Weight Inclusive Health Certificate Program
Welcome to the Weight Inclusive Health Certificate program. This non-credit professional development certificate program 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.
About the Program
The Certificate in Weight Inclusive Care offers four different 10-week courses that explore weight bias, weight inclusive frameworks, eating disorders, and counseling from a weight inclusive lens.
The courses are designed and facilitated by University of Arizona School of Nutritional Sciences and Wellness faculty members.
This non-credit professional development is open to all. You do not need prior healthcare experience.
The courses are fully online and self-paced, and you do not need to be online at any particular time to complete your coursework.
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.
Weight Inclusive Health Courses
Exploring Weight Inclusive Frameworks: This course will explore weight inclusive frameworks and how weight stigma impacts the health and nutrition of all types of people. The course will explore ways that non-diet approaches can be applied in a variety of healthcare interactions.
Weight Bias in Healthcare: 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.
Weight Inclusive Foundations for Eating Disorder Care: This course explores 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.
Developing a Weight Inclusive Counseling Lens: 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.
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.