About me
Hi, I'm Jackie. I am a weight-inclusive, non-diet dietitian and advocate of intuitive eating. My approach blends nutrition with compassion to meet you where you are.
As a parent of two young children, I see you. I get why you worry about your child's health. I hear that you're concerned about the foods your child is or isn't eating.
AS A REGISTERED DIETITIAN with 15 years of experience, I also know that Mainstream nutrition tends to be oversimplify and mired in diet culture and weight stigma.
Nutrition experience you can trust
I have been a practicing registered dietitian for 15 years.
Over the years I have developed and led nutrition education programs at New York-Presbyterian and NYU Langone and have been featured as a guest speaker at Bloomberg, One World Trade, lululemon Run Club, and The Juilliard School. I've blogged for the Lane 9 Project, Mommybites and Kidz Central Station.
I currently work as a pediatric dietitian with Yale New Haven Health. I previously held positions as a registered dietitian at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, and NYU Langone Medical Center, and was a consulting dietitian at The Juilliard School (through an affiliation with Nutrition Conditioning LLC).
Bachelor's
Bachelor's degree in English from Providence College
Master's
Master's degree in nutrition from Boston University
Fellowship
Fellowship in pediatric nutrition from UMass Memorial Medical Center
Awards
Recognized as the Young Dietitian of the Year in 2012 from the Massachusetts Dietetic Association
Jackie Ballou, MS, RD, CDN
My story
In the past, I struggled with my own eating issues, which culminated in a diagnosis of Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S). I had an under-fueled, highly active body and an overly stressed mind, and I had trouble getting pregnant.
Since my own recovery, I have dedicated my practice to helping parents, adolescents, and young adults heal their relationship with food and break generational cycles of dieting that increase the risk of poor body image, chronic dieting, and disordered eating.
Moving beyond diet culture
Over the years, I've learned that much of the well-intentioned nutrition advice for parents causes more harm than good. Mainstream nutrition messaging tends to oversimplify feeding kids. Food is typically categorized as good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, right or wrong.
Typically, nutrition advice for parents fails to acknowledge feeding dynamics between the child and parent, the impact of the child's temperament, and the parent's own childhood experiences with feeding. Kids' personalities, appetites, taste/texture preferences, growth trajectory, and nutrition needs are important factors to consider in food parenting. And, how parents were fed as children typically informs parents' feeding style with their own children.
Lastly, much of the well-meaning nutrition advice for parents unfortunately, tends to be mired in diet culture and weight stigma. A child's weight is oftentimes reduced down to a simple equation: eat less and move more. In reality, a child's weight is impacted by a multitude of factors beyond our control.
My approach
You don’t have to sort through confusing, conflicting advice on your own — parenting is hard enough. Every child is unique, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to raising healthy eaters. Together, we can create a personalized, supportive plan that helps your child thrive, without the stress.
Reach out
Take the first step towards stress-free mealtimes.
Let’s get started together.