SISFFIT053 — Support healthy eating for individual fitness clients

Elements & performance criteria

Performance evidence

• support healthy eating for three fitness clients and for each of the three clients:
• identify daily eating patterns
• compare daily eating patterns with the recommendations of Australian national dietary guidelines
• assist clients with change to achieve healthier eating patterns using national dietary guidelines and associated resources, and:
• provide information about daily patterns of healthy eating and recommended proportions of the five food groups
• provide examples of healthy meals and snacks
• provide information about healthy ways to prepare and cook food
• educate clients about how to interpret nutrition information on food labels
• consistently use client-centred communication during all interactions
• maintain accurate records of client goals and advice provided
• seek and evaluate feedback from clients and consider ways to improve own practice
• according to actual client interactions or case studies, respond to two clients seeking advice or services outside scope of own practice for providing nutrition advice, and for each client:
• advise client why their nutrition needs are outside scope of own role
• provide information about the appropriate type of medical or allied health professional with relevant expertise
• write a referral that provides clear information about the client and the reasons for referral.

Knowledge evidence

• procedures for maintaining client records and confidentiality of client information
• client-centred communication techniques for establishing and building trust and rapport to support behaviour change
• role and limitations of fitness instructors in providing nutritional advice to clients, and:
• purpose and content of established fitness industry guidelines for providing nutrition advice within scope of practice for fitness instructors
• reasons for confining information and advice that is consistent with current Australian dietary guidelines and support resources
• potential professional, legal and financial consequences of providing nutrition-related advice outside of scope of practice
• how to screen clients to identify the type and depth of advice they are seeking about their nutrition needs
• techniques used to positively communicate with clients about scope of own role and knowledge
• appropriate responses to common fitness-related client requests and situations that require referral to medical and allied health professionals involving:
• detailed nutritional assessment
• personalised meal planning to meet a specific goal including advice and plans for weight loss and weight gain goals
• high intensity, high volume and high level sports performance requirements
• advice and recommendations on specific diet, eating trends and specific popular diets
• nutritional supplements and specialised foods including for performance, medical and general health purposes
• ergogenic aids
• queries about nutrition and medication interactions
• risks to clients of fitness instructors providing nutrition-related advice outside scope of practice:
• nutrient deficiencies and imbalances
• exposure to relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S) and overview of RED-S impacts
• negative impact on existing health conditions
• food intolerance and allergy adverse reactions
• negative food-drug interactions
• nutrition confusion
• financial burden of product recommendations
• how to find information about available accredited practising dietitians (APD) and accredited sports dietitians (AccSD) in the local area
• benefits of working in collaboration with medical and allied health professionals for both fitness instructors and clients
• format and inclusions of referral letters to medical and allied health professionals
• information and recommendations contained in fitness industry eating disorder publications, and how fitness instructors can effectively respond to behavioural warnings signs for:
• eating disorders
• excessive exercise disorders
• muscle dysmorphia
• sources of authoritative and evidence-based information about nutrition and how to determine credibility
• the meaning of key nutritional terms:
• diet
• healthy eating
• nutrition
• nutrients including macronutrients and micronutrients, and overview of how the body uses these
• how to locate and use information from current Australian dietary guideline resources to provide healthy eating advice to individual fitness clients:
• full guideline and summary documents
• consumer brochures
• teaching tools
• key population level recommendations and healthy eating guidance contained in current Australian national dietary guidelines and associated resources:
• the principal recommendations and guidelines
• characteristics of the five food groups and the nutrients they contribute to the diet
• daily patterns of healthy eating and recommended proportions of the five food groups
• types of discretionary foods to be limited and why
• methods and tools for collecting information about client daily eating patterns and how to evaluate this against national dietary recommendations
• strategies, informed by national dietary guidelines, that support clients with healthy eating:
• how to interpret food labels including health star rating labelling systems to support healthier food choices
• types of healthy meals and snacks
• healthy ways to prepare and cook food
• the benefits to health and emotional wellbeing of combining healthy eating and physical activity
• methods used to evaluate support provided to clients:
• client evaluation questionnaires
• informal conversations with clients
• self-reflection on client responses to information including difficulties in understanding and implementing.

Foundation skills

• Reading skills: interpret key recommendations and detailed implementation advice in national dietary guideline documentation and associated support resources.
• Writing skills: use fundamental sentence structure to complete forms and reports that require factual and subjective information.
• Oral communication skills: provide information to clients using plain language and terms easily understood; ask open and closed probe questions and actively listen to elicit information from clients and to determine client understanding of information provided.
• Numeracy skills: interpret numerical and measurement information in national dietary guidelines and on food labels, expressed in kilojoules, cups, grams, millilitres, centimetres, percentages and fractions.

Unit content sourced from training.gov.au — © Commonwealth of Australia, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Auditori is not affiliated with the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.

Questions about assessing SISFFIT053