • Intuitive Eating Workbook
    • • Health At Every Size
    • • Body Respect
      • Body Kindness

• • Articles
    • • What’s Wrong With the ‘War on Obesity?’ A Narrative Review of the Weight-Centered Health Paradigm and Development of the 3C Framework to Build Critical Competency for a Paradigm Shift
    • • Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift
    • • Weight Bias: A Call to Action
    • • The Weight-Inclusive versus Weight-Normative Approach to Health: Evaluating the Evidence for Prioritizing Well-Being over Weight Loss
    • • A weight-neutral versus weight-loss approach for health promotion in women with high BMI: A randomized-controlled trial.
    • • Mechanisms underlying weight status and healthcare avoidance in women: A study of weight stigma, body-related shame and guilt, and healthcare stress.
      • Adults with Greater Weight Satisfaction Report More Positive Health Behaviors and Have Better Health Status Regardless of BMI
        
      • Thinking about your weight? What you might be getting wrong about the Health at Every Size approach.

• Webinars for Professionals
  • • When Your Client Says, “But I Need to Lose Weight!”
  • • Integrating HAES® Practice Into Medical Nutrition Therapy
    • Motivational Interviewing and the Health At Every Size® Principles
    • HAES® Curriculum Videos