CCH dietitian featured in Harvard Medical School blog

Jamie M. Marchetti, MS, RDN, LD, a Clinical Dietitian with Campbell County Health Nutrition Services, was recently featured in the Harvard Medical School (HMS) Lean Forward blog, part of the CME Online learning Center for postgraduate online medical education. The article is titled, “Promoting and Implementing Size Inclusivity in Health Care.” Read the article here

The overall premise of Jamie’s article is this: Health care providers can best support the overall health of their patients by making people of all body sizes feel welcomed and accepted.

“Weight stigma shows up in so many ways throughout our society that it’s nearly impossible to detect until it is called out,” writes Jamie.

Jamie pitched the article to the editorial team and collaborated with them to compose the piece.

“I’m passionate about size inclusivity in healthcare because at its root, size inclusivity is a matter of dignity and acceptance of body diversity,” says Jamie. “I talk with my patients about having grace and kindness for their bodies, and about how to use food as a gesture of compassion and nourishment for their bodies—rather than controlling food to punish their body for being ‘wrong.’ I also focus on nutrition to best support the body and whatever health difficulties a person may be encountering, as opposed to promoting weight loss and expecting other health issues to be taken care of that way.”

Jamie says that she originally went into nutrition because she wanted to help people live better lives.

“Through the years of nutrition counseling with CCH, I have learned a huge amount from my patients and my philosophy has shifted. I’ve learned that food and nutrition issues don’t arise in a vacuum; people have complex lives that cannot necessarily be adjusted to fit around food,” says Jamie. “I’ve also realized that while health is valuable and nutrition can impact health, most people—rightfully—have other priorities than spending extensive time and energy on food. Ultimately, I want to help people make food fit into their lives, not arrange their lives around food. Food is meant to be a support and tool for life instead of the reason for life.”

To that end, Jamie is currently working on earning a Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling through Adams State University. She’d doing this to enhance her clinical counseling skills in order to be able to address and collaborate with patients to work through the deeper struggles they’re facing. Jamie plans to graduate in August 2020.

Jamie Marchetti, MS, RDN, LD, is a Registered Dietitian at Campbell County Health in Gillette, Wyoming. For a one-on-one nutrition counseling session, call 307.688.1731. Learn more at www.cchwyo.org/diet.

Lean Forward is focused on creating conversation around issues of medical debate including public health policy, medical ethics, and health care delivery. Learn more about it here: https://leanforward.hms.harvard.edu/