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In-store dietitian and food photographer Cindy Bekkedam gets ready for Nutrition Month


 

Leading up to Nutrition Month, Dietitians of Canada will catch up with dietitians and nutrition students to find out how they’ll be promoting and celebrating this year. Get inspired, then start planning your own Nutrition Month activities and events! Visit www.nutritionmonth2020.ca for details. 

Today, learn more about Cindy Bekkedam, In-store dietitian in Niagara Region and Ontario and Food and Lifestyle Photographer, to find out what she's planning for March.  Find out more about Cindy on Instagram and Facebook


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DC: What are you planning for Nutrition Month, Cindy?

Cindy: As an in-store dietitian, I regularly conduct a handful of group tours every month. During the month of March, I’ll be aligning the group tour topics with the Nutrition Month theme. For example, I’ll be offering a mindful eating tour and sharing the evidence about the benefits of mindful eating to get people thinking about how they eat. We know that it’s easy to go on auto pilot when we eat and ignore our hunger cues, so we have a little activity where group participants eat a piece of chocolate or cheese, for example, and experience eating it slowly, paying attention to the texture and mouth feel, and the sensations they experience. Bringing awareness to the joy of eating is the first step towards making a positive impact on eating habits.
 
During my one-to-one client interactions, it’s important to me to focus on the bigger picture and move away from talking about individual nutrients. Conversations revolve more around the social aspects of food and my clients’ mental and physical well-being. This year’s Nutrition Month theme will help me reinforce how important the bigger picture is and that nutrition really is “more than food.”

Finally, I had the pleasure of working on the food photography for some of the recipes in the Nutrition Month Recipe e-book. Preparing and cooking meals together is that much more inspiring when you have great recipes and beautiful food photos! I encourage others to share this resource during Nutrition Month.


DC: Do you have any advice for dietitians as they plan their Nutrition Month activities?

Cindy: Since this year’s theme focuses on how we eat, I took some time to reflect on my own eating habits. I worked on increasing my emotional literacy and the bank of words I can use to describe my eating habits. This has made me more confident in talking with my clients about how they eat. If possible, I would encourage all dietitians to do this as well as part of their planning process.


Want to share your Nutrition Month plans with us? Contact nutritionmonth@dietitians.ca.
 
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