Skip navigation links
Michigan State University
Michigan State University

University Health and Wellbeing
University Health and Wellbeing > Employees >

nutrition

Nutrition provides free, confidential services to MSU students, faculty, academic staff, support staff, graduate assistants, retirees, and their spouses/partners.  A doctor’s referral is not required. 

Services are focused on promoting a non-diet approach that uses the eating competence model and a weight-inclusive approach to support health. We believe that individuals are capable of making wise, well-informed decisions about nutrition when provided with the education and support necessary.

Some common concerns that may be discussed include:

  • Eating well with limited time and money

  • Managing nutrition-related health issues

  • Refueling for optimal sports performance

  • Managing weight and body image concerns

  • Normalizing disordered eating behaviors

  • Mindful eating practices

  • Navigating the MSU dining halls*

  • Getting adequate nutrients as a vegetarian or vegan

 

* If you have an Eat at State meal plan and have food allergies or intolerances or need to follow a special diet, email Kelsey Patterson, dietitian, MSU Culinary Services, for additional resources and information: patte546@msu.edu

Our approach is guided by Health at Every Size® (HAES) and The Satter Eating Competence Model.

HAES advocates for a flexible and individualized approach to eating, where you tune into your body’s internal signals to guide your food choices and portions. This approach is adaptable to your evolving needs and preferences, which can vary from day to day, season to season, and throughout different life stages. 

The Satter Eating Competence Model emphasizes listening to your body’s cues, allowing all foods, and providing the structure and attention that assures feeding yourself regularly throughout the day. A competent eater is positive, comfortable, and flexible with eating, and reliable about getting enough to eat of enjoyable and nourishing food.

Are YOU a competent eater?

  • Do you take time to have regular meals and snacks and pay attention while you eat?

  • Do you feel good about food and eating and comfortable with your enjoyment of food?

  • Do you eat a variety of food and enjoy learning to eat new foods?

  • Do you trust yourself to eat enough for you?

Our approach is intentionally weight neutral. Contrary to common belief, weight alone is not a measure of overall health. If your goal is to monitor your health, there are health metrics that indicate your health status and measure how you are progressing. The number on your bathroom scale is not one of them.

Prioritize taking care of your body by engaging in enjoyable physical activities, eating foods you enjoy at regular intervals throughout the day, getting enough sleep, addressing emotional needs, and pursuing preventive health care.

And let your weight settle where it will.

Normal eating involves sitting down at meals when you’re hungry and eating until you’re satisfied. It means choosing foods you enjoy and eating enough to feel full, without stopping because you think you should. It includes thinking about your food choices for nutrition, but not so rigidly that you miss out on pleasurable foods. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad or bored, or just because it feels good.

  

Normal eating is mostly three meals a day, or four or five, or it can be choosing to munch along the way. It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful. Normal eating is overeating at times, feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. And it can be undereating at times and wishing you had more. Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating.

  

Normal eating takes some time and attention but remains just one part of your life. It is flexible and varies in response to your hunger, your schedule, your proximity to food and your feelings.

Copyright (C) 2021 by Ellyn Satter. Published at www.EllynSatterInstitute.org

   

Nutrition...

...is not about one food group over another.
...is not about eliminating whole food groups from your diet.
...is not about counting numbers (as in calories, fat grams or points).
...is about internal balance, which includes ALL foods and food groups.
...is trusting yourself (or learning how to) in terms of recognizing what and how much you need.
...is giving yourself permission to eat.

Body mass index (BMI) is a number that is generated by dividing someone’s weight in pounds by their height squared and multiplying the result by 703. This simple ratio of weight and height is now used as a measure of health, and that’s a problem. Historically, Belgian polymath Adolphe Quetelet devised the BMI equation in 1832. He created the formula to be used as a statistical tool across large populations, but he never intended for the number to be used as a measure of individual health. The truth is that BMI is not a measure of health at all.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “BMI is used as a screening tool to identify possible weight problems for adults. However, BMI is not a diagnostic tool. To determine if excess weight is a health risk, a healthcare provider would need to perform further assessments. These assessments might include skinfold thickness measurements, evaluations of diet, physical activity, family history, and other appropriate health screenings.”

These assessments are not always readily available, and they are either expensive or need highly trained personnel, which may be why BMI is so widely used.

Components of Body Image

  • Emotional: How do you feel about your body?

  • Visual: How do you see your body?

  • Movement: How does your body feel in space?

  • Historical: What messages have you received about your body?

 

Improving Body Image

"Will Powers" for Improving Body Image

  • I WILL treat my body with respect and kindness. I will feed it, keep it active, and listen to its needs.

  • I WILL spend less and less time in front of mirrors - all they do is make me feel uncomfortable and self-conscious.

  • I WILL surround myself with people and things that make me feel good about myself and my abilities.

  • I WILL exercise for the joy of feeling my body move and grow stronger. I will not exercise simply to lose weight, purge fat from my body, or to "make-up for" calories I have eaten.

  • I WILL practice taking people seriously for what they say, feel, and do, not for how slender, or "well put together" they appear.

  • I WILL, twice a day every day, ask myself: "Am I benefiting from focusing on what I believe are the flaws in my body weight or shape?"

Adapted from 10 "Will-Powers" for Improving Body Image. Written by: Michael Levine, Ph.D

Food can easily become a source of stress and concern, especially when we attempt to resolve cultural messages that urge us   to achieve the “perfect” body AND to consume food mindlessly. Misinformation is constantly saturating our culture about nutrition and "healthy eating.” The reality is there is no one solution when it comes to good nutrition, and no foods are ‘bad’ foods.

 

To successfully achieve a healthy body, you must first accept your natural body type, enjoy moderate physical activity, and eat a balanced diet. Most importantly, food can be such a wonderful thing! It can bring friends and family together, symbolize traditions and fond memories, and remind people of home. Remember that food and eating are supposed to be pleasurable.

 

Living in our culture, it's not surprising if you feel you have to look a certain way to be happy or healthy. You may think that dieting is a normal or even a necessary part of life. However, constant concern about body weight and shape, fat grams, and calories can start a vicious cycle of body dissatisfaction and obsession. This can take a toll on your mental, emotional and physical well-being.

 

While they may seem harmless, those "innocent" habits you may be counting on to make you thin — and supposedly happy — can quickly spin out of control and leave you facing a serious and potentially life-threatening eating disorder.

 

Are you concerned about your eating? This free screening tool can help you determine if it is time to seek professional support.

Dieting, which involves making a radical change in eating habits to lose weight quickly, is not only unhealthy, but also ineffective. Research shows that over 95% of people who diet to lose weight regain all the weight within 1-5 years. Two-thirds of dieters will regain more weight than they lost.

  

Individuals who are thin don't eat less food. Studies have consistently failed to find a difference in eating patterns between thin and heavier people. Genetics and early family habits of eating and activity have a powerful influence.

  

Dieting can lead to physical and psychological health consequences, including decreased metabolic rate, potential loss of lean muscle tissue, decreased energy, increased preoccupation with food, difficulty concentrating, and inadequate sleep.

  1. Diets don't work. Even if you lose weight, you will probably gain it all back, and you might gain back more than you lost.
  2. Diets are expensive. If you didn't buy special diet products, you could save enough to get new clothes, which would improve your outlook right now.
  3. Diets are boring. People on diets talk and think about food and not much else. There's a lot more to life.
  4. Diets don't necessarily improve your health. Just like the weight that’s lost, health improvement is temporary. Dieting can actually cause health problems.
  5. Diets don't make you beautiful. Very few people will ever look like models.  You don't have to be thin to be attractive.
  6. Diets are not sexy. If you want to be more attractive, take care of the health of your inner self and respect your body. Your smile and expressing who you are makes you look your best.
  7. Diets can turn into eating disorders. The obsession to be thin can lead to anorexia, bulimia, bingeing, and compulsive exercising.
  8. Diets can make you afraid of food. Food nourishes and comforts us and gives us pleasure. Dieting can make food seem like your enemy and can deprive you of all the positive things about food.
  9. Diets can rob you of energy. If you want to lead a full and active life, you need good nutrition, and enough food to meet your body's needs.
  10. Learning to accept and appreciate yourself will give you self-confidence, better health, and a sense of well-being that will last a lifetime.

Nutrients That Help Make a Meal Satisfying

With so much information available about nutrition, it is hard to sort  fact from fiction.

The reality is that your body needs fats, carbohydrates, and protein to function at its best. Here are the facts:

Carbohydrates are the body's main energy source and help to maintain a normal blood sugar level. They are stored in our muscles to be used as energy between meals and snacks. Carbohydrate-rich foods are important sources of fiber and B vitamins. They help us to feel satisfied and full.

What are some sources of carbohydrates?

  • Breads, pastas, rice, bagels, cereal, oatmeal, muffins

  • Starchy vegetables - corn, peas, lentils, potatoes

  • Legumes or beans - pinto, navy, black, kidney, black-eyed peas

  • Snack foods - pretzels, popcorn, crackers, granola bars

Protein is needed to build and repair muscles. It is the building block of major organs. All of our enzymes, antibodies, and many hormones are made up of protein. Protein-rich foods are important sources of iron, zinc, and niacin.

What are some sources of protein?

  • Meats - chicken, seafood, beef, pork, venison, lamb, buffalo

  • Soy proteins - tofu, veggie burgers, veggie ground beef, veggie luncheon meats

  • Nut proteins - peanuts, mixed nuts, peanut/soy/almond butter

  • Dairy proteins - milk, yogurt, cheese, nutrition supplements

  • Energy bars & protein bars

Fat is an important energy source and helps to maintain our immune system. It is a building block for estrogen, cortisone, and thyroid hormones. It is a necessary component of all cells in our bodies. It helps us to feel full and it adds enjoyment to foods.

What are some sources of fat?

  • Peanut butter, nuts, seeds, and other nut butters

  • Vegetable oils including olive, safflower, sunflower, peanut, corn, canola, soy

  • Avocados and olives

  • Cheese, margarine, butter, sour cream, mayonnaise

Supplements in the form of pills, powders, or liquids are used to try to achieve certain goals. Sometimes people who restrict their intake of food think they can take a supplement, such as a vitamin, to cover their nutritional needs. This isn't true.

 

"Supplement" means "in addition to." Supplements are not meant to be and cannot serve as a replacement for food. Sometimes people look to supplements for a quick fix to an eating problem. A good rule is, "If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is." If a product promises to "burn away fat" or "build up muscle," steer clear.

 

Strength, stamina, and health come from good nutrition and appropriate activity. You can't buy them in the drug store, health food store or from a magazine.

 

Vitamin, mineral, fiber or caloric supplements can be useful in promoting health. But it's best to discuss when and what to use with your health care provider. Getting too much of a supplement can be much more harmful than not getting enough.

 

ETR Associates; Series Editor: Barbara A. Cooley, MA, CHES; Text: Jane Simonson, MD

 

  • Love Your Body – NOW Foundation: The Love Your Body campaign challenges the message that a woman’s value is best measured through her willingness and ability to embody current beauty standards.

  • The Association for Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH): ASDAH envisions a world that celebrates bodies of all shapes and sizes, in which body weight is no longer a source of discrimination and where oppressed communities have equal access to the resources and practices that support health and wellbeing.

  • Ellyn Satter Institute: This non-profit helps people discover the joy and practicality of eating and feeding based on the Satter Eating Competence and Feeding Dynamics models.

Make an Appointment

To schedule an appointment, call 517-353-4660. 

Students with a referral from Campus Health Services can expect to be contacted to schedule an appointment.

What to expect

  • Initial Appointment: Appointments are schedule for 60 minutes. During the initial appointment, information will be gathered to assess health status and nourishment needs. Please bring a list of any nutrition supplements you are taking. There will also be time to discuss any concerns or questions you may have. The recommendations and nutrition education you will receive is based on a weight-inclusive approach to normalize eating and enhance health. For MS students, faculty, and staff, there is no fee for appointments. 

  • Future Sessions: The information from your initial session will help your dietitian collaborate with you to meet your unique needs. They will assist you with:

  • Adapting your diet to meet specific nutritional requirements of your current life stages

  • Addressing and resolving any conflicts or anxieties related to weight and improving your relationship with food

  • Advising on the nutritional impacts of any dietary changes or supplement you are considering

Nutrition is located in Olin Health Center on the campus of Michigan State University, 463 E. Circle Drive, East Lansing, MI 48824. Use the Interactive Campus Map to locate Olin and nearby parking options.