PSU dietitian focuses on intuitive eating, personal awareness
There are numerous methods that people use to try and manage their weight, including exercise, dieting and measuring how many calories they eat in a day, among others. But Portland State dietitian Jordann Kearns teaches a different method. By definition, a dietitian is a food counselor and specializes in researching diets and counseling patients in developing their eating habits. Kearns focuses on intuitive eating, also known as mindful eating, which isn’t a diet but a food philosophy, where people are attuned with their hunger signals to help control their hunger.
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PSU dietitian focuses on intuitive eating, personal awareness
There are numerous methods that people use to try and manage their weight, including exercise, dieting and measuring how many calories they eat in a day, among others. But Portland State dietitian Jordann Kearns teaches a different method. By definition, a dietitian is a food counselor and specializes in researching diets and counseling patients in developing their eating habits. Kearns focuses on intuitive eating, also known as mindful eating, which isn’t a diet but a food philosophy, where people are attuned with their hunger signals to help control their hunger.
COURTESY OF SARA GRAYJordann Kearns is a SHAC dietitian.
On April 23, Kearns received Oregon’s Young Dietitian of the Year award presented by the Oregon Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The academy is Oregon’s largest food and nutrition expert group and represents every dietitian in Oregon. Its goals are to improve Oregonians’ health through food and nutrition, choosing registered dietitians as food and nutrition experts, and their vision is to optimize Oregonians’ health through food and nutrition. “It’s an honor to be recognized for my work on campus and I guess for my contribution to the dietetic community,” Kearns said.
Two of Kearns’ colleagues are just as excited and happy for Kearns receiving this award. “Even though she’s a unit of one person, she really brings so much information and creativity to the students of PSU,” said Mark Bajorek, director of Health Services at PSU’s Center for Student Health and Counseling. “It’s great to see someone with a sincere concern for students being recognized by the statewide professionals in her community,” he added.
“I am very happy for her to receive this award, as she is very dedicated to her work as a dietitian. This award acknowledges her hard work and commitment to the field of dietetics,” said Marcy Hunt-Morse, PSU director of Counseling and Psychological Services. “It is wonderful to have a member of the SHAC staff receive such an award.”
Kearns teaches students how to be intuitive eaters versus planning meals or changing their food habits. “When a patient is guided by their own cues, rather than listening to a set of rules outside of themselves, they always have the tools they need to help their bodies maintain a healthy weight and obtain the nutrients that they need,” Kearns said.
Economics senior Tyler Herman practices a diet called the primal diet, which consists of meats and low-carbohydrate food. However, he is intrigued about the concept of intuitive eating. “I would be interested in learning how to recognize when people are hungry,” Herman said.
Herman also has his own input on why students should care about intuitive eating and dieting in general. “I think students should care, because students have terrible eating habits. If you monitoryour diet, you’re ahead of the game,” Herman said.
Kearns has been a dietitian, specializing in intuitive eating at PSU, for six years and has been studying intuitive eating since she was a Nutrition and Food Management major with option in Dietetics at Oregon State University. Kearns graduated from OSU in 2004. A runner, she paid close attention to nutrition, and picked her major to study her hobby. But she became passionate when she learned about intuitive eating. “My own beliefs about nutrition evolved from a black and white approach to more gray approach when I discovered intuitive eating,” Kearns said.
According to Kearns, her nomination was by an anonymous person. “I think I actually won based on my involvement in the eating disorder community,” Kearns said.
Kearns also said that she may have received her award based on her website www.portlandrd.com, a site exclusively for dietitians, where they write blog entries as well as offer helpful dieting tips. “The goal is to connect Portland dietitians to each other,” Kearns said.
Kearns also lobbied Congress in 2003 to require insurance companies to cover eating disorder treatment. Five years later, this passed as the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, which requires, “group health plans and health insurance issuers to ensure that financial requirements (such as co-pays, deductibles) and treatment limitations (such as visit limits) applicable to mental health or substance use disorder (MH/SUD) benefits are no more restrictive than the predominant requirements or limitations applied to substantially all medical and surgical benefits,” Kearns said.
