About Christine Byrne

MPH, RD, LDN – Owner
Specialties: Adult eating disorders, teen eating disorders

Christine Byrne (she/her), MPH, RD, LDN, is an anti-diet dietitian nutritionist, longtime journalist, and the founder of Ruby Oak Nutrition. She specializes in nutrition counseling for eating disorders, and loves working with college students and adults.

As is true for most people, Christine’s path towards the anti-diet approach was gradual. She had heard of intuitive eating through her work as a food journalist, but didn’t dig into it right away. In 2016, she became the features editor for SELF Magazine — just as the brand ended their print issue and went fully digital. The staff had lengthy conversations about SELF’s mission and values, including how to talk about food and bodies.

One question that kept coming up was: ‘When we say “healthy eating,” what exactly do we mean?’ After many lengthy conversations, it became clear the term was pretty much impossible to define, because everybody’s preferences, lives, circumstances, and health needs are so different. Plus, the research showed that recommending diets and weight loss was not only ineffective but also unethical, because these things simply don’t work. So, the team settled on a more weight-inclusive, anti-diet approach.

After about a year at SELF, spreading anti–diet messages to huge audiences through articles, social media channels, newsletters, and more, Christine realized that she wanted to serve people in a different, more personal way, and she went back to school to become a dietitian. She received her Masters in Public Health (MPH) Nutrition (RD) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Now, Christine helps people break free from eating disorders and disordered eating behaviors.

She founded Ruby Oak Nutrition in 2021 (as Christine Byrne Nutrition), and is now focused on serving clients and growing a team of anti-diet dietitians who can do the same.

Christine’s goal is to help everyone understand that bodies deserve respect and nourishment no matter what size they are. She takes a collaborative approach to nutrition counseling. Past clients have said that they appreciate her patient, non-judgmental, friendly counseling style. (She was very flattered to hear it, because compassion is always what she’s going for.)

Christine lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, and sees clients both in person and virtually in several states. When she’s not working one-on-one with clients, she writes health and nutrition articles for national media outlets like Self, Food Network, Eating Well, Outside Magazine, Well+Good, and more. She also works with companies like Kroger, Amazon, and Good Neighbor Pharmacy on nutrition content and strategy. 

Before Christine became a dietitian, she spent nine years working as a journalist and recipe developer, first as a food editor at BuzzFeed, then as the features editor for Self, then as a freelancer for over four dozen media outlets. She’s written thousands of articles and hundreds of recipes. She’s also appeared as a guest on Good Morning America, New York One, and the Meredith Vieira Show. If you’re interested in hiring Christine for a writing, speaking, or consulting gig, you can learn more about her work here.