Celebrating National Nutrition Month highlights the fun and enjoyment that nourishing the body offers. Each March, countless people are encouraged to ‘eat right’ to be healthy. While I empathize with the intention, the pandemic has made it hard not to see the health inequity that grips our country. Below that issue lies the existing harm...Read More

Patients have said to me, “My PCP thinks that I overeat, but I am not overeating. They think that I am not exercising or that I am lazy. They just don’t believe me, and it is frustrating because they stop listening.” Poor communication is often at the heart of outcomes. Failure to talk about the...Read More

If you are like many professionals you might not have considered the long-term impact of a weight stigma or a weight centered approach to diabetes and how this might impact diabetes care.  Research shows that the long‐term result is avoidance and postponement of care, which has a significant impact on health outcomes. Research confirms that...Read More

To understand what makes DEB-D escalate, we must begin by understanding how weight stigma, DEB and diabetes are connected. This begins with some very basic definitions about weight stigma and how it impacts diabetes care. What is Weight Stigma? Weight stigma is the prejudice and discrimination towards higher weight individuals. This vanilla definition can include...Read More

Learning more about DEB – D begins with a key article by Deborah L. Young-Hyman and Catherine L. Davis titled Disordered Eating Behaviors in Individuals with Diabetes. This review article was published in 2010 in the Diabetes Care Journal, which reviews over 100 journal articles. Here are some quotes from this amazing article, which is a ‘must’ read on...Read More

Kim came into my office and after a short pause explained that she wanted to lower her A1C because she was going to have fertility treatments to have a baby. It was an exciting decision for Kim and after many years of trying, this 38-year woman explained, it was time to get serious about starting...Read More

We’ve all been trained in creating S.M.A.R.T goals, and if you have been following me, you know that S.M.A.R.T goals aren’t always helpful.  Sometimes being too specific distracts you from identifying and refining your deeper intention. Yep, you’ve been there, and you want to keep your goals simple because simple goals provide you with a sense of freedom...Read More

The heart of mindful eating is developing the ability to listen to your own inner wisdom. This is typically done in meditation by being quiet, slowing down and noticing what arises for you. In business, there are big benefits that come from engaging in regular reflection. But because we can’t expect our clients to sit...Read More

Healthcare professionals are unaware that diabetes educators, myself included, have had a change in their credentials. The term CDE now signifies a Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist. While this is a bit of a mouthful, the name change better captures what a CDE (or should I say, CDCES) does! We CARE!  Let’s unpack what...Read More

Identifying disordered eating isn’t as simple as asking if a person ate this or didn’t eat that. Identifying disordered eating requires us to look at both the motivation, fears, and behaviors surrounding food. The followig examples of eating disorder screening questions will give you a sense of how disordered eating is identified.  These questions were taken...Read More