Dietitian faces challenging nutrition world

A dietitian with Kalispell Regional Healthcare, Linda Fredenberg tries to keep a simple thought in mind: One individual can make a difference, so every one of us should try.

As a medical professional, Fredenberg helps a lot of people. One of her most recent patients was Reuben, a 7-month-old boy she helped transition from a feeding tube inserted into his stomach to regular baby foods.

Like many premature babies, Reuben was born with health issues. His lungs and gastrointestinal tract were not fully developed. He would stop breathing at night, triggering a medical alarm for his parents to resuscitate him, and he couldn’t eat through his mouth without a risk of food getting into his lungs and causing a fatal infection.

During a recent visit with Fredenberg, all that seemed impossible. The healthy-looking boy played in his mother’s arms. He had big smiles for her and  a beaming Fredenberg — and for anyone else who happened to see the cute baby boy and said hello.

To Fredenberg, that’s the power of nutrition and collaboration. The turnaround took weeks of close work with  doctors and the boy’s parents who administered his feedings and helped monitor his daily progress.

Following through with patients such as Reuben until they no longer need services is one of the most rewarding aspects of the job for Fredenberg, who was recognized as Montana’s dietitian of the year for 2013.

More than a third of Fredenberg’s patients are children. 

She works with premature babies, with teens who have eating disorders and with special-needs children who will have challenging dietary needs all their lives. 

She also works with people in the hospital’s intensive care and rehabilitation units and patients of its specialists and surgeons. 

“Dietitians are consulted for virtually any type of patient because everyone eats,” she said.

BORN and raised in Kalispell, Fredenberg got her start working in the hospital’s dietary department back when she was in high school. “I was just interested in the subject matter. I liked the medical-based courses, anatomy and physiology, chemistry. I thought about going into nursing but bed pans weren’t appealing at all.”

Fredenberg graduated from Montana State University and has been a registered dietitian since 1979. 

She completed a dietetic internship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital — a teaching affiliate of Harvard University — and then completed a pediatric rotation at Boston Children’s Hospital. Wade, her  boyfriend at the time (now her husband), convinced her to come back to Montana.

THE OLD ADAGE that people are what they eat still rings mostly true, Fredenberg said. 

But the work of a dietitian is wildly different today than it was decades ago. Despite the advances of modern medicine and science, it’s a more challenging field than ever before.

Fast food restaurants are everywhere, offering thousand-calorie meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Children drink more soda than milk or water. Processed foods abound on grocery and convenience store shelves. 

Diabetes and obesity rates are terrifying to ponder and people are more inactive than ever before. To complicate matters, the Internet is full of easily accessed misinformation about nutritional needs and fad diets.

“Unless there are major changes, it looks like we’re heading to a time where these children might have less life expectancy and more health problems than their parents. And much of that is self-induced,” Fredenberg said. “That’s where I think it would be wonderful if we could do more preventative things.”

Fredenberg helped launch a nutritional education program for preschoolers at Tyke Town at The Summit. Kalispell Regional Medical Center has a scholarship program for low-income families to get dietary help and counseling.

There are other positive signs. Schools, for instance, are working to improve the nutritional content of their breakfast and lunch programs. But it’s going to come down to people’s individual willingness to make a difference.

“It’s going to come down in my mind to what’s happening at home, and the amount of effort a parent can make in terms of keeping kids active and providing a healthy diet. It’s not something that’s just going to happen. It does take planning and effort and a parent making that a priority,” Fredenberg said.

Eating healthy isn’t all that bad or that hard to do. For most people, it comes down to same old story of getting some exercise and eating a balanced diet that includes plenty of fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

Fredenberg has a bit of a sweet tooth herself. She might not have a bowl of candy sitting on her office desk, but she still likes to eat a piece from time to time. 

“I talk to my clients about healthy eating, not perfect eating,” she said. “If we’re eating 80 percent healthy foods and you want a dish of ice cream or a treat, there’s room for that. And if you do that, you don’t feel deprived. And then you’re less likely to develop issues with overeating. You recognize, ‘I can have a cookie today and a cookie tomorrow. I don’t have to eat the whole bag.’”

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.