Assessing Your Patient's Relationship with Food - Free MNT Assessment Resource

Assessing your patient's relationship with food can be accomplished in many different ways. If you want to standardize the way you ask patients to describe their feelings about food/nutrition, then you can consider using this MNT counseling assessment tool. The free sheet that I have published, available for free print/download, uses hedonic scales and is a useful tool when counseling patients who prefer Spanish as their primary language. The Patient has the option to choose from 8 separate statements that explain how they feel about their food; each of these 8 statements is connected to an emoji to help convey the emotions in the statements to choose from.

Understanding how your patient feels about their food can help a RDN healthcare provider troubleshoot more concerning problems that may exist between the patient's current experiences with their own food. Before offering counseling suggesting dietary changes, if a patient is feeling angry/stressed/anxious about the food that they eat at their house, then it's important to practice active listening and help support the patient develop a healthier relationship with the food that they eat at their own home.

This MNT Assessment Tool has been published in both English/Spanish and can be printed by a RDN to use as a visual aid during a MNT appointment. After being asked how the patient feels about the food that they eat on a regular basis at home by a RDN/RD the patient then views this assessment tool and has the option to select one of these 8 hedonic responses.

1. I Love my Food

2. I Like my Food

3. I am Satisfied with my Food

4. So-So, my Food could be Better

5. Cooking my Food Stresses Me

6. Eating Food Gives me Some Anxiety

7. Eating Food can make me Sad

8. I am Frustrated with my Food at Home

When it comes to Medical Nutrition Therapy, you cannot help a patient achieve self-efficacy if the patient does not have the confidence within themselves to achieve a healthier eating pattern as an intervention for chronic/acute disease. If a patient is feeling frustrated because they're struggling to eat a normal amount of food because of high grocery store prices, one of the RDNs goals for the appointment should be helping the patient learn about resources available that help people experiencing food insecurity in their region.

I hope that you enjoyed reading about this hedonic MNT resource; if you found this sheet useful, please consider leaving a comment!

Best Regards,

Ms. Samantha Walton, RDN MS Nutrition, Executive Director & Sole Member Founder/Incorporator of The Dietetic Wellness Project, & Sole Creator/Designer of the Official Dietetic Wellness Website for The Dietetic Wellness Project Nonprofit Corporation

Hedonic Scales MNT Assessment Tool - English PDF.pdf

Download PDF • 456KB

Hedonic Scales MNT Assessment Tool - Spanish PDF.pdf

Download PDF • 471KB