Nutrition School Taught Me A Lot. Eating Disorder Training Taught Me More.
When I became a dietitian, I thought nutrition would be the most important part of helping people recover.
Then I started working in eating disorder treatment.
Over the years, I've worked with individuals in inpatient (IP), residential (RES), partial hospitalization (PHP), intensive outpatient (IOP), and outpatient (OP) settings. Each level of care taught me something different about recovery, and every experience reinforced the same lesson:
Eating disorders are rarely just about food.
Curiosity Hooked Me. The Psychology of it All Made Me Stay.
People often ask why I chose to specialize in eating disorders.
The truth is that curiosity brought me here.
Early in my career, I simply couldn't understand how someone could choose not to eat. The psychology behind eating disorders fascinated me. I wanted to better understand what was happening beneath the surface.
Before becoming a dietitian, I worked as a nursing assistant and massage therapist. Those experiences exposed me to the ways stress, illness, trauma, and life experiences can affect the body. When I entered the eating disorder field, I realized food was often only one piece of a much bigger story.
The more I learned, the more I wanted to keep learning.
The Different Levels of Care Taught Me Different Lessons
Inpatient taught me safety.
People are often medically vulnerable. Stabilization matters. Protocols matter. Structure matters.
Residential taught me consistency.
Recovery requires repetition, support, and practice.
PHP and IOP taught me flexibility.
People begin navigating real life while recovery is still messy and uncertain.
Outpatient taught me relationship.
The work becomes less about meal plans and more about helping someone build a sustainable relationship with food, movement, and their body.
That's not a brag.
That's perspective.
And it's something very few dietitians can honestly say because very few have worked across the entire continuum.
Food Was Rarely the Whole Story
One of the biggest lessons eating disorder work taught me is that people's struggles are rarely about food alone.
Behind the food behaviors, I often found:
Fear
Shame
Anxiety
Perfectionism
Sensory challenges
Body image distress
Years of chronic dieting
A belief that they weren't "sick enough" to deserve help
Many of the individuals who taught me the most did not fit the stereotype of what society expects an eating disorder to look like.
Some were in larger bodies.
Some were adults.
Some had spent years believing they simply lacked willpower.
Some had been told they were "just picky eaters."
Others believed they were healthy because nobody had recognized the warning signs.
These experiences challenged many assumptions I once held and reinforced the importance of looking beyond appearances.
Why I Pursued Additional Training
As I gained more experience, I realized I wanted more than clinical exposure alone.
I wanted additional education, supervision, consultation, and specialized training focused specifically on eating disorders and disordered eating.
That desire eventually led me to pursue advanced eating disorder training and earn the Inclusive Eating Disorder Advanced Specialist Consultant (IEDAS-C) credentialed through https://www.inclusiveeatingdisordereducation.com/
For me, the credential was never about collecting additional letters after my name.
It represented a commitment to continuing to learn, challenging assumptions, and providing thoughtful, evidence-informed care to the people who trust me with their stories.
What Specialized Training Means to Me
Specialized training doesn't mean having all the answers.
What it does mean is understanding the complexity of eating disorders and recognizing that recovery looks different for every person.
It means knowing when flexibility is needed and when medical safety must come first.
It means understanding that eating disorders affect people across body sizes, ages, genders, and backgrounds.
Most importantly, it means meeting people where they are.
Final Thoughts
Nutrition school taught me a tremendous amount.
Eating disorder training taught me even more.
Working across inpatient, residential, PHP, IOP, and outpatient settings showed me that eating disorders are complex, deeply human experiences that deserve thoughtful, specialized care.
The more I learned, the more I realized that no one needs to be "sick enough" to deserve support.
And that belief continues to guide my work today.
Ready for Support?
If your relationship with food feels complicated, you don’t have to wait until it feels “bad enough” to ask for help.
