Malnutrition can occur in all different types of bodies, requiring comprehensive assessments for all eating disorder presentations, regardless of diagnosis and body size. In collaboration with you and your therapist, our registered dietician will help you create achievable goals to ensure your child is adequately nourished throughout recovery. This can be challenging, as nutritional needs can fluctuate in youth, especially during periods of growth. Our dietician will help to ensure that your child’s nutritional needs are being met while giving you the tools to challenge food myths and misinformation. Our primary goal is to empower caregivers to help their loved one develop a positive relationship with food and their body and to ensure that they are physically and mentally well enough to do the things they want to in life.

 

As a member of the multidisciplinary team, the role of the dietician is;
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Conduct a comprehensive nutritional assessment:
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a.    Assess your child’s dietary intake and identify areas where change is needed
b.    Identify the degree of malnutrition, the presence of disordered eating habits, and deficits in nutrition skills and knowledge that inhibit adequate nutrition.
c.    Determine Target Goal Weight (TGW) and % of TGW
 
Provide Nutritional intervention:
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a.    Provide guidance about safe refeeding after a period of dietary restriction
b.    Provide education about the nutrients your/your child’s body needs and why, also advising how much someone of your/your child’s size, age, and sex needs to consume to be healthy and what appropriate portions sizes are
c.    Provide individualized recommendations based on physical checks (such as blood test results) and put together a personalized meal plan together to support meal and snack choices if required
d.    Monitor progress toward treatment goals by evaluating weight to determine when calories need to be increased or decreased to accommodate a weight gain or maintenance plan.
e.    Guide towards an adequate and varied nutritional intake to support general good health and well-being, both for now and in the future (for example, in relation to mental health, bone health or fertility)
f.    Support the team and parents to get the individual to a place where you/your child is able to independently feed themselves and establish a healthy relationship with food, movement, and body image. 
g.    At the end of recovery, our dietician can help to teach you how to recognize physical cues of hunger and satiety