The Eating Disorder Dietitian's Field Guide: Assessment, Nutrition Rehabilitation, Medical Literacy, and Team-Based Care

The training nobody gives you before your first shift.Every eating disorder dietitian remembers the moment the theory ran out - the first assessment that didn't go the way any textbook described, the first hard meal without a supervisor in the room, the first lab value that didn't mean what it looked like it meant.This is the guide built for that moment.Across eight parts and forty-six chapters, The Eating Disorder Dietitian's Field Guide covers what a working ED RD actually needs: telling adequacy from rigidity in an assessment, knowing when a restriction is medical and when it's the eating disorder, reading labs as a pattern instead of a verdict, what to actually say during a hard meal, working with - and sometimes disagreeing with - the rest of the treatment team, and recognizing exactly when a decision shouldn't be made alone.Inside, you'll find: - A working assessment framework built around adequacy and rigidity, not just intake- Diagnosis-specific guidance across AN, atypical AN, BN, BED, ARFID, and orthorexia- A practical escalation reference - what needs attention now, what warrants urgent medical evaluation, and what can be brought to the team- Session scripts, meal support technique, and documentation examples worth actually using- A dedicated field kit of quick-reference tools for decisions that need an answer in seconds- An honest evidence-tier framework distinguishing what's proven from what's clinical judgmentThis guide doesn't pretend every clinical question has one right answer. It teaches the questions worth asking next - and says plainly, throughout, when the right move is to stop and call someone.For the dietitian who was handed a caseload and figured out the rest alone - or the one who doesn't want to.