DeKALB – The Recreation Center at NIU offers many nutrition resources for those interested in improving and tracking their eating habits. One of those resources is nutrition coaching.
Nutrition coaching helps students who would like to improve their eating habits by offering weekly coaching sessions.
Meg Burnham, a registered dietician and nutritionist, spoke further on the availability of nutrition coaching at NIU.
“Nutrition coaching at the Recreation Center is available to anyone, and most of our clients are NIU students,” Burnham said. “We also see faculty and community members as well.”
Students are charged a one-time fee of $59 for every semester they participate in this program shortly before beginning their weekly coaching sessions. Discounts such as the early bird discount and midterm discount help bring the cost down, making the program affordable for all students.
Nutrition coaching typically sees around 35 clients per semester, some of whom continue with the program after the semester ends.
“A lot of clients like that follow-up and sort of that accountability as they’re making nutrition changes throughout the semester,” Burnham said.
The coaching sessions typically begin with getting to know the client. This involves gathering the client’s goals, why they want to get into nutrition coaching and their current nutrition behaviors.
As the semester continues, more evaluations take place to decide what needs to be added or removed to provide a healthier everyday life for clients.
“We work on meal and snack timing, so what’s kind of the pattern of their eating? Does that need to be tweaked to maybe give them more energy? Does the nutrition coach need to make a recommendation on getting more or less protein? So looking at that nutritional breakdown,” Burnham said.
As clients progress through nutrition coaching they continuously expand their nutrition knowledge while also observing positive nutrition attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. This all leads up to taking the Nutrition Quality of Life (NQoL) benchmark survey.
“It’s a validated tool that we have our clients take at the beginning of nutrition coaching and they repeat it again at the end,” Burnham said. “We cover a lot of good topics, so it basically punches out a score.”
The average score from clients taking the NQoL at the end of nutrition coaching has been a 40, which was said to be a 41% increase from last year.
“I would say it’s probably like 85 to 95% of our clients see some level of an increase, so the vast majority see an increase in nutrition quality of life,” Burnham said.
Including a retake of the NQoL, the end of nutrition coaching is seen as a celebratory time as coaches reflect on the achievements clients have made during their time in the program. If needed, the program can refer clients to other nutrition coaching programs around DeKalb if clients feel the need to continue being coached.
Nutrition coaching is run by Meg Burnham with the help of graduate assistant Madison Windham and several graduate-level nutrition coaches.
Nutrition coaching can be located near the track in the main gym of the NIU Recreation Center.
Burnham shared a message to those concerned about seeking nutrition help.
“They’re definitely not alone in feeling that way, and we’re here to help, not judge.”
