CAHS alumna now in private practice helping people with eating disorders

Registered and licensed dietitian Sara Jernigan loves nothing more in her professional life than helping people heal their relationships with food.

“Our culture is really disordered in the sense of our eating patterns,” Jernigan says from her second-floor office at Restorative Wellness in East Walnut Hills, “whether it’s fear around food or labeling of food as ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ There’s a lot of focus on anorexia or bulimia, but there are so many more conditions out there.”

The College of Allied Health Sciences alumna sees 20-30 clients a week at Restorative Wellness, which provides nutrition therapy for people with eating disorders, body image distress or struggle with chronic dieting.

Her whole life, Jernigan loved food and she loved science, but it took her a little while to discover this job, working with people with eating disorders, existed. Jernigan credits her UC education and formative early experiences for getting her to where she is today, having launched her private practice in January 2022.

Those who have worked with, or taught Jernigan aren’t surprised that the hardworking and compassionate Bearcat has made it where she is today. To already be in private practice is “remarkable,” says UC assistant professor and program director of the Nutrition & Dietetics program, Lindsey Mills, who had Jernigan in class and later brought her on as a teaching assistant.

When Jernigan enrolled at the University of Cincinnati, the Beavercreek native thought maybe she’d become a nurse or a teacher. She had an innate love for food and science—really loved how food unites people. 

“Everyone eats,” Jernigan says. It was her mother, who worked for a local health department, that suggested she think about becoming a dietitian.

Someone studying to be a dietitian at UC will do several internship rotations in varying types of settings in the field. Jernigan worked in hospitals around the region after completing her internship doing intensive care consults and creating meal plans for patients. Another job had her working specifically with patients with cystic fibrosis.

“Students find out what they like and what they don’t like during their internship rotations,” Mills says. “Maybe it’s a specific community, or clinical job or a food-service setting.”

Jernigan completed her Bachelor of Science in Dietetics in 2017. She liked where she was headed but felt she hadn’t quite found the right setting. She decided to continue her education at UC. As a graduate student she worked as a teaching assistant for Mills in courses Food Science 1 and Food Science 2, lab courses that involve a lot of cooking. While she was earning her Master of Science in Nutrition degree she found her niche, while working for the Eating Recovery Center in Hyde Park. 

More: UC launches Accelerated Dietitian Nutritionist pilot program

In private practice, Jernigan sees her patients—many of them college-aged—on a weekly basis. She works with them when they are engaged in unhealthy behaviors, like purging or excessive exercise. She encourages them to eat three meals a day and counsels them through their apprehensions with food.

“Maybe they're really afraid of cookies,” Jernigan says. “We'll take a session to eat a cookie together to normalize that food for them. Like, hey, you can have this cookie as a snack and go about your day.”

They talk through what came up that led to the behavior, problem solve the issues together and plan for the week ahead. “I let them show up and tell me what's going on,” Jernigan says. “Then we can come up with goals from there.” Sometimes, she collaborates with psychologists and psychotherapists to help patients.

Jernigan says she could have never stepped into this role without having done all the intensive programs at ERC and the experiences she gathered at UC. 

She offers some advice to UC students coming up behind her in the program: Keep an open mind, follow your passions and don’t be afraid to use your UC professors as resources. The learning community model at UC also worked to her advantage. She met three of her current best friends—all dietitians—there.

Truly, Jernigan loves this role, helping clients heal their relationship with their food and body. But the goal, she says, “is at some point they are not going to need me.”