Nutrition Science and Everyday Application - beta v 0.1

610 ALICE CALLAHAN, PHD, HEATHER LEONARD, MED, RDN, AND TAMBERLY POWELL, MS, RDN
• Permission is choosing foods that are enjoyable and eating those foods in amounts
that are satisfying, based on hunger, appetite, and satiety.
• Discipline is providing the structure of regular meals and sit-down snacks, and
paying attention to internal regulators while eating.
In “Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family: How to Eat, How to Raise Good Eaters, How to Cook,”
Satter discusses how the eating competence model is built on trust: “Trust in our love of
food and good eating; trust in following our inclinations to eat the food we like in amounts
that are satisfying; trust that taking time to enjoy eating is time well-spent; trust that taking
pleasure in eating supports being healthy; trust that behaving in such a self-respecting way
is legitimate.”
Today’s nutrition advice is often based on control—the opposite of trust. Control is looking
to outside instruction for what and how much to eat. It is sticking to a strict macro or calorie
count; it is eating food because it is good for you (even though it is not appealing); it is
eating a defined amount of food that is not related to hunger and satiety; and it is restricting
food. Control often means restrained eating, and restrained eaters actually consume more
food when exposed to forbidden foods.6 Also, when food choices are externally dictated,
especially when promoting negative energy balance, the body’s physiological and
psychological defense mechanisms are activated, which can lead to gaining excess weight
and accumulating excess fat after food restriction. 7
Parents should consider their own eating competence as they work to build eating
competence in their children. Do you feel positive about eating and about food? Do you
enjoy eating a variety of foods and trying new foods? Do you trust your internal regulators of
hunger, appetite, and satiety to guide how much you eat? Do you have structured meals and
snacks? It’s much more difficult to raise eating competent children if the adults in the family
do not model a healthy relationship with food. Many new parents find that having children
inspires them to work towards greater eating competence for themselves.
Meal planning is a good place to start when working on building eating competence. Tips for
meal planning: 8
• Start with what your family is currently eating, and cluster those foods into meals
and snacks.
• Try to provide food from each of the food groups for meals, and from 2 to 3
groups for snacks (dairy, fruit, vegetable, protein, and grain). Make sure they are
foods you like and enjoy.
• Include bread or similar food like rice at every meal. Bread is always an easy-to-like
food that family members can choose when they aren’t excited about other
options. Pair familiar foods with unfamiliar foods and favorite foods with not-sofavorite
foods.
• Include fat in food preparation to make foods enjoyable. For meals to be
sustainable, they must be satisfying.
• Let everyone choose what tastes good to them from what is provided on the table.