Why have a dietitian on your team?
In this article, I want to explore the role of the registered dietitian and how I can support you during your recovery from disordered eating or an eating disorder.
You might be asking yourself: Why do I need to work with a dietitian? It’s a common question—and often the need for a dietitian gets overlooked.
What Does a Dietitian Do?
Dietitians are trained professionals with the knowledge and skills to help ensure you're meeting your nutritional needs. (If you're wondering about the difference between a dietitian and a nutritionist, I’ve written about that here.)
As a dietitian, my primary role is to support you in becoming adequately nourished. And this isn’t just a helpful addition to recovery—it’s essential. I would argue it near impossible to achieve full and real healing without being adequately nourished.
Think about it: how can you feel connected to your body when it’s operating in survival mode? How can you feel safe around food when it's wrapped in guilt, fear, or shame?
How Do Dietitians Fit into the Treatment Picture?
Dietitians are an integral part of a team-based approach to treating eating disorders. Healing requires collaboration. In most cases, your care team might include a therapist, physician, psychiatrist—and a dietitian.
As part of that team, dietitians focus on nutritional rehabilitation and support psycho-education, emotional support as well as overall treatment planning.
What Happens When You Work With a Registered Dietitian?
Here are some of the ways dietitians can support your healing:
Individualized Meal Planning: We’ll work together to create a system approach to meals and snacks that emphasizes adequacy, variety, and balance.
Nutrition Education: Both general and specialized, to help you challenge misinformation.
Food Exploration: Support in reconnecting with food—improving satisfaction and building trust in your body’s cues.
Weight Science & Theory: We’ll talk through the science behind weight and metabolism so you can understand your body’s story without judgment.
Body Image & Trust: Guidance in repairing your relationship with your body and rebuilding trust and safety in it.
What’s the Sanders Nutrition Approach?
I understand that the idea of working with a dietitian can feel intimidating. Maybe you're worried it will come with more food rules. Or maybe you believe you should be able to do it on your own.
Trust me—I get it. I’ve been there. (And yes, I did eventually go see a dietitian myself, which I am ever thankful for.)
My approach will never include rigid food rules. Why? I believe that building trust in how we nourish ourselves starts with deepening our understanding of our bodies and food choices—through a lens of curiosity, not judgment.
Rigid food rules often leave little room for self-compassion and tend to fuel “all-or-nothing” thinking around eating—something I find to be deeply unhelpful in the healing process.
The care I provide is deeply individualized. There are no cookie-cutter plans, no one-size-fits-all programs. Your healing journey is your own—and it deserves to be treated that way.
My work is rooted in medical nutrition therapy, which uses nutrition to help manage and treat medical conditions. But my approach goes beyond the “what” of eating. I believe how you feel around food and how you experience eating are also extremely important.
My care is guided by the principles of Intuitive Eating and grounded in a Health at Every Size (HAES) framework. I believe supporting you without judgment, shame, or weight-stigma leads to the best outcomes.
What to Expect in Our Work Together
We’ll begin with a comprehensive nutritional history to better understand your background, needs, and goals. From there, we’ll co-create a tailored plan that supports your nutrition, movement, and body image healing.
Whether you're just starting to explore your relationship with food or you've been working at it for a while, support from a registered dietitian can be a powerful part of your healing journey.
If this sounds like something you'd like to explore further, I’d love to hear from you. You can schedule you’re free 20-minute phone constellation here.
