I am passionate about feeding and health. I strongly believe that healthy eating plays a huge role in our overall health (not just to meet our nutrition needs, but also to optimize our immune system, our congnitive functioning, and our social-emotional health). I think eating goes so much deeper than just nutrition or smart food choices. In fact, I think focusing on just nutrition is a sad case of missing the forest for the trees.
Building a healthy eater, who is tuned in to his or her body and who eats well for life is all about having the appropriate skills: strong oral motor patterns and sensory processing, an overall understanding of food and our bodies, being informed about how food is grown and prepared, feeling a sense of joy and discovery about eating and mealtime, building consistent mealtime routines with clear expectations, infusing meals with opportunities to socialize, laugh, explore, and learn. When we cue into how mulit-facetted feeding is, it's clear that the nutrient content of food is just a very small part of eating and perseverating on this can actually detract from our ability to build strong and healthy families. Looking at all the component parts of feeding and mealtime gives us a much better grasp on how to help our children learn to be strong and engaged eaters who enjoy food without overeating.
No comments:
Post a Comment