Use of a responsive feeding approach, in which the care provider recognizes and responds to the child’s hunger and satiety cues, has been incorporated into numerous federal and international food and nutrition programs.

This may be problematic among girls with a high BMI and may contribute to the chronic dieting and dietary restraint that has become common among American girls and young women. In general, parental control, especially restrictive feeding practices, tends to be associated with overeating and poorer self-regulation of energy in-take in preschool-aged children and was predictive of overweight. When parents assume control of food portions or coerce children to eat rather than allow them to focus on their internal cues of hunger, their ability to regulate meal size is diminished. Most of the contributors on Mom Dishes It Out follow a similar approach, but if you want the original real deal, buy one of Satter’s books. I have cut and pasted some of the important highlights from the position paper that is associated with her approach. Now, fifteen years later, many RDs know her work but not all parents do. The most amazing thing is that upon reading the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ position paper for “Nutrition Guidance for Healthy Children Ages 2 to 11 Years,” I see that Satter’s recommendations are being officially incorporated. I was hooked and then went on to study her approach on feeding children. It changed my life and that of my clients. So of course I attended the three-day intensive led by Satter called “Treating the Dieting Casualty”. Well, a more seasoned RD recommended this three-day workshop in Madison, Wisconsin, taught by Ellyn Satter who was both a RD and a LCSW.

I was stumped on how to be a RD if diets didn’t work. Well in 1999, I was introduced to the works of Ellyn Satter called Feeding with Love and Good Sense and Treating the Dieting Casualty. Just last month, AND released their position paper on nutrition guidance for healthy children ages two through eleven. Messages range from our pediatricians to our mom friends, and of course from the media. We are all inundated with nutrition messages. Photo Credit: JonathanCohen via Compfight cc News Flash: The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Reports Their Latest Recommendations and Ellyn Satter’s Model Is Part of It. In All Foods Fit, Dinner, Food Education, Parenting

Child of Mine by Ellyn Satter