Fixing eating issues is Hicks’ selling point
Dr. Kimberly Hicks, a Farragut pediatrician, has started a business to coach clients, from pre-adolescents to adults, how to discover a healthier lifestyle.
“Let me teach you how to intuitively eat,” she said about Life Transformation with Dr. Kimberly Hicks, 11221 West Point Drive, in Farragut.
“I definitely love helping people love themselves, be OK with their bodies, but also choosing better so they can have their best God-given body,” she added.
An Eating Disorder Intuitive Therapy-certified coach and nutrition coach, Hicks’ business temporarily is in the office of her husband, Dr. Joseph Hicks, at Epic Orthodontics.
“I’ve actually been doing it for the past two years ...,” said Hicks, who focuses on clients with eating disorders but also helps others.
“I think one of the turning points was I started getting the early teens — 13-, 14-year-olds — that moms were just worried about them. That’s when I realized, especially me being a pediatrician, ‘wow, this is really needed in the community,’” she added.
“If I can catch the girls before they ever go down that path, it would be fantastic.”
Hicks uses her nutrition knowledge as a base for teaching how one’s body works and what the body needs. And, as a certified yoga instructor, she incorporates those techniques into her coaching.
“I loved working with the kids; I loved working with the moms,” she said.
However, Hicks recalled she was frustrated by not having the time to address “red flags” in her patients.
While in college, Hicks herself struggled with an eating disorder, and shared that experience with Bible Study moms, which “was the God moment, the ah-ha moment, because mothers came up to me afterward,” Hicks said.
“They all knew I was a pediatrician and (said), ‘I’m worried about my older daughter’ and began asking for some guidance,” she added.
Then, she learned about HEAL-ED, Healing and Eating Disorder, which is an international organization. She got training through that organization and worked as a coach for it, starting in 2018.
Hicks said she has no set hours of operation (by appointment only). To book an appointment, e-mail drkimberly@epicortho.com or online through her website ta www.lifetransformationwithdrkimberlyhicks.net or at her scheduling app, https://healedcoachingkh.as.me
Hicks was a pediatrician for 17 years, serving in many capacities at Children’s Hospital of East Tennessee. She then worked for Children’s Primary Care before moving to private practice about four years ago.
