Eling Tsai | Eating Disorder Registered Dietitian
Eling is a registered dietitian specializing in eating disorders and disordered eating through the group private practice, LK Nutrition. She counsels a variety of clients ages 12 and up on food/nutrition, eating disorder recovery, body trust, and body image—just to name a few. Her crucial work—which includes a personal deconstruction of weight-centric nutrition—focuses on a weight-neutral, anti-diet nutrition philosophy that’s changing the lives of her clients, one day at a time.
The Basics:
Hometown: Ormond Beach, Florida
Current city: Brooklyn, New York
Alma mater: University of Miami; Yale School of Public Health
Degree: B.S., Biology; Master’s in Public Health
Very first job: Proud neighborhood babysitter right here!
Hustle: Registered Dietitian - private practice, LK Nutrition; Community Nutrition Consultant
The Interests:
Babe you admire and why?
Aubrey Gordon’s fearless (and hilarious) takedown of diet culture through her podcast, Maintenance Phase, is my favorite thing to listen to right now. I am so appreciative of her work and perspective!
An album that’s been on repeat?
Just last week my husband and I just painted our entire apartment and listened to LPT’s Sin Parar the whole time. I’m also still loving Mac Miller’s Circles.
If you could share a meal with any woman, who would it be + why?
My grandma, who I haven’t been able to see since 2019 because she lives in Taiwan and ya know, the pandemic.
The Hustle:
Tell us about your hustle, providing a summary of your roles and the work you do daily.
I’m a registered dietitian specializing in eating disorders and disordered eating through the group private practice, LK Nutrition. The practice provides trauma-informed and weight-inclusive nutrition care for anyone looking to heal a difficult relationship with food and their body, or wanting to care for themselves through food without the diet culture noise.
At times I honestly can’t believe that my day job means I get to wake up and meaningfully connect with 4-5 clients each day! Right now, my clients are ages 12+. We typically meet weekly or bi-weekly for 45 minutes, and use the time to explore their ongoing experience with food/nutrition, eating disorder recovery, body trust, and body image. I’m in awe of everybody’s unique journey with food and the resilience and strength clients bring into the counseling space.
My responsibilities in session are to offer guidance and support, to be an active listener, to create space for curiosity about beliefs or behaviors, and offer objective perspectives about food and nutrition so that we can challenge rigid thinking. I’m also responsible for my client’s safety, and in some cases, have to assess whether the client needs a higher level of care, such as a treatment program.
Aside from 1:1 sessions, you can usually find me in a phone call collaborating with a client’s therapist, or pursuing my own continuing education through case consultation with my mentors, attending training, or completing regular admin work.
Walk us through a first appointment with a client. What does this process look like, and how do you create a plan based on their wants + needs?
Nutrition counseling looks a lot like talk therapy; establishing a strong therapeutic alliance with the client is the best way for us to take on their concerns together. That means that I usually start our first sessions with, “What’s your body story? What’s your food story?”I always feel privileged to be invited to share in these vulnerable moments and memories. From there, we’ll set goals together, which in this line of work, can look like eating with frequency/regularity, increasing the variety of food eaten, decreasing eating disorder behaviors (like restricting, binging, purging, body checking, or others), or improving body trust, to name a few! Through consistent follow-up visits, we revisit the goals and make space for the emotions and challenges that may arise.
How have your past professional and academic experiences and lessons prepared you for the work you do today? How have they not prepared you?
Unfortunately, the nutrition education that registered dietitians receive is extremely weight-centric, white-centric, and often doesn’t include the appropriate treatment of eating disorders. I’ve found that my colleagues and I have had to pursue a lot of specialized training, and also do the work to challenge our own conditioned, internalized beliefs so that we can provide culturally competent and effective care for clients of all racial backgrounds, sizes, and gender identities. My nutrition philosophy is rooted in weight neutrality, which means I do not use weight as an indicator of health with my clients. I also believe that societal and medical weight stigma is harmful to health. Learning to practice nutrition counseling through this lens wasn’t taught to me in school, but instead by training under other dietitians who have really paved the way through their own clinical work and research. I’m so grateful to them!
Also, while this status quo of weight-centric nutrition education is still generally upheld, I’m so heartened to see the progress that is being made in terms of dismantling this narrative. I’m especially excited to be participating on a committee that’s developing a Weight Inclusive Toolkit, which will provide resources and education to a majority of the accredited dietetics programs in the U.S.
How has being a woman—and more specifically, a woman of color—impacted your professional experiences? What can we collectively do to create more supportive and inclusive work environments inside and outside of your industry?
Having worked in the nonprofit industry and nutrition field, I’ve considered myself lucky to be in women-dominated industries. It means I haven’t had a shortage of women to look up to professionally.
On the other hand, well over 70% of dietitians are white, and less than 5% are Asian. The racial makeup of the field is nowhere close to matching the clientele that we’re meant to serve. This is problematic and harmful to communities of color who seek nutrition care, and also makes it easier for the field to ignore racial bias that exists in weight-centric healthcare. An amazing organization called Diversify Dietetics is working to increase ethnic and racial diversity among nutrition professionals, and I’ve been so lucky to connect with other dietitians of color working in eating disorders. But there is still much to be done to make this profession more accessible.
I’m also a woman that was raised in the same image-obsessed, thin-is-best society as the rest of us, and my personal experiences with these toxic ideals personalizes a lot of the work I do in the professional setting. While I don’t work exclusively with women, I’m determined to play a part in creating a space for women to live and care for themselves comfortably in their own skin.
What’s your approach to encouraging and motivating the women around you to have healthy relationships with food?
I’m not sure we’re at a place where women’s bodies are celebrated the way they should be, but I’m hopeful that we grow closer to true body liberation for women every day. When thinking about how to encourage women to embrace a positive relationship with food, a question that really helps get to the point is: “When you’re busy following your food rules, restricting food, and not trusting your body…what are you missing out on?” I once had a client tell me that it was only after recovering from their disordered eating did they realize what kind of music they liked. It’s just an example of how limiting life can be when we’re focused on controlling our body, instead of trusting it. I see my job as reflecting that back to my clients—they really do the rest of the work!
What’s one thing you’re proud to have accomplished in your career thus far?
I feel so lucky to have the freedom to work from the weight-neutral, anti-diet nutrition philosophy that I 100% believe in. I’ve had to compromise on my beliefs for a job in the past, and am proud that I decided to step away from that completely (and recognize the privilege in having that choice, too).
Who are some women in your field that you look to for inspiration?
Oh wow, where to begin! I absolutely love all of my colleagues at LK Nutrition, and think they’re all worth a follow. As for the field at-large, it’s so very hard to pick just a few, so I’ll just say I am really grateful to those dietitians, particularly dietitians of color and those in fat bodies, who continue to take on the labor of challenging the weight/white-centric viewpoints in the medical and nutrition field. I’m inspired by those who see this work as a social justice issue.
Career and/or life advice for others (inside + outside of your industry)?
I recently heard Martha Beck read a line from her book, The Way of Integrity: “Peace is your home. Integrity is the path to it. Everything you long for will meet you there”. It honestly gave me chills! My takeaway is to lead a life that aligns with your truest values, and you don’t need to worry about the rest.
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