Food Counselling. How To Motivate People To Change Eating Habits

Graziano Roberta, Codruta Tudorache

• Publisher: Tektime
• eBook ISBN: 9788873040064
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Counseling

According to the World Health Organization "counselling is a process that, through dialogue and interaction, helps people to solve their problems and make decisions.
According to the World Health Organization, "counselling is a process that, through dialogue and interaction, helps people to solve their problems and make decisions. PUBLISHER: TEKTIME

Non-judgmental Communication

Communication barriers are to demand, warn, threaten, preach, scold, say what it should or should not be done, advise, offer solutions or suggestions, scold, admonish, making logical deductions, judge, criticize, disapprove, blame, define , stereotype, ridicule, interpret, diagnose, analyze, appreciate, to console, to question, cross-examine, evading, distracting, sarcasm, do spirit, change the subject. Communication Actors in health communication are professionals, who have the greatest if not the entire liability with respect to the good performance of the communication, and the patient. The most elementary diagram of communication must contain the simultaneous presence of :

• Issuer: that is the one who needs to communicate

• Channel: the medium chosen to communicate

• Message: the topic of communication

• Receiver: it is the recipient of communication

The issuer, or the professional, conveys the message that he wants to give through dialogue and questions;

the receiver, ie the patient.

He receives the message and interprets it according to its interpretation of structure.

In a communication, the information is incorporated 7% by words, 38% by the tone of voice and the remaining 55% through body language. So we can distinguish two communication channels:

• Word: Verbal communication allows direct passage of information;

• Behaviour: Non-verbal communication, which concerns the kinesthetic and mimic aspects that support the function and complementary to the verbal language

Factors affecting the success of a communication are:

• The context: The context in which the interview takes place is not trivial, because if the patient is uncomfortable he is unlikely to be spontaneous in his declarations and to be open to new changes. The context in which communication takes place may consist of non-physical elements that can yet ruin the establishing of a serene and spontaneous communication; what I want to emphasize is that the context in which the interview takes place should be as comfortable as possible, so as to put people at ease and make them feel free to open up.

• Noises :Jammer elements that can occur are the phone ringing, a person entering the room suddenly, a cold and impersonal furniture, the use or not of the gown during the interview, fatigue and mood of the professional, her communication style, a noisy environment, etc. These are just some examples of factors that can spoil or prevent communication between counselor and patient;

• When: The time that is dedicated to communication. If too little it isn’t likely to give a chance to the patient to open up and accept what is offered to him; if it's too much,he rambles on subjects that may go beyond the subject of the conversation.

A professional communication requires:

• clarity of communication and the relational objectives to be achieved (what I want to happen by saying this?)

• attention to the response (verbal and nonverbal) of the other, the one that your feed-back sets (How did really affect what I said the relationship with my patient?)

• ability to readjust the communication based on the feedback (how can I use the patient's reaction to improve the effectiveness of my communication?)

In a relationship of care, the practitioner is responsible for the success of the communication; But the outcome also depends a lot on what the practitioner wants to achieve and how this is easily accomplished by the patient. For this reason we speak of "conscious communication." A conscious communication requires:

Give up the impossible goals: Achieving the objectives depends not only on how good we are at communicating; the patient has limits, personal, cultural, family features that can make the professional task very difficult. Often, in such cases, the practitioner is likely to be carried away toward impossible goals. The most frequent are:

• Make people understand that what we offer is good and right
• Make people accept the inevitable aspects of a disease or a diagnosis and get a reasonable behavior
• Managing to avoid the pain and suffering of the patient or of the people that are close to him.
• Managing to avoid illusions, denial of reality, searches for miraculous solutions

These are the objectives that would be reached only if we had a total power over the other's thoughts,his emotions,or his priorities. If you learn to be aware of the communications objectives, always wondering "What I'm trying to do, what I'm trying to achieve?" It becomes possible to avoid the impossible goals and focus on the main objective of each caring intervention: the maintenance and strengthening of the relationship with the patient;

• Understandable information, scientifically base...

Table of contents

• Why do diets fail?
• The counselor
• Motivation and stages of change
• Difficulties in the changes
• Motivating for change
• Facilitate decision-making
• The interview: features and time
• Empathy
• Feedback
• Authenticity
• Non-judgmental Communication
• Listening skills
• Active listening
• Open questions
• The Visit
• The first visit
• Dating Topics
• Group counseling