Episode 80: Protecting Your Child From Developing Disordered Eating

Episode 80: Protecting Your Child From Developing Disordered Eating

In today’s fast paced life, disordered eating is widely prevalent. Disordered eating is certainly different from eating disorders but no less important.

Amelia Sherry is a registered dietician and someone who has worked closely and extensively with families, children and parents struggling with issues related to weight, growth, diabetes and parent/child feeding dynamics.

Before offering individualized nutrition counseling to women and families via her private practice in Westchester, New York, she worked very closely with the Department of Pediatric Endocrinology at Mount Sinai Medical Center where she was a clinical dietitian for over five years. 

She is also the founder of Nourish Her, an online resource which offers community education and support to mothers who are recovering from a history of chronic dieting and or disordered eating so that they can raise children who have happy, healthy relationships with food.

She joins me to discuss what we as parents can do to prevent disordered eating from developing in our children.

Key Highlights: 

Tune in to my conversation with Amelia Sherry and learn:

• How the dieting landscape has changed over the years and how this has affected children’s way of eating
• The negative impact fad diets
• Disordered eating is different from a full blown clinically acknowledged or diagnosed eating disorder
• How when parents interfere or dictate how much or how little the child can eat, it can lead to unhealthy eating behaviors in the child
• What we can do as parents to prevent development of disordered eating in our children
• Some signs that your child might be developing disordered eating or eating disorders
• The trust model

What Can Parents Do to Prevent Disordered Eating in their Children:

• Look more into the division responsibility and really, really focus on their responsibilities with eating, which are to provide an opportunity to eat at regular intervals throughout the day, and to provide to the best of their ability based on their resources, a balanced meal.

• Not overstep the boundary of what is the child’s job there. They define how much or how little and whether they like to eat at all.

• Not link weight with eating. When we link weight with eating, it puts pressure on the child’s eating.

• Avoiding labeling foods, good and bad, junk and healthy. This attaches a lot of emotion to foods.

• Alleviate pressure when eating.

• Allow your children to get enough sleep.

Becoming aware of the two responsibilities is the very first step and it can be very protective from disordered or chaotic eating.

Quotes:

“Fad diets lend themselves to a lot of rigidity with eating. And that’s exactly in in total conflict with the way our bodies are meant to eat.” – Amelia Sherry

“The idea of eating for health, which is a vague word and doesn’t mean a lot, especially to children and especially very young children, it ends up putting a lot of pressure on the meal.” – Amelia Sherry

“Eating really is a body experience. That’s why we don’t want to try to talk talk our kids into eating things we want to let them experience it right just like walking or running.” – Amelia Sherry

Links:

• Amelia Sherry: Private Practice,  Nourish Her

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