Brio Living Services Celebrates National Nutrition Month
March is National Nutrition Month! This year’s campaign by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is labeled “Fuel for the Future,” emphasizing the importance of sustainable eating habits to nourish ourselves during every phase of life. Healthy food choices and lifestyles are especially important as we age.
“The most important part of nutrition education is helping people to feel confident about their choices,” says Marcy McCourt, Chelsea Retirement Community Registered Dietician. “I think one of the things people get deterred by is dieticians can be kind of strict on what is deemed good and what is deemed bad, and that can really impact someone’s self-esteem.”
In her role as Chelsea Retirement Community’s registered dietician, Marcy meets with each incoming resident to create a plan of care regarding their nutrition. When helping a resident make healthier choices, Marcy makes the effort to “navigate with compassion when someone reviews their daily intake and what they usually eat, and offer them little things they can tweak to make choices that are healthier for them.”
Marcy points out that small changes are more likely to make a lasting difference than large ones. “It can be unrealistic the amount of change people think is possible when you’ve lived sixty years of your life a certain way,” Marcy says. “Just trying to make small habit changes they can incorporate into their day and feel confident and good about is important.”
It’s also important to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all diet or health plan. According to Marcy, older adults need to tailor their nutritional choices based on their body type and lifestyle. “If we can start to look at nourishing our bodies from a place of self-care and self-love and think ‘my body feels supported, and nourished, and taken care of, and I can perform in my day because of the way I’m taking care of my body through food,’ that would definitely heal a lot of our relationship to food,” says Marcy.
The best time of year to make health resolutions isn’t in the beginning of the year, Marcy says. “I think starting New Year’s resolutions in January can be really challenging, because it’s in the middle of winter in Michigan, so it can be really hard to make those lifestyle changes or food changes when your body is wanting to be comforted and supported and home and cozy,” Marcy explains. “It’s a more sustainable practice to make New Year’s resolutions in the springtime when everything is starting to blossom.”
As this week heralded the beginning of spring, it is the perfect time to consider your own nutritional habits and ways you can make healthy lifestyle changes. At Brio Living Services, we offer our team members a variety of educational tools and initiatives to learn more about health and wellness and ways to reach our nutritional and fitness goals Learn more about careers at Brio Living Services and the many ways we promote Wellness at Brio Living Services!