Your Child's Weight: Helping Without Harming

by Ellyn Satter M.S., R.D., L.C.S.W., B.C.D

Overview

As much about parenting as feeding, this latest release from renowned childhood feeding expert Ellyn Satter considers the overweight child issue in a new way. Combining scientific research with inspiring anecdotes from her decades of clinical practice, Satter challenges the conventional belief that parents must get overweight children to eat less and exercise more. In the long run, she says, making them go hungry and forcing them to be active makes children preoccupied with food, prone to overeating, turned off to activity, and likely to gain too much weight. Trust is a central theme here: children must be able to trust parents to provide as much food as they need to satisfy their appetites; parents must trust children to eat only as much as they need. Satter provides compelling evidence that, if parents do their jobs with respect to feeding, children are remarkably capable of knowing how much to eat.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780967118932
Publisher:	Kelcy Press
Publication date:	12/01/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	472
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Ellyn Satter, MS, RD, LCSW, BCD, a family therapist and feeding specialist, is the best-selling author of Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense, Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family, and How to Get Your Kid to Eat…But Not Too Much. She has three children and three grandchildren and lives and works in Madison, Wisconsin. She has been teaching parents how to feed children for more than 40 years.

Table of Contents

1. Help Without Harming. Emphasize providing, not depriving. Trying to get children to eat less or move more in the name of weight control backfires. It makes them preoccupied with food, inclined to move less when they get the chance, and prone to gain too much weight.
2. Feed and Parent in the Best Way. Follow Ellyn Satter's Division of Responsibility in Feeding. Feed well, parent well and accept your child's natural size and shape. Your child needs to be able to trust you to provide; you need to trust him to eat and grow.
3. Make Family Meals A Priority. Family meals allow your child to do better socially, emotionally, and academically, as well as grow in the way that is right for her. Mealtime is essential for family time - it is about love, support and connection.
4. Help Without Harming: Food Selection. Children gain too much weight because of how they are fed, not what they are fed. To feed well, including providing family meals, choose food and put together menus that are rewarding to plan, provide, prepare and eat.
5. Optimize Feeding: Birth Through Preschool. Your child was born wanting to eat, knowing how much to eat and inclined to grow in the way that nature intended. Good parenting with feeding preserves those qualities from birth and throughout the growing-up years.
6. Optimize Feeding: Your School-Age Child. Your school-age child starts applying his eating capabilities in the outside world and begins learning to do for himself what you have done for him. Your role is to dole out tasks and responsibilities as your child is able to manage.
7. Optimize Feeding: Your Adolescent. Your adolescent finishes the jobs of learning to provide for herself and preparing to live on her own. Your jobs are the same: Challenge without overwhelming; provide support without controlling; give independence without abandoning.
8. Parent in the best way: Physical activity. Children are born loving their bodies, curious about them and inclined to move. Following a Division of Responsibility with Activity preserves those qualities.
9. Teach Your Child: Be All You Can Be. Love your child the way she is and teach her to be capable, including loving her body. Stowing your agenda about your child's size and shape opens the door to your parenting her well and feeling good about her.
10. Understand Your Child's Growth. Growth charts provide a snapshot of your child's physical, nutritional, emotional and developmental health. Most of your child's growth depends on genetics. To protect against interference, understand growth charts.

Editorial Reviews

Excellent resource for parents not only concerned about weight but for picky eaters as well — Dietitian

My go-to as a child psychologist working with parents with mealtime conflict. — Child psychologist

This should be required reading for all doctors and parents, even if a child does not have a huge weight issue. — Pediatrician

It sheds light on why so many children have eating disorders earlier in life. — Eating disorders specialist

Satter's work could revolutionize health in our generation. — University professor

This book has made an enormous difference in my child's life. — Parent

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. We have been following the basic principles in this book for three years, when my child first started gaining weight quickly as a preschooler. At first the methods can be scary and counter-intuitive (i.e., let your kid eat as much as they want at dinner time!) Now, three years later, my child has slimmed down naturally, without any type of dietary restrictions, and is no longer preoccupied with food. — Parent

From the Publisher