Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating

by Christy Harrison

Guidelines for Health-Care Providers to Prevent Weight Stigma and Disordered Eating • Focus on evidence-based interventions to improve health, which do not include weight loss. Don’t use body mass index (BMI) as a measure of health; using this measure is likely to lead to misdiagnosis for both larger- and smaller-bodied people.2 • Recommend the same evidence-based interventions to patients in larger bodies as you would to patients in smaller bodies. For example, if someone in a larger body has a bacterial infection, prescribe antibiotics. If they have knee pain, recommend physical therapy. Don’t recommend weight loss. • Don’t require patients to step on the scale, except in cases of true medical necessity such as administering anesthesia or monitoring their recovery from a restrictive-eating disorder. In those cases, allow patients to stand backward on the scale without looking, and don’t show or tell them the number (or let anyone on your staff do so), including on visit-summary printouts. • Don’t give nutrition recommendations to anyone with a history of chronic dieting or other forms of disordered eating, except perhaps in cases where the scientific-evidence base for the recommendation is airtight (for example, celiac disease or anaphylactic allergy). For conditions where the scientific evidence for food restrictions is inconclusive, nonexistent, or emerging—such as irritable bowel syndrome, thyroid disease, or Crohn’s disease—limit your recommendations to non-nutrition...