Christine Byrne, MPH, RD, LDN

Eating Disorder Dietitian Nutritionist in Raleigh, North Carolina

Specialties: Adult eating disorders, intuitive eating, nutrition media and brand work

Christine sees clients virtually and in our Raleigh office

Email: ch*******@**************on.com

Phone: 919-213-8979

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

As is true for many people, Christine’s career path hasn’t exactly been straightforward. After finishing a Bachelor’s degree in English at Northwestern University in 2009, she went to culinary school and started working as a line cook in a busy New York City restaurant. In 2013, she jumped to food media and became a food editor at BuzzFeed where she developed recipes, interviewed celebrity chefs, and wrote countless listicles.

In 2016, Christine became the features editor for SELF Magazine — just as the brand ended its 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. So, she went back to school to become a dietitian. She received her Masters in Public Health (MPH) and 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, where she leads a growing team of dietitians who are equally committed to providing compassionate, weight-inclusive nutrition care. She still writes articles for major media publications, and she’s grateful to have such a big platform for sharing evidence-based, non-stigmatizing nutrition information.

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.

Official media bio:

Christine Byrne, MPH, RD, is a dietitian who specializes in eating disorders and culinary nutrition. She owns Ruby Oak Nutrition, a group private practice based in North Carolina that offers in-person and virtual services to people of all ages and identities. As a former food journalist and a trained chef, Christine worked as a food editor at BuzzFeed and SELF Magazine. She’s written thousands of articles and hundreds of easy recipes for national print and digital media outlets, including Food Network, Eating Well, Glamour, Bon Appétit, Outside, HuffPost, Cooking Light, O, Runner’s World, Health, and Well+Good. As an expert in both nutrition and content, she also created the nutrition content strategy for Amazon’s Halo project. She regularly works with the media to write articles, offer expert insight, and guide nutrition content strategy. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her sweet rescue mutt, Peanut.

If you’re interested in hiring Christine for a writing, speaking, or consulting gig, you can learn more about her work here.