Meet EDRD Pro member Chelsea Edwards, MS, RDN, CEDS-C (she/her), owner of Huntsville Nutrition Collective! Chelsea is a HAES-aligned practitioner, providing nutritional therapy to adults and adolescents. Outside of dietetics, she enjoys visiting national parks with her family, cooking, and trying new restaurants.

Keep reading to learn more about Chelsea and her amazing work!

What’s your favorite meal?

I don’t know that I have a favorite meal so much as a favorite way to enjoy a meal. I love meals where we linger over the table for hours with good conversation and good food.

If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be, and why?

Am I allowed to say myself? As much as I love dining with others and connecting over food, I also truly enjoy dining alone. I’m an introvert to my core, and I discovered my love for dining alone while my husband was deployed. There’s no one to distract me from my people-watching.

What is a piece of career advice that you would share with someone starting off in the eating disorder field?

Stay curious—with your clients, with yourself, and with learning new things. We all continue to have so much to learn our entire lives from other people and ourselves.

What’s something that’s brought you joy recently?

I started taking pottery classes in the fall, and it has been a humbling and healing experience to be so very bad at something and continue to persist. It has challenged my perfectionist tendencies, but it has been so good for me. I’ve found community in the pottery studio, grown a lot as a human by constantly being humbled by clay, and have made some beautiful things I’m proud of.

What’s something you’ve learned recently?

The importance of setting expectations and boundaries. Life has presented many opportunities lately to learn this lesson.

Why eating disorder treatment? What drives you to do this work?

I started working at a residential facility for adolescents with behavioral health issues right after my internship and saw a lot of eating disorders in the population. I was kind of lost and unsure of what I wanted to do after hating the clinical portion of my internship, and this experience turned me into a sponge when it came to the eating disorder population. I realized that no one in the area was offering outpatient eating disorder nutrition therapy, and it aligned with my values as a human and a dietitian. So, here we are almost 7 years later.

Do you have specific areas of interest or special populations with whom you work?

I absolutely adore working with adolescents. I think they are so fun and challenging in different ways than my adult clients. I imagine when my kid is a teenager, I may change my mind, but, for now, I’m enjoying them.

What’s your favorite part about being involved in EDRD Pro?

I love having so many different education opportunities that I wouldn’t have always sought out or found myself. Being a member has helped me take my own advice and stay curious.

What projects, products, or services do you offer that you want to share with our audience?

At the group practice I own, we specialize in providing nutrition counseling through a weight-neutral, HAES-aligned, non-diet approach tailored to address diverse conditions. Central to our ethos are authenticity, integrity, compassion, and vulnerability. We welcome clients with a wide spectrum of medical conditions or nutritional concerns, all while upholding these fundamental principles and values. We have several providers, including myself, who specifically work with those navigating eating disorders, while other providers focus on nutrition therapy outside of eating disorders.