The incidence of a pediatric feeding disorder is about 20 percent in typically developing children and 80 percent in children with special needs, according to Feeding Matters. So how do you help these children? And how can we as a team of healthcare professionals do our very best on behalf of children who need a little bit more support? I asked Cheryl Pelletier, a speech and language pathologist specializing in pediatric feeding disorders and founder of the Side Biter, a chewing and swallowing tool, to explain when a feeding therapist can help and how to prepare to work with one. What are som ..read more

Recently, the Washington Post published an investigative article about food shaming, the anti-diet movement, rising levels of health problems related to body fat, and Big Food co-opting dietitians to sell their “junk” food and sugary cereals. As a spin off piece, the Today Show covered the anti-diet movement and how it’s working to remove shame from body size, using social media influencers to partner with Big Food and push a message of food indulgence. Both outlets speculate that pushing unhealthy food (read sugary cereal and “junk” food) is making the “obesity epidemic” worse, and dietitians ..read more

Should you be worried if your child is overweight but eats healthy?  Many parents who are parenting a larger-bodied child worry about their child’s weight and eating. They look for problems like too much fast food or excessive sweets.  But, some parents find their scrutiny gives them little to worry about. They watch their child eat fruit and vegetables, snack on nutritious foods rather than cookies or chips, and overall, regard their children as “healthy eaters.” They provide healthy meals and watch their kid make healthy choices routinely. This situation can be quite baffling.  ..read more

Learn about weight talk with children and how to talk about weight without causing stigma or harm to their self-esteem. In an age where there is a lot of attention on childhood obesity, many parents want to broach the topic of their child’s weight with sensitivity and care. The topic of a child’s size is sensitive, and talking about it, even with the best of intentions, can leave lifelong emotional scars, affecting mental wellbeing and physical health. And yet, many parents want to engage in weight talk with their children, thinking it will somehow motivate them to change or take up healthier ..read more

Food for overweight kids should be nutritious and satisfying. Learn how to help your child eat well with easy, small changes in food and nutrition. How can you change food for overweight kids so they have a nutritious diet that helps them feel satisfied and promotes their health?  Most of us think about changing their diet, like swapping whole fat foods for low- or non-fat foods, limiting portion sizes, or avoiding fast food, but these lifestyle changes, while well-intentioned, can get out of hand, resulting in food restriction or worse, contributing to low self-esteem in the future ..read more

Learn about bribing with food and food rewards, how some parents use them, and their value in raising good eaters in the short and long term. It’s not unusual for parents to use a little bribe to get their child to eat at the dinner table or for good behavior. In fact, food rewards (also known as bribing or incentivizing with a sweet or treat) are fairly commonplace in the parenting realm. If you take another bite of chicken, you can have ice cream. Try it, and I’ll give you a treat. Be good and you can have a sucker. Time and time again, parents do this in order to get their kids to eat ..read more

“My child is always hungry and overweight.” Learn why and my tips to help children with larger bodies feel satisfied and better regulate their eating. Parents who have children with larger bodies (or “overweight”) feel more pressure to feed their children right. Part of this comes from our societal standards about what a healthy child should look like and what they should be eating.  If your child is growing up with a larger body, you may have more worry about whether your child is healthy or not, and whether you’re doing everything you can to support them.  One of the things that ca ..read more

Learn the principles for introducing new foods to all children so they feel safe, and learn to like a variety of foods over time. Introducing new foods to children is a goal for many parents. When you can help your child taste a variety of foods, odds are higher they will incorporate more foods into their diet.  But every child is different.  One child may react to new foods very differently than another child, even within your family. Some of this is due to appetite traits, those genetically-based tendencies to react and engage with food, like getting excited about food or bein ..read more

Learn about your child’s inherited appetite traits and how these may affect their eating behaviors and health. Why do some children always seem interested in eating? While others could care less? Why are some kids more fussy about food, and others have little discretion about what or how much they eat?  There are a lot of factors and individual differences that affect how children react to and interact with food. One reason is genetically inherited appetite traits and how these influence children’s eating.  It turns out that children (and I suspect all of us) have a predisposition to ..read more

Learn about your parental feeding style and whether it’s helping you raise a healthy eater, and what you can do if it’s not. You have a hairstyle, a fashion style, a style of walking and talking, and more. You also have a parental feeding style — or maybe several feeding styles rolled into one. In this article, you’ll learn the four common parental feeding styles, how they affect child eating, and how they show up in the feeding environment, day-to-day. What is a Parental Feeding Style? Your feeding style summarizes the general attitudes and philosophies you have about feeding your child. The ..read more