What to Say Healthcare: Discussing Weight and Food in Pediatric Settings

About

In our efforts to address eating disorders, we have come across numerous accounts from survivors detailing crucial moments that triggered their struggles with disordered eating--in healthcare settings, at home with their parents, and on the field with their coaches. These stories highlighted a universal need for positive and informed conversations about body image and food across all spheres of a child's life. Most critically, they reveal the urgent necessity to empower healthcare professionals, who are uniquely positioned to intercept and redirect narratives towards health and healing. It is here, at this intersection of care and communication, that What to Say Healthcare (WTSHC) finds its purpose.

Developed in collaboration with experts in eating disorder prevention, pediatric healthcare and nutrition, WTSHC offers providers the knowledge and evidence-based strategies needed to have constructive conversations about weight, BMI and food relationships.

 

Learning Objectives

• Empower Healthcare Providers: Equips pediatricians, family medicine physicians, and registered dieticians with the skills to navigate conversations about body image, nutrition, and weight in a compassionate and supportive manner.
• Enhance Early Intervention: Foster an understanding of the signs of disordered eating and eating disorders, emphasizing the role of healthcare providers in early detection and early intervention.
• Combat Weight Stigma: Raise awareness about the harmful effects of weight stigma and how healthcare providers can avoid perpetuating stigma in clinical practice.

 

Host: 

Katie Loth, Ph.D, MPH, RD, University of Minnesota Medical School  

Bio:

Katie Loth, PhD, MPH, RD, is an associate professor and associate vice chair for faculty affairs in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. Dr. Loth is both a researcher and a practicing clinical dietitian. Her research explores social and environmental influences on child and adolescent dietary intake, eating behaviors, weight status, and disordered eating behaviors. Specifically, she is interested in identifying ways that parents and primary care providers can work to help the children in their care develop and maintain a healthy relationship with food and with their bodies.

Dr. Loth provides nutrition counseling and medical nutrition therapy to patients of all ages at M Physicians Broadway Family Medicine Clinic. She is also on the faculty for the North Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program, where she helps to train residents on topics related to medical nutrition therapy.

 

Research Summary:

Food parenting practices, child eating behaviors and dietary intake, eating disorders, health behavior change, and food insecurity.

 

Presenter:

Lisa Radzak, Executive Director, WithAll

Bio:

As Executive Director, Lisa leads WithAll’s strategic growth as a sustainable social enterprise dedicated to the prevention of and healing from eating disorders.

Lisa has more than 20 years of experience in public affairs, community relations, and law, and nearly 15 years of experience in non-profit leadership, most recently at Minnesota Public Radio/American Public Media. She is a graduate of Mitchell Hamline School of Law, a member of the Minnesota Bar, and a Minnesota Supreme Court appointee to Minnesota’s Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board. She volunteers with her daughter’s school and with youth sports.

Lisa does this work because she knows eating disorders are not a choice; they are deadly, and they are everywhere. She also knows kids are not born with harmful thoughts and actions around food or their body—and it’s our job as adults to keep it this way so they can focus their precious brains and time on things that matter.

The AAFP has reviewed What to Say Healthcare Presentation, and deemed it acceptable for AAFP credit. Term of approval is from 09/11/2024 to 09/11/2025. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

This session What to Say Healthcare is approved for 1 AAFP Prescribed credit. 

AAFP Prescribed credit is accepted by the American Medical Association as equivalent to AMA PRA Category 1 credit(s)™ toward the AMA Physician's Recognition Award. When applying for the AMA PRA, Prescribed credit earned must be reported as Prescribed, not as Category 1.