If you have ever had a child or dined with a child, you know that mealtimes can be….interesting. Kids are known for being picky eaters who only like bland food and often leave most of their meal on their plates.
Even worse, often mealtimes devolve into a power struggle where parents coerce or bribe their children into eating their food and children flat out refuse. But this would never happen to a dietitian’s children, right?! Wrong!
Even I have succumbed to the temptation of bribing my children to eat their vegetables so they could have dessert. It often takes getting into a bad situation to realize that something needs to change. I realized that I was putting my own expectations about what my children should eat at their meal ahead of my children’s own body signals. Enter Ellyn Satter.
Ellyn Satter is a respected dietitian and family therapist whose approach to feeding children is known to nurture a healthy relationship with food where children are able to self-regulate and make their own food choices. She encourages parents to see the big picture of helping children regulate their own bodies, making no foods off limits and no amount of food at a meal right or wrong. Think of it like this: parents decide when food is served and what food is served and children determine how much to eat.
Here are some of the basics of Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility:
You prepare food at mealtime family style. That means putting all the prepared foods onto the table on platters or in bowls with serving utensils.
You attempt to have as many food groups present as possible for the child to choose from. For us, this meant trying to offer some fruit on the table at dinner time when we would usually omit this.
The child gets to choose which foods they eat and serve themselves. This means that at a meal if they only want to eat grapes and shredded cheese, that’s fine. My daughter prefers that I serve her but I try and move the bowls to her and have her tell me what size serving she would like.
The child can eat as much of any food that is on the table as they would like. The theory is that they know that there is plenty of food available to them, so they don’t need to worry about taking a lot at first, because there is always the possibility of more.
There is no forcing or bribing of children to eat any certain food on the table, but you can gently encourage the child to try a bite of something they are hesitant about. If they refuse, you accept that.
If dessert is going to be offered, you allow anyone to have it no matter how much food they have eaten. Some parents even choose to offer the dessert with the meal.
In essence, after you put the food on the table, your job is done. Sounds simple right?
I have found that it is more about the mindset than the actual steps. By making mealtime pleasant and free of power struggles, it allows the child to listen to their own hunger and fullness signals. Also, it takes the power away from any certain food as being special; in our house it is desserts, because they know that these foods are frequently given and not conditional.
Some children have such extreme picky eating that talking to a doctor or registered dietitian would be useful. But for so many households, the cause of picky eating can largely be power-related. My household is no exception. I hope that by encouraging my children to listen to their bodies at mealtimes they will learn how to have a healthy relationship with food for their whole life.
To learn more about Ellyn Satter’s approach to mealtimes visit her website at https://www.ellynsatterinstitute.org/.
Blog post contributed by Brooke Staats for Planted in Nutrition, LLC.