ABSTRACT
It becomes very obvious that nutrition lifestyle change is not an easy process for those patients requiring lifelong change. Just knowing what to eat based on current literature and research has little effect on actual patient eating habits. Changes in nutrition lifestyle to accommodate more healthful eating habits requires that the nutrition counselor understand patient priorities. Most patients have difficulty with change because they are influenced by the meaning food has to them and its effect on their value system. Our goal as nutrition counselors is to meld those individual meanings of food with the scientific knowledge we have of how food affects disease. In our present society the information overload includes so many controversial messages about food that the ability to change lifestyle is further complicated by confusion.
