WelcomeEat Love Live is a dynamic, compassionate and inclusive organisation that strives to foster a brave space where clients feel supported, safe and empowered. We are committed to challenging the normalised rhetoric of diet culture and oppression of people in marginalized bodies and identities. We advocate at a systemic level, intra personal level, and continually evaluate our own internalised bias in an aim to be the most supportive practitioners we can for our clients. We are passionate about recovery from diet culture, disordered eating and eating disorders. We do not believe that people need to ‘tick a box' to be worthy of treatment but rather that all distress around food and body is valid and deserves support. As practitioners we uphold the values of inclusion, respect, and empathy. We intend to work with integrity and courage; holding space to have tough, meaningful and necessary conversations. We aim to work collaboratively with clients, supporting and empowering them to be driving their own treatment. As Accredited Practising Dietitians we are skilled nutrition counsellors who know the science of food and nutrition and can convey this as understandable and practical information for our clients. We provide a space for clients to explore their relationship with food and their body. What has influenced this; what has being helpful, un helpful, what they wish to keep and to change. We don’t lecture our clients on weight and weight loss; (in fact we don’t believe that weight loss is necessary to improve health – but more about that later!) rather we support them to let go of food guilt, fears and body shame. We assist clients to make lasting changes to their health behaviours which have a significant impact on decreasing their risk of illness.We are passionate about helping people to build a more positive relationship with food and their body.Fostering a connection with hunger and satiety and listening to these internal cues rather than external cues like time and place. We live in a culture so oppressive of anyone who doesn’t fit the ‘ideal’ and so confused about what ‘Health’ really is.At Eat Love Live we aim to provide a safe place where you can break down this information to determine what is real and what is not and most importantly what it means for you and your body! We believe that you are the expert of your body. We have the skills to help you get back to listening to it and trusting it. We are experienced dietitians who work with empathy, kindness and compassion. We have a host of clinical and life experiences and are ready to work with you where ever your journey begins. | ![]() |
Eat Love Live was established to help support people to build a more positive and healthful relationship with food and their bodies. Food is a huge part of our everyday life and all of the information available to us about food is contaminated by the diet culture that engulfs our daily lives. Diet culture is a system of beliefs, customs, messages and behaviours that places value and focus on weight, shape and size over and above health and well-being. Diet culture is everywhere, and we are often unaware of its presence or impact as it is so normalised. It is the information and comments from our family, and friends. It is the overt messages in the media to change your body; and the more subversive ones. It can be overwhelming and confusing. We want to help you to understand diet culture; where it is around you and how to manage it so you can reconnect with your body and work out what is best for you. After all – you are the only expert on your body and we are here to work alongside you. To feel and perform at your optimum and to manage disease sometimes some guidance is important. We aim to work collaboratively with each individual client to reach their individual health goals. We are skilled and experienced in supporting people who have developed disordered eating patterns or clinical eating disorders to recover their physical and psychological health and re-engage in a meaningful life for them. We are confident supporting you to manage Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and gastrointestinal complaints; as well as other acute or chronic health conditions in a safe, non-judgemental, compassionate space. Telling people just to ‘lose weight’ to improve health fails to recognise all of the possible factors impacting on their body size. It perpetuates body shame and is often steeped in fat phobia and weight bias. At Eat Love Live we feel that focusing on weight loss or prescribing diets is unethical. Weight and size are genetically predetermined and influenced by many factors we can’t control. Weight loss research shows that manipulating energy intake results in short term weight loss but in 95-98% of research subjects weight is regained within 2-5 years (often plus extra weight). A 2007 study reviewed outcomes from long-term calorie-controlled diet plans to determine if they were a successful way to treat "obesity." The researchers found 1/3 to 2/3 of dieters regained more weight than was lost. Further, dieters did not experience any significant health improvements (Mann et al 2007 and Bacon and Aphamor 2011). | Traditional health recommendations often focus on weight; something that is genetically pre-determined for all individuals and impacted by fat to muscle tissue ratio, eating habits, hormones, bone density, movement habits, whether you’ve been through puberty, whether you’ve birthed children, whether you’re going through (or have gone through) menopause, hydration, and much more. Most of these things we have little or no control of! We focus on health goals – clinically measurable outcomes which your behaviour changes will impact; Such as blood pressure, blood sugar levels, fitness or cholesterol levels. We work with you on behaviours – weight is not behaviour but an outcome and as such we don’t focus on changing weight as a tool to improved health. Our dietitians work from a non-dieting and Health at Every Size ® Paradigm. The Health At Every Size® Principles are:
This definition is from Linda Bacon’s Health at Every Size Community Want to understand more about diet culture, Health at Every Size ®, non – dieting nutrition counselling, focusing on health rather than weight? Have a look at the Blog, links and resources section on the website and follow our Instagram and Facebook feeds where we regularly post interesting articles and links. |
![]() | Body ImageBody Image – it is a phrase we hear so often; but what do we really mean? Body image is the way we perceive our body and how we feel in our body. It is how we think we look and the influence this perception has on the way we interact in the world. Body image is developed from an early age and influenced by an array of things. Our body image can be expressed through our thoughts, beliefs, perception, feelings and actions. Evidence shows us that poor body image independent of health behaviours can lead to worse physical and mental health outcomes. Body image is about so much more than our bodies – more then we may ever realise. Starting to delve in to how you feel about your body, how you connect with and act in your body may be a difficult, fascinating, scary time. We provide a safe space to support you during this journey. Whilst we would love for all people to have a positive relationship with their bodies, we appreciate that each individual person has individual stories and experiences; and this may seem to great an ask. Some more achievable goals we work towards may be body appreciation, body neutrality, and/ or body attunement - being able to connect to a respond appropriately to the bodies needs. You our clients are our greatest teachers and we are so humbled you allow us to share this journey with you. |
The World Health Organization (WHO) defined health in its broader sense in its 1948 constitution as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” This highlights the importance of considering health as more than merely numbers such as weight, measurements or clothing size. Clinical measures such as blood pressure, heart rate, blood glucose readings and other blood results can indicate health or illness; but mood, thoughts, feelings, energy, motivation, social connectedness, social interaction and sleep are also very important considerations! Health for each individual person is going to be a little bit different as it considers all the influences on their health including their circumstances, lifestyles, family, environment, work, study etc. When working with our clients we help them to see beyond the numbers and consider all these aspects. Most importantly we aim to move the focus off the number on the scale to health promoting behaviours’ and self-care. We work closely with psychologists, psychiatrists, GPs and exercise physiologist to ensure that our clients are getting all the support they may need to better care for themselves. | Some of the things we may focus on to help people make this shift include:
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As Accredited Practicing Dietitians we do work with a wide range of conditions including:
| Our areas of interest are non-dieting health management, disordered eating and eating disorders and all Eat Love Live team members are experienced working with these difficult issues. We regularly undertake further learning activities to ensure we are providing optimal care to you your family The journey to recovery from an eating disorder can be a long and bumpy ride but one that is achievable. We work with clients, their treatment teams and support network to help improve acceptance and flexibility with food; leading to physical and mental health benefits (one baby step at a time!) Often when we work with people who are trying to implement health behaviours to improve their overall health or decrease the risk of disease, and those on the journey of recovery for an eating disorder; we find we end up discussing similar concepts. These can include body acceptance, activity for pleasure, breaking ingrained eating habits and food beliefs. As such, information on this website will focus on these things and hopefully many people will find it helpful. We look forward to working with you soon, Jo and the Eat Love Live team |
Accredited Practising Dietitians' (APD) are recognised health professionals with the skills to convert scientific knowledge and research into practical strategies to improve health through diet and lifestyle.
APD's work with individuals, groups or at a public health level. They have the skills to use nutrition and lifestyle modification to treat clinical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, allergy, gastro-intestinal issues and weight management.
APD's must have undertaken university study accredited by the Dietitians Association of Australian and abide by DAA Code of Professional Conduct and Statement of Ethical Practice.
As clinical dietitian's the Eat Love Live Team provide education and support for people with a wide range of clinical issues such as:
The Eat Love Live dietitian will spend the initial session getting to know you. This will involve some questions from us and some from you. We hope to provide a safe space for people to share their experiences with food, activity and their bodies. We recognise how difficult this can be and that these experiences have shaped the relationship you have with food and body today. Our dietitians recognise the role that social relationships, mental health, chronic disease and trauma have on our ability to care for ourselves. We are unable to treat this but have adequate skills to discuss these in a safe way; refer you to appropriate mental health practitioners and work alongside them.
We aim to clarify what you want out of the relationship with an Eat Love Live dietitian by your expectations and goals.
The Eat Love Live dietitian will ask questions about your medical history, physical and psychological symptoms and concerns; Information about past dieting, current eating patterns and activity levels. This will help determine a course of action for us to take together including topics you may want more information about, and planning for health behaviour changes in the direction of your individual goals.
The Eat Love Live dietitian provides accurate, easy to understand information about nutrition helping to differentiate fact from fiction.
If change was as simple as attaining knowledge there would be no role for our dietitians!
Our skills lie in helping you to:
It is hard to know how many sessions is optimal for each person and this is something we can discuss further during assessment.
The dietitian can provide information and support to individual's family, friends or loved ones at their request; so that the person feels supported in between sessions.
Please contact the Eat Love Live team members to discuss your needs and ensure that you feel you have a good connection with them. An initial assessment session is a great opportunity for you to assess if you feel you will be able to have beneficial relationship with us. If you feel that we are not a good fit we can help link you in with likeminded dietitians.
Having the right health professional to support you is very important.
Health professionals are a bit like shoes- if the fit isn't right- you won't use them!
Initial assessments are 60 mins and review sessions can be 30 – 60 mins as needed.
We require that all clients be linked in with regular medical support to ensure their ongoing medical safety.
We require clients to be engaged with or planning to engage with psychological support to ensure that we are providing safe, ethical and evidence based support.
"I would like young women to understand that they can have it all, But not at the same time. It is so important to take good care of yourself, of your mental and physical and spiritual well being; but its hard to do. It easier to be a workaholic then to have a truly balanced life."
- Her excellency Ms Quentin Bryce, Governor-General of the commonwealth of Australia