SHOULD YOU WORK
WITH A DIETITIAN
TO HELP WEIGHT LOSS CLIENTS?
Achieving a good level of fitness requires a combination of physical activity and healthy eating.
So what happens when half of that equation is beyond your professional remit?
WORDS: GLORIA CABRERA
’ve come to you because I want to
lose weight.’
Sound familiar? With over 60
per cent of Australian adults overweight,
it’s pretty standard fare for most personal
trainers. While putting together a fitness plan
for these clients is your forte, challenges can
arise if they have chronic health conditions or
ask you for nutritional advice or a meal plan.
Some clients who come to you seeking
weight loss will need to be referred to their
‘I
doctor or exercise physiologist first due to
chronic health conditions or injuries such
as heart conditions, high blood pressure,
dyslipidemia, type 2 diabetes, thyroid
conditions, sleep apnoea or breathing
problems, fatty liver, osteoarthritis and joint
or bone problems. But once they have been
given the go ahead to exercise and have
returned to you, what do you do about their
diet? After all, we all know that achieving a
good level of fitness requires a combination
of physical activity and healthy eating.
The Position Statement by Fitness
Australia states that the Fitness Professionals
Scope of Practice does not include the
provision of nutritional advice outside
of basic healthy eating information, and
nationally endorsed nutritional standards
and guidelines. We all want to do everything
we can to help our clients reach their goals,
so how can we help them lose weight if we
can’t give them a weight loss meal plan?
NETWORK SPRING 2015 | 47