Two smiling women working in an office

Weight Inclusive Health Certificate Program

Choose Classes and Register
Cost: 
$250 per course
Schedule: 
See schedule below
Location: 
Online
Instructor: 
University of Arizona faculty
Subject: 
Health Care & Helping Professions
Course Type: 
Certificate Programs

Weight Inclusive Health is a four-part non-credit certificate program that aims to provide healthcare providers with foundational knowledge of weight inclusive care.

Weight inclusive approaches use non-weight based markers for health promotion and are rooted in health equity.

The Certificate in Weight Inclusive Care offers four different courses that are meant to explore weight bias, weight inclusive frameworks, eating disorders, and counseling from a weight inclusive lens.

Who Should Take the University of Arizona Weight Inclusive Health Certificate Program?

This noncredit program is open to all. You do not need prior healthcare experience. This program is ideal for:

  • Recent college graduates
  • Healthcare professionals (1-5 years experience) looking to update their skill sets, including Dietitians, Physicians, Therapists, Pharmacists and Public Health professionals.
  • Those who are looking to make a shift into weight inclusive care or become more knowledgeable about other aspects of weight bias and eating disorder awareness.

What You Will Learn

  • Personal bias awareness and introspection about your relationship with food and bodies.
  • Addressing weight bias in health care by considering the social determinants of health, and practicing addressing and modifying weight-centric approaches.
  • Weight inclusive approaches to counseling using an overall trauma-informed approach; this includes how to start conversations, practice motivational interviewing, hold space for weight concerns, and the whole person.
  • Eating disorder and body image support with an intersectional lens and understanding of body autonomy.
  • Overall weight inclusive framework applications in practice, from counseling, to nutrition and healthcare visits.

Schedule and Format

The program is completely online and self-paced. You will have ten weeks to complete each course.

You should expect to spend about three hours per week on course work, including watching videos, reading, participating in online discussions, completing assignments and taking quizzes.

Class Dates

You can take all four courses or choose to take only one or more individual courses. You may take the courses in any order.

  • Exploring Weight Inclusive Frameworks: March 18- May 26, 2024 - registration for this class is now closed
  • Weight Bias in Healthcare: May 27-August 4, 2024 - register for class
  • Weight Inclusive Foundations for Eating Disorder Care: August 5-October 13, 2024 - register for class
  • Developing a Weight Inclusive Counseling Lens: January 6-March 15, 2025 - register for class

Weight Inclusive Health Certificate Program Courses

This course will be exploring weight inclusive frameworks and how weight stigma impacts the health and nutrition of all types of people. Drawing on scientific research, participants will examine factors that influence how weight and health are perceived and how weight stigma impacts people across the lifecycle. It will introduce intuitive eating, as well as other weight inclusive approaches, as possible tools and can be adapted to support health promotion. There is great importance of including bias awareness and intersectionality, while challenging weight-centric approaches to health. The course will explore ways that non-diet approaches can be applied to medical nutrition therapy, counseling, nutrition coaching and how it can support one’s overall personal wellness in the healthcare system.
Weight Bias exists in healthcare settings and awareness of this fact helps one understand how that impacts people across the lifecycle, and how marginalized people are at higher risk for being weight stigmatized. This course reviews the various ways weight-centric care impacts how we provide healthcare and includes ways to identify and modify this factor and improve working in these settings as well as on an interdisciplinary team. It is important to use a weight inclusive lens when planning, developing, and disseminating health information to the public to avoid bias. This course also provides an in-depth and historical exploration of how society has shaped how we view bodies. Drawing on personal experiences and research, participants will explore how societal beauty ideals impact a person’s body image and health outcomes, reflect on their own experiences of having a body, and show how size-diversity can be a tool for advocacy.
Eating disorders are serious mental health conditions. This course will provide a knowledge base and help participants develop skills in identifying the different types of eating disorders and associated comorbidities that may be encountered when working with diverse populations. Specific topics to be discussed include the differences between disordered eating and eating disorders, screening for eating disorders, and the importance of advocating for individuals to reduce the stigma of eating disorders and empower recovery. The course provides application practice in completing assessments for those with eating disorder diagnosis and identifying treatment frameworks used in recovery and prevention across the lifespan.
This course is designed to apply a weight inclusive lens to counseling using frameworks that foster body autonomy and that takes into consideration the lived experience of the client. The concepts in this course ultimately prepare us to counsel clients in a way that moves them towards body tolerance, acceptance, and liberation. Participants learn to use weight-inclusive and trauma-informed care as a foundational counseling approach. Specific counseling techniques will be used to address body image and weight concerns.

 

Choose Classes and Register

What is Included?

  • Approximately thirty hours of learning per course.
  • A digital (PDF) Certificate of Completion upon successful completion of each individual course, as well as upon completion of the full four-course program.
  • A digital badge upon successful completion of each individual course, as well as upon completion of the full four-course program.

Continuing Education Units: Continuing Education Units (CEUs) are available from Continuing and Professional Education for an additional fee. One CEU = 10 clock hours of instruction, so each course is eligible for three (3) CEUs. Note that these CEUs are not occupation-specific.

The courses also meet qualifications for CDR. Each course is eligible for 10 CEUs approved by CDR, Commission on Dietetic Registration.

Learn from University of Arizona Faculty

University of Arizona Nutritional Sciences and Wellness logo

These courses are designed and facilitated by University of Arizona School of Nutritional Sciences and Wellness faculty members:

Katelyn Barker, MS, RDN is an Assistant Professor of Practice and Assistant Director, Didactic Program in Dietetics at the School of Nutritional Sciences and Wellness.

Ashley Munro, MPH, RDN, CDCES is an Instructor at the School of Nutritional Sciences and Wellness.

A Message from the Weight Inclusive Health Team: "We look forward to providing this information and would like to share that the aim of this program is to be the start of a continuing education journey. We acknowledge the importance of learning from a variety of individuals, especially those with lived experience. It is vital that throughout our career we have ongoing and critical evaluation of our learning."

In addition to this non-credit professional certificate program, the School of Nutritional Sciences and Wellness also offers credit-bearing Weight Inclusive Health courses. Learn more about undergraduate weight inclusive health courses. 

In Partnership with WIND

University of Arizona Nutritional Sciences and Wellness logo

We are proud to partner with WIND (Weight Inclusive Nutrition and Dietetics) on this certificate program. WIND members are eligible for a 15% discount on each course.

Registering for Your Weight Inclusive Health Courses

You do not need to be located in Arizona or a University of Arizona student to take these courses.

Registering is easy. There is no application required. Just click the red button below to choose your classes and register in our convenient online registration system.

Choose Classes and Register