Enjoy life, eat cake

A pair of Lipscomb alumnae dietitians are throwing out “dieting” and going back to the health basics.

Janel Shoun-Smith | 615.966.7078  |  01/01/2020

Can you be a dietitian without prescribing diets?

Absolutely! say two Lipscomb University graduates who have banded together to take a unique approach to a private nutrition therapy practice in Nashville that is rooted in embracing Health At Every Size.®

That’s the way Ander Wilson (MS ’11), a registered dietitian and graduate of Lipscomb’s sustainability master’s program and its Dietetic Internship Program, described the approach at Nashville Nutrition Partners, a private practice that began accepting clients in February 2019 and now involves six Lipscomb graduates, clinicians or interns in its operation in booming East Nashville.

“That is our big difference. We focus on health behaviors, not weight loss,” said Wilson, who also taught at Lipscomb for a time. Wilson established the practice along with Jenn Fleischer (MS, ’12), a registered dietitian nutritionist and graduate of Lipscomb’s Master of Exercise and Nutrition Science program and its DIP program.

About four years ago, while working in private practice, Wilson saw that the latest research showed that “diets” are not working for most people, she said. Studies show that at the year two mark, patients who went on a diet to lose weight have gained back everything they once lost and more, she said. That cycle is more dangerous, with a higher risk of developing a chronic disease or an eating disorder, than a stable, but higher, weight, she noted.

Wilson began to wonder: “How can I counsel people on positive health outcomes and not focus on losing weight.”

She wondered, but early in her career, Wilson, as well as Fleischer, did not start out as non-diet dietitians, said Fleischer. During their careers, Wilson has been a ghost-writer for weight loss programs, and Fleischer has worked with health programs, which she said is code for “weight loss.”

And they both continued to find that at the 12-week mark, most clients plateau, get injured or suffer an ailment that causes them to start to back-track. “It happens to every person I work with,” Fleischer said of her early career.

After a few years of using her food systems degree in sustainability to serve as a nutrition consultant, Wilson began to crave the one-on-one private practice atmosphere, but knew that to make it successful, it would have to be a group practice.

Then a friend introduced Wilson to Fleischer, who had been working as a health coach, specializing in diabetes, for various entrepreneurial health and wellness companies. The two found they had a similar mindset and a similar vision for a one-stop-shop group nutrition practice that would support employees who were working parents (like themselves) and would practice a client-led curriculum focused on improving health outcomes, not chasing weight loss.

“We are not hierarchical or authoritative in our care approach,” said Wilson. “We are the experts on food and nutrition, but you are the expert of your own body and your own life experience.”

With so much changing and conflicting information available to the average consumer today, many clients arrive confused or basing their health decisions on behaviors that worked for a different person with a different type body, Fleischer said.

“We go back to basics. We make sure they have the right goals for their body, that they remain interested and safe,” she said. “Everything is individualized to the client.”

“The first thing I do is find out what rules has the client been following, because most of the time they are rules that were effective for their great aunt, not for them personally,” said Wilson. “People are reckless with nutritional interventions because they don’t know the side effects, which could be serious eating disorders.”

The Nashville Nutrition Partners office location also reflects the keystones of their viewpoint: furniture designed for patients of any size, a family-focused space with a “zen room” for nursing mothers or parents of small children to have some privacy (with a “nursing mothers at work” door hanger on the doorknob of the barn-style door), a “community room” that promotes collaboration among the nutrition therapists and a neon pink “enjoy life, eat cake” sign welcoming newcomers to the office.

“We wanted our space to be therapeutic,” said Wilson.

Since opening, Nashville Nutrition Partners has grown to eight practicing dietitians and one administrative professional. The practice includes Mollie Perry, a Lipscomb master’s of exercise and nutrition science and DIP graduate, and Kaitlyn Kownacki, a Lipscomb DIP graduate, both RDs and nutrition therapists. Another therapist in the practice, Whitney Pinkston, has served as a clinical preceptor for Lipscomb, and current Lipscomb dietetic interns carry out rotations at the practice.