Get to Know Our Nutritionist

Food: A Mind & Body Approach
Dietitian’s background in nutrition and counseling informs her approach

Since she arrived at Willamette Valley Medical Center in 2009, Becky Prelitz has changed the way her patients approach their eating habits. Prelitz sees the need to treat a patient’s whole self.

“The passion I have is to work with people…and to help them make the emotional connection to their eating problems,” said Prelitz. A dietitian for 19 years, Prelitz moved to McMinnville from Laguna Beach, Calif. There she worked as a private practice dietitian and consultant for a drug and rehabilitation clinic, where she used the same philosophy about treating addiction.

“I see that food is no different than drugs or alcohol,” said Prelitz. “But food is more difficult because people can live without drugs and alcohol, but they can’t live without food.” Prelitz’s approach to treating patients begins with the emotional side of eating, rather than simply reciting the dos and don’ts of nutrition. Before she recommends a course of treatment for a patient, she gets to the real problem.

“I like to look at things simplistically,” said Prelitz. “I see food as a coping mechanism.” But Prelitz didn’t always think that way. With a bachelor’s degree in dietetics from California State University, Long Beach, it took a job at a California psychiatric hospital early on in her career to realize simply telling a patient to eat a certain way wasn’t effective.

“I wanted to help people, but I realized more nutritional knowledge wasn’t going to help me help people, so I went on and got a master’s in marriage and family therapy,” she said.

In her studies, she emphasized using creative methods to help people. She now uses drawing, meditating and visualization to help modify the relationship her patients have with their bodies.

Prelitz is beginning to see the benefits of approaching her patients in this way. She has seen many patients who have benefited tremendously from her mind-before-body attitude. One patient, she recalled, had seen countless dietitians and was less than interested in talking with her, expecting to hear stereotypical dietitian information repeated: eat your vegetables, get plenty of exercise and limit your fat and sugar intake. Her approach, however, did not fit that stereotype.

“My approach to this patient was, ‘I think it would really help to know why you are sabotaging yourself before we say anything about the food,’” she said.

According to Prelitz, her technique worked. As soon as she explained her approach, the patient opened up to her and she was able to have a candid conversation about the patient’s underlying struggle with food. However, Prelitz said this approach doesn’t work for everyone. She first evaluates patients and qualifies their nutritional stability and risk. She then makes a recommendation to the doctor, who either prescribes a separate course of treatment, or refers them to Prelitz for outpatient care.

Most of the patients Prelitz has seen so far have been in-patients, but she expects that she will eventually see primarily out-patients who return for extra help as they work to regulate their eating habits.

She said her ultimate goal is something you wouldn’t expect from a health care professional: to see a patient a few times and then never see them again.

“My goal is to encourage people to change their relationship with food and then go out on their own."