We live in a time where more people than not are experiencing some sort of health crisis. Our risk of developing cancer is around 1 in 3, and autoimmune disease has become a leading cause of death, especially in women; overweight and diabetes are on the rise and 1 in 5 children is expected to develop a behaviour or mood disorder before they finish high school.聽 The level of chronic mental and physical illness our population is experiencing is exhausting doctors and overwhelming our medical and insurance systems. And it鈥檚 only getting worse.

The good news is that the latest research confirms that the vast majority of these chronic health conditions can improve when nutrition and lifestyle are well managed. This is where Holistic Nutrition Practitioners come in to fill the role of health advocate, educator, food expert, and lifestyle coach.

Chronic and degenerative illnesses like the ones now on the rise typically develop over time as the body鈥檚 self-regulatory systems break down under the weight of various stressors. Holistic Nutrition Practitioners are trained to understand and explain how factors like poor eating, poor sleep hygiene, environmental and food chemicals, job and family stress, and sedentary lifestyle work together to stress body systems until eventually they become dysfunctional and symptoms surface. By helping people understand and reduce those stressors while at the same time helping them make positive choices to build those regulatory systems back up, Holistic Nutrition Practitioners help individuals prevent and reverse the symptoms of illness.

But this is easier said than done! As Einstein said, 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 solve a problem with the same thinking that created it.鈥�聽 Taking a proactive approach to preventing a chronic health condition, or driving it into remission, requires that we change the thinking and habits that contributed to its development; it requires individuals to take ownership of their situation, understand their unique bodies, get in the driver鈥檚 seat, and make some profound changes. It鈥檚 a hard road to travel without someone leading the way; this is the gap Holistic Nutrition Practitioners fill.

It is becoming more and more clear as we move more deeply into this era of chronic disease that the future of health will require individuals to become active participants, require them to make sound nutrition and lifestyle choices, and understand how those choices affect how they feel and function. But in the age of the internet, it鈥檚 easier than ever to quickly get overwhelmed with information without feeling confident to implement appropriate change. There is a vast zone of confusion that lies between information and action, and there is conflicting, inaccurate, and incomplete information floating around about the impact of food on health and disease. It鈥檚 a landscape within which hundreds of questions and considerations float: Which foods are best? How can I get more sleep? Do I really need to cut out certain foods? How can I do that without risking nutritional deficiency? How do I get my picky child to eat this? Where should I be spending my money? How can I make healthy foods taste good? What about this new research or that new research? Is there any validity to this new food craze? Which nutritional supplements do I need?聽

Since the typical medical professional doesn鈥檛 have time to address all this, Holistic Nutrition Practitioners fill an important gap by helping the public navigate these questions and answer them in context of the unique needs of their particular bodies – it is an approach we call bioindividual.

As health educators, Holistic Nutrition Practitioners help people separate fact from fiction, understand what new science is actually telling us about the nutrition and lifestyle measures that prevent and manage chronic illness, while also equipping them with the plans, tools, and coaching they need to confidently implement positive change. It鈥檚 not often enough to know what to do; people need to know why they are going to all this trouble by understanding how their efforts are shifting their physiology.聽

The coaching of Holistic Nutrition Practitioners is based on ancient wisdom combined with cutting-edge research and the expanding scientific understanding of how the body works as an interconnected ecosystem.聽 It can stand alone, to support the prevention of chronic illness, and it can be a perfect complement to the work of other medical and therapeutic practitioners in the management and improvement of health symptoms.聽 Holistic Nutrition Practitioners can also be helpful to the health food industry in its recipe development and advertising, to schools and community programs to help families make positive health and lifestyle choices, and to private businesses wanting to improve the wellness and productivity of their employees.

Doctors, employers, industry, and the public will find that Holistic Nutrition Practitioners as health coaches, patient advocates, food experts, and educators promote a proactive approach to health so people can feel and function their best.

– Originally Posted August 2019 –

Sources:

Howlader N, Noone AM, Krapcho M, Miller D, Brest A, Yu M, Ruhl J, Tatalovich Z, Mariotto A, Lewis DR, Chen HS, Feuer EJ, Cronin KA (eds). SEER Cancer Statistics Review, 1975-2016, National Cancer Institute. Bethesda, MD, , based on November 2018 SEER data submission, posted to the SEER web site, April 2019.

American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts & Figures 2018. Atlanta: American Cancer Society; 2018. Available online at:

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Office On Women鈥檚 Health, US Dept. of Health and Human Services website:

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Swinburn et al. The global obesity pandemic: shaped by global drivers and local environments. The Lancet. 378(9793) Aug-Sept 2011 804-814 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60813-1

National Diabetes Statistics Report: Estimates of Diabetes and Its Burden in the United States, 2014; US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; published online 10 June 2014;

Jess Sherman is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist professional who arms parents with a powerful understanding of nutrition and the body so their entire family can relax, learn, and grow. She offers dietary support for symptoms and conditions common to infants, children, and mothers including digestive disorders, food intolerance and allergy, picky eating, ADD/ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorders, anxiety, fatigue and overwhelm, and postpartum adjustment struggles. She has created a virtual clinic and community to teach parents the core dietary strategies for supporting physical and mental resilience, which are also outlined in her book, “Raising Resilience”.

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What, in this age of pervasive internet authority, where a quick 鈥楪oogle鈥� search can and often does undermine deductive reasoning, experience, and well sought-after facts, is the true meaning of 鈥楬olistic Nutrition鈥�?

Holistic is a term conceived in the early 20^th聽Century to describe inclusivity or holism. It is concerned with the notion that reality is an interconnected whole and focuses on the total entity and interdependence of the diverse parts of a totality.

Nutrition itself is not a new 鈥榮cience.鈥� The word as we know it today finds its roots in Latin and the translation from the original n奴tr墨re, meaning TO NOURISH. It has become widely known that several ancient cultures practiced the use of food as medicine as far back as 3000 BCE in the region of the fertile Nile. As Geoffrey Cannon puts it, in his 2005 article in the Journal of Public Health Nutrition, 鈥淓mperor Huang Ti around 2500 BCE, and of the Indian Ayurvedic tradition, also stress the importance of specified dietary patterns, foods and drinks, and plants with medicinal qualities, to prevent and treat disease and also as ways to a spiritually, morally, emotionally and mentally enlightened life.鈥� (Sep;8(6a): 701-705)

Now, as Holistic Nutrition Practitioners we would never purport that our practice would either raise one鈥檚 moral standards, or pretend to be the purveyors of enlightenment, but we most certainly, bound by a very clear code of ethics and well-defined scope of practice, consider both the ancient wisdom brought forward into a modern world, burdened by an ever-increasing tsunami of chronic illness, and partner it with the methods of modern research.

Holistic Nutrition is simply NOT just about whole food 鈥� it is about what makes US whole. To be clear, it most certainly is not about throwing the superfood of the day at a complex health problem, along with the promise to wash it away; not just because, like other educated healthcare modalities we make no promises, but because such a claim makes no logical sense, to anyone.

Holistic Nutrition is about how we look at the whole person. Looking at health through a holistic lens is not like looking through a telescope, with its singular viewfinder allowing for the magnification of a faraway object, its field of view, narrow, and its depth of field, flat. A better analogy is looking through a set of binoculars. Although still able to see things from a distance, and to focus on a singular chosen object, the two viewfinders allow for a coming together of perspective in three dimensions, bringing into focus surrounding objects that may, from time to time, have had, or continue to have, an effect on the object under examination.

Holistic Nutrition most certainly is not a straightforward case of once ill, and now, well. There is a great chasm between the two, a distance that spans over time, short for some, decades for others, that is created in impactful increments of seconds, minutes, days, months and even years.聽 This distance, over time, indicates that there is the potential for this process to move as though travelling a continuum and at various points along this spectrum we find ourselves moving either toward or away from wellness. Health and illness do not happen in a straight line, nor is the journey ever the same for two individuals.

Given that Holistic Nutrition looks at the whole person and is NOT solely interested in food, food as the medium through which the body can, and does, if it is in a state of homeostasis, obtain usable isolated nutrients, we are also interested in the How, When, Where, Why and with Whom, of each individual we see.聽 It is here that we find OUR science.聽 Not simply hard science 鈥� but a weaving of hard science and social science. This blending of the two allows us to celebrate research outcomes that promote longevity, connectedness, culture, both ancient and new, the good and the bad of each, and of course we do look at food, whole food.

In evidence of this blend, 黑料社 imparts upon its students a curriculum balanced in both hard and social sciences. The first is represented through courses in Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, Chemistry and Bio-Chemistry, demonstrating how nutrients are utilized in bodily processes, pathways and protection.聽 The social sciences, defined by the study of people, individually and in groups, their customs and relationships, are respectively studied in courses focused on Prevention, Life-stages, Ecology, and Symptomatology. Symptomatology, with its primary focus on the individual鈥檚 reporting and identification of health-concerns, symptoms and overall wellbeing, is in itself a perfect blend of both the hard and social science.

Our investment in sourcing quality research by reputable people whom we have judged based on their credentials and links to reputable institutions, provides us with answers in a variety of different ways.聽 As Holistic Nutrition Practitioners we ensure that the research we employ, developed from original questions or hypotheses, has been tested and replicated by others.聽 This need for confirmation is satisfied by individual experimental studies or review papers, a rigorous and systematic method, assimilating a collection of research literature on a particular topic. Systematic reviews are well placed within the research hierarchy and allow for sound, firm, qualified decisions.

In keeping with other healthcare professions, Holistic Nutrition Practitioners, when sourcing out valid research, will be looking for both quantitative and qualitative research. The first identified by its rich representation of data presented in numerical fashion, the latter focused on an in-depth understanding of the reasons for and meaning of the results. A well-written Systematic Review should provide a practitioner with both. These trustworthy and credible, action-based studies, carried out and evaluated under practical circumstances must be transferrable to the relevant context, specifically the individual鈥檚 primary or accumulated health concerns.

You see, we consider Holistic Nutrition to be a well-constructed framework. A framework that results in client-centred, individualized, evidence-based practices, and leads to informed and well-educated choices, for YOU, and your current challenges.

From where we stand, the definition of Holistic Nutrition lies in the partnership established between client and practitioner. It is about bringing the WHOLE person into focus, past and present, internal and external.

A member of faculty with the 黑料社 (黑料社) since 2012, Jenn聽 holds a Bachelor鈥檚 Degree from the University of Waterloo, received her Nutritional training at 黑料社, graduating class valedictorian in 2007, was awarded a Certificate with Honours from the Academy of Culinary Nutrition in January of 2015, and is a Member of the Institute for Functional Medicine. Most recently, she has been awarded designation as a Nutritional Therapist within the United Kingdom.

Jenn stands firm in the belief that we are more than just the sum of our parts, and that our current state of health and nutritional status is the manifestation of all of our experiences, not just the foods we eat. When we are able to truly focus on our own health through education, and an understanding of who we are, great change can take place. This belief, along with a passion for Physiology and Epigenetics, Functional Medicine, and Anthropology, are all brought forth to the classroom, her nutritional practice, her writing, and research.

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