Green Mountain at Fox Run (Vermont)
According to Ellyn Satter, RD, well-known child feeding expert and author of Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family, children can get too fat from overfeeding and, in a sense, from underfeeding, too - that is, feeding children in a way that interferes with their ability to regulate their own intake. By teaching children they cannot trust their internal cues to tell them what, when and how much to eat, we set children up for lifelong struggles with eating and weight. Just observing a parent's disordered eating behavior can also set a child up for struggles. It doesn't go unnoticed when we regularly skip meals, count calories, exercise excessively or otherwise try to 'control' our weight.
Modeling Healthy Eating
Most of these tips are from Francie Berg's excellent book Women Afraid to Eat, with thoughts from the Green Mountain healthy eating program.
- Healthy eating does not mean dieting. There's room for rich foods in a healthy eating plan.
- Avoid a focus on weight or shape. Promote self-acceptance and size tolerance.
- Eat at least one family meal together daily, if possible, with the television turned off. Studies show that meals together as a family enhance the health and well-being of our children.
- Teach decision-making and problem-solving skills. Healthy eating, and healthy living in general, involve decision-making and problem-solving. Work through problems 'out loud' so children can learn the process.
- Promote positive self-talk. Learn to speak more positively to ourselves around the issue of weight and healthy eating.
- Promote communication and sharing of feelings. Emotional eating is often an attempt to bury feelings that we would better deal with in the open.
- Develop interests and skills that lead to success, pleasure and fulfillment without emphasis on appearance. Sports, not modeling, for example.
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