Help Seeking, Help Rejecting and Nutrition Change

Nutrition behavior change is hard. Working with a dietitian is one way to make it easier. Having the support of a professional helps because you get personalized guidance, you get practical ideas that can work, and you get encouragement. But what if the practical ideas are just...not right. Your dietitian just has not suggested the ideas or foods or methods that you like. There could be two things going on. Either the ideas are inadequate, or you are help seeking, help rejecting. What is help seeking, help rejecting? And how do you know if you are doing that?

What is Help Seeking, Help Rejecting?

Help seeking, help rejecting is when a person solicits help, but then they do not act on any of that help. Instead, they focus on their problem and how none of the available options are solutions for them. In nutrition, this might look like seeing a dietitian, but then having reasons why all of the ideas and recommendations they have for you will not work. You may state why the suggestions are inadequate, and you may seek more suggestions. None of the ideas are good enough because you believe that none of them will work for you.

Sometimes help seeking, help rejecting can be motivated by a real need for attention or to feel unique. Feeling that you have a uniquely challenging-to-solve problem serves a purpose for you. Maybe it diminishes your own responsibilities for addressing the problem, or maybe it theoretically would make the solution someone else's job. It might make you feel more cared for if someone else should be solving the problem. It might make you feel special if you have a unusually hard problem.

Although the attention of being seen as someone with challenges and being cared for by others can feel good, it is helpful to recognize your motivations. In the long run, you can get more out of the empowerment of agency over your life.

Signs You May be Help Seeking, Help Rejecting with your Dietitian

• You have a lot of reasons why suggested food won't work for you. You can't prepare a food because your kids won't eat it. You can't eat another food because you never buy it. You can't serve a new food because you don't like to try new flavors.

• You feel that the advice is either way to strict for you or not specific enough. You don't want to be told to eat less of a specific type of food, but you do want a detailed diet plan. You feel that it will be too hard to consistently eat a recommended food, but you want recipes to prepare foods that are recommended.

• You want more ideas of foods to eat, but you are a fairly selective eater. You are worried you will get bored of eating the same foods too often, but you don't like the new foods that are suggested.

• Your needs and requests seem contradictory. You may state you want to eat fewer processed foods, but you also don't have time to prepare food. You want quick meal ideas, but you don't want to purchase more expensive ingredients that allow for quicker meal preparation.

  
  

Are You Ready for Behavior Change?

Chances are, if you are help seeking, help rejecting, you are not even reading this article! More likely, you are somewhat ambivalent about change. You want to make changes, but there are many reasons why changes are very hard for you. Find a dietitian who has experience with the cognitive and emotional aspects of behavioral change. You may also benefit from working with a therapist on behavior change. Look for providers who use motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. Your providers can help you move from theoretically wanting to make a change to being ready for a change.