Enabling Long Term Dietary Behavioral Change

Kirsten Berk, PhD, RD

Dr. Kirsten A.C. Berk is an Assistant Professor and dietitian, at the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Dietetics, Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam, The Netherlands. She is currently member of the Dutch Health Counsil, Nutrition Committee. As a dietitian specializing in diabetes, Dr. Berk was chairperson of the Diabetes and Nutrition Organization (member of the Dutch Diabetes Federation) for several years. Her fields of expertise include dietary intervention studies (lifestyle interventions, Mediterranean diet, very low-calorie diet, ketogenic diet, intermittent fasting) in people with obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other chronic diseases. She is interested in the effects of these diets on cardiovascular outcomes, lipoprotein metabolism, aging markers and nutritional status. Moreover, she studies the efficiency of a combination of face-to-face and e-health nutritional care (‘blended care’) for individuals with obesity and/or type 2 diabetes, using a self-developed U-diet app. Within the department of Internal Medicine, she is leading a cross-link project on Nutritional Assessment. Her passion is to help people with chronic diseases experience how they can use nutrition to take back control of their illness themselves.