Behavior Change and Nutrition Counseling

Abstract

Nutrition counseling involves more than advising a patient on what to eat and what not to eat. • The messages must be evidence-based, clear, and consistent. • The most effective way for the messenger to deliver these healthy eating messages is to use collaboration and negotiation to co-create a nutrition plan with the patient. • The “COACH” approach (Curiosity, Openness, Appreciation, Compassion, and Honesty) helps cultivate a therapeutic relationship and creates an environment that promotes healthy eating patterns and empowers patients. • Tapping into the patient’s motivation is a critical part of the nutrition counseling process. • Motivational interviewing, self-determination theory, appreciative inquiry, and the transtheoretical model of change can help guide clinicians to elicit patient motivation and to facilitate change. • Two often-overlooked nutrition strategies to propel patients forward toward healthy eating patterns are discovering the patient’s vision for himself or herself and determining the differential between where the patient is now, and where he or she wants to go. • Creating a new program and crafting “SMART” goals to adopt or sustain healthy eating habits need to be completed with each patient. • Nutrition counseling is a journey for both patient and provider that needs to be personalized to each patient at each visit.