A homestudy accredited continuing education course for health & fitness professionals.
Produced by Nutrition Dimension, America's Leading Nutrition Educator

Qualifies for 7 continuing education credits for:
RDs, DTRs, CFCSs, CDMs, ASFSA, NSCA, NATA, and American Council on Exercise


A Lifestyle Approach to Health & Fitness

Many health professionals have years of exposure and training in the medical model of weight loss diets. When clients fail to achieve lasting weight loss results through dieting, professional and personal doubts arise about how to best help people with weight concerns. The new paradigm for client empowerment is called the nondiet approach characterized by self acceptance, increased physical activity and healthier eating patterns. This new paradigm requires new tools and techniques for the health professional to transform from direction giver to enabler. This course supplies those tools and techniques in ways that demonstrate real life client concerns along with reporting styles for professional analysis to the medical community. Lifestyle indicators and health parameters replace measurements and scales as signs of success.

• Do you want to include more nondiet concepts in your counseling and are unsure where to start?
• Are you still using eating plans, exchanges or counting fat grams as the nutritional guidelines for your clients?
• Are you still using weight loss as the goal and feel responsible when clients don't lose weight?
• Are clients feeling that the program is ineffective if they don't lose weight?
• Do you want to learn how to use lifestyle indicators that will make your clients feel successful?
  
  If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are in transition towards moving to the nondiet approach and will benefit from this course.
  

Behavioral Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course the student will be able to:

1. Explain why dieting may fail to produce long term weight loss.
2. Define "diet mentality" and identify three consequences of this belief.
3. List four ways studies that link obesity to health problems may be flawed.
4. Explain why weight loss may not be an indicator of improved health.
5. Describe how repeated attempts at weight loss through dieting can increase risk of physical and mental health problems.
6. List 10 alternative goals to weight loss as indicators of improved health.
7. Describe how the nondiet approach can be employed in therapeutic and lifestyle situations.
8. Identify five influences on body image and provide six suggestions for improving body image.
9. List five consequences of weight preoccupation.
10. Name and describe three basic body types.
11. Explain the role of carbohydrate and protein in appetite control.
12. Define the glycemic index and list six factors that affect glycemic response.
13. Explain how attempts to restrict high fat foods may backfire.
14. List ten possible indicators of rigid fat restriction.
15. List five indicators of an acquired taste for lower fat foods.
16. Describe six methods of making gradual changes in food purchasing and preparation.
17. Contrast diet and nondiet approaches to portion control.
18. Explain how sensitivity to hunger, appetite and satiety signals can be enhanced. Explain how dieting may influence cue sensitivity.
19. List 15 reasons-other than hunger, for eating.
20. Explain the role of fluids in the body, and list three ways fluids can be misused by dieters.
21. List five signs of dehydration.
22. Explain how clients can acquire a taste for less sweet foods and fluids.
23. List six symptoms of exercise addiction.
24. Name and refute 3 myths about exercise.
25. List 11 indicators of lifestyle shift other than weight loss.

APPLICATIONS Ideal for individuals in transition from using the medical model to the empowerment model. Provides opportunity to earn continuing education points while building on these skills.