I am the mother of three daughters.  I am also a psychotherapist with a 25 year practice working with adults and children on a variety of issues, one of them being eating problems.

In my former life, I was a dancer.  The reason I am compelled to write this piece now, is that this time of year is particularly filled with diet information in your face.  “THIS IS HOW YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT”            is basically the promise set out in every magazine cover, every daily news show segment, every commercial.

What I always wonder about however, is this:  “If we were such experts at weight loss, why is this such a recurring problem for most people?”

For most people, diets don’t work.  Plain and simple.  If they did, you would never have to try another one for the rest of your life.  There wouldn’t be a market of chronic users.

Diets are easy in that they are prescriptive; they take the thinking out of the equation.  You just follow the directions and they promise you weight loss.  Almost always works.

You do in fact, lose the weight.  Then what?  Life happens.  Regular life.  You want to have one, you go out, you have holidays, birthdays, vacations, you can’t work out or get the ‘right’, ‘healthy’ food and boy are you ever sick of eating it all anyway. Or you land up getting so rigid that when your friends are having pizza and fries, you are left wanting.  Or you crack and then promise you won’t have that tomorrow.

The problem with this ‘good’ and ‘bad’ idea or thinking about food and eating, is that it leads to weight gain over time.  You end up on that yo-yo cycle.  Even if it is not a ton of weight, you gain, and lose that amount over time and you simply train your body to weigh more.  Plus you’re miserable, thinking you are the failure, and that it is simply your lack of discipline and self control that is the problem.

WRONG!  Dieting is the problem.  Unless you change your relationship to food for life, you will continue to believe in your victory, (when you are ON your diet), and failure, (when you eat what you want to eat.)

Which brings me back to the beginning of this piece:  When I was a dancer, I too was a dieter.  A pretty radical one, at that.  I believed, like many, that there were “good” foods, and “bad foods”, and that to stay thin, I had to stay away from these “bad foods”.

“Bad” foods became pretty powerful.  If I were preparing for a show or audition, I would stay away from them, and then when I had the chance, boy, I would eat them!  Now I did not eat them moderately, because of course I was always facing that next audition, so I would tell myself this:

“I won’t have this tomorrow, or starting Monday.”

Little did I know: that very thought somehow gave me a weird permission or even mission, to eat more of that food I had allowed myself, than I even felt like having at that moment.  I stopped listening to whether I was satisfied, or even full, because of course I was not having that food again.  Or certainly in the near future.  I better get it all in now.

That put me in this constant ‘on’, ‘off’ cycle of eating.  It made me think about what I was eating and how I was going to get it and took up way too much space in my brain.  I always say that if we could harness the amount of mental and psychic energy people spend thinking whether they should or shouldn’t eat that and what they’ve eaten and how much of it, etc. etc, we really could cure cancer!!

Aside from the bind of this I was still never happy with my weight.  I always thought I was too big, (until I got a job with a dance company where the choreographer said she almost didn’t hire me, because I was not as large as most of the women she likes to choreograph on!)

Fast forward past my dance career, and I am now working as a therapist and in a psychiatric hospital.  I get to wear clothing, and I figured:  “Hey, clothing!  Not just leotard and tights!  I can hide some parts of my body I am less than thrilled with!  I can experiment with eating the foods that I used to think are ‘verboten’, and see how it goes.  No biggie if I gain a few pounds.”

My rule was this:  I could no longer say to myself that I would “start that diet tomorrow and stop eating that food.”  I had to say this to myself:  “I can have this food now, but I need to really think if I want to eat it now, or have some of it later.

I practiced really checking back in with my body and thoughts, to make sure that I wasn’t continuing to eat out of the habit of thinking: “I won’t have it tomorrow.”  This was key, as we are fed by every message and most people that there are foods that are ‘unhealthy, fattening, and that we ‘shouldn’t’ eat them.  These are powerful beliefs and until you have mastered a new approach that shows you can lose weight or keep it off by changing this, you won’t trust it.  You don’t trust yourself yet, and you don’t have the evidence to go on to prove it works.  However, you probably have the evidence that chronic dieting doesn’t end up keeping your weight down or help you feel free from worrying about eating.

Continuing with this led me to ironically, a lower weight overall, but more importantly freedom from over thinking food.  It also fueled my passion to help free others from worrying about food for the rest of their lives.

So here is how it goes: try it, see what happens:

When you are confronted with the idea of what you are or want to eat isn’t what you ‘should’ eat, say:

“The belief that I cannot eat this is old.  It does not end up helping me because I end up wanting that food again, and it feeds this belief that I have no control over this food since I always end up eating it compulsively, bingeing on it, or simply overeating in general.”

“The behavior that leads me to believe that I cannot eat the food is not the issue that I have to keep focused on.  It is the belief that this food that I want to eat will no longer be available, makes me BEHAVE with this food in a way that reinforces my belief that I have no control over the food, and am a failure.  I need to change my belief that I can’t have this food.”

“The belief that I cannot eat this or that is what leads me to disconnect from my body and give me permission to eat it all and anything else that gets in my way, because I will stop tomorrow.  That is the problem that leads to the behavior I need to change.”

Here is a new belief and skill to try:

“I can eat that food but I am not allowed to tell myself that I won’t have it tomorrow.  In fact I can have it again tomorrow, but my rule is that I have to really feel like I need to have it now.”

“I need to continue to stop and consider how I am truly feeling; in my body, and my head.  How satisfied, or done, full am I?  Not yet, perhaps it will be in a few bites, after another helping.  My job is to stop to consider how I am feeling and delighting in eating this.”

New skill to practice:  Stay connected to how satisfied you are.  Knowing that you can stop whenever you choose, because the food is still there, allows you to practicee WAITING.  In this process of waiting, you can play around with how you feel:

Do I want half now, and save the rest for an hour later?  A few hours later?  Perhaps tomorrow.”  “Let me see how I feel later on”.  Knowing that it is still there, and truly believing that will help you to check into your body and practice seeing whether you really want it, or is it just an old habit that you follow because of your old belief:  “I shouldn’t eat this therefore I will have no more after today.”

This sounds easy, but is actually something that takes practice. I still have to remind myself never to diet, or deprive myself, if I want to drop the pounds I gained over vacation.  I trust that the process of regular life, eating, works.  The proof has been in the pudding, but I still have to override that tape loop that tells me that staying away from ice cream will be what helps me lose those few pounds.  It never works for me, makes me just want ice cream and stop listening to when I’d like to stop.

Not dieting works.  It works, because it radically changes your relationships to what you eat.  To HOW you eat.  It give you the power back, the food no longer has the power over you.

If you really practice this, you will see how you end up spreading out your calories.  You will keep your metabolism stoked as you keep yourself fed; no more on/off cycles which train your body to hold onto weight, and best of all, you gradually stop over-thinking your food.

Not to sound like an infomercial, but this has worked with hundreds of people in my practice; from a woman who had gained and lost hundreds of pounds, failed gastroplasty surgery, and now has maintained her hundred pound weight loss differently.  She says it was ‘easy’.  She is simply ‘different’ with food, and can leave the pastries, and formerly binge food lying around.  It helped a lifelong bulimic who thought she was addicted to chocolate and had failed every treatment.  It worked with all people who were sick of over thinking their food, and wanting something that isn’t a diet, but transforms their relationship to food for life.

Sounds radical, huh?  Radical and simple: Don’t Do the Diet.  Spread the word.

No more New Year’s Resolutions.

Anyone out there deal with this one yet?
If you have trained yourself to stop saying: “Do I look fat in this?” out loud, particularly in front of your daughter, hoping to communicate a positive body image, it can be a shock when you hear for the first time: “Mom, I feel fat!” or “Mom, I am fat!”

Preteens and Their Changing Bodies

While many people focus on issues in “teenage years,” the preteen years, when your daughter’s body is preparing for puberty, can come with its own specific challenges. Several things to consider are:
This is a time of increasing body consciousness. Girls are beginning, if they haven’t already, to compare their own bodies to those of their friends. They are navigating images of bodies in a world where the emphasis is on thin. The media encourages this perception with an emphasis on body types that are out of the average range. Although we want to protect our daughters and tell them not to be obsessed with America’s Top Model, we can’t stick our head in the sand and pretend that this world doesn’t exist.

The surge of hormones brings on more sensitivity. Along with increased social and peer pressure and the wish to ‘fit in’, girls do compare their bodies and body parts. Their worries about who is friends with who, and the shifting alliances between groups of friends, can all be funneled into focusing on their bodies.
Girls often appear chunkier, or ‘fluffier’ as their bodies prepare to menstruate. They will put on fat in the areas where estrogen is stored; namely, the stomach, butt, thighs, and upper arms. Nutritionists I have consulted with say that this can be a time when they get the most referrals. Keep in mind that this is often a transitional stage, until their bodies ‘settle out’. It is vital that preteens don’t restrict their eating too much, or start a diet unless medically necessary. This can trip off an eating disorder, or an eating pattern that creates long-term problems.

Tips to Help You and Your Daughter Navigate the “I Am Fat” Complaint

When you have a calm moment, sit with your daughter and ask her more about her concern: “You worry that you are fat; what makes you think that?” Begin a conversation. Ask about their social lives and any hurt feelings. If your child is concerned about a particular body part, remind her that every body is different. Everyone’s body has its own shape, and its own timetable for its changes.
Don’t let your preteen start to diet as a result of their worry. If in fact they have a weight problem, or are beginning to eat compulsively on a regular basis, consult a professional. Dieting can cause long term problems related to unhealthy eating habits. Remind them to eat the foods they love, but to always eat when hungry and stop when full. Try to notice if they are eating out of boredom or anxiety and ask them about it. Distract them with talk.

If your preteen is spending too much time in the mirror, keep them moving! Set a time limit! Joke about it, and just keep them putting one foot in front of the other. Be aware if your daughter is withdrawing from her friends or avoiding social situations. Help your daughter move through her negative feelings and teach her that it is normal to not feel great about all of the parts of herself. If these preoccupations persist and interfere with your daughter’s functioning or she is overly restricting her food, seek professional help.

Have a ‘matter of fact’ attitude. Teach your preteen that feelings pass. Treat her anxiety in a matter of fact way. Show your preteen that it is okay to feel anxious, not great sometimes, and that it can pass. Show her that you can hold onto a larger view, while empathizing that she feels badly. Don’t avoid her feelings.

As a parent, our impulse is to reassure, and soothe. As our children become preteens, they need more than a Band-Aid to comfort them. Often, our preteens need to vent their frustration and negativity. So, just like in any other parenting issue, listen and acknowledge your daughter’s feelings while forgiving yourself for any of your own feelings that get triggered. If your preteen’s negativity becomes too much, you can simply respond to her: “Please don’t insult my daughter.” We all have our limits after all.

Do you have a child who loves to eat…and eat and eat? Do you wonder if it’s an issue? My daughter will say “mmm” with such enthusiasm when she slurps down her soup that it gives me great happiness to serve her another bowl…and even another sometimes. My husband is concerned. I’m not. So, when Donna Fish wrote this article about an overeating child, I knew it would not only resonate with us, but with some of you.

Flipping the “Off”- Switch: Teaching Your Overeater How to Stop by Donna Fish
Nothing like having kids to reinforce the nature part of the nurture debate when it comes to personality traits. Forget things like hair and eye color; any parent with more than one kid knows how different and unique their personalities and temperaments are, from Day One.

I broaden this to what I call your kid’s “Food Personality”. It is rare for there to be kids in one family who all have similar eating styles. More often than not, I hear parents including myself, talk about having one kid who’s a fairly picky eater, stops easily, while there are many children who have trouble stopping.

I call these kids, my Trouble Transitioners. Since I coined this term for the 6 Styles of Eaters I write about in my book, I have come to see that some kids don’t necessarily say: “More, More!” because they have trouble with transitions, but simply because they have a well developed palate, and love the stimulation of the tastes, smells and the sensations of the food! I think back to when my middle daughter who delights in whatever she is doing at the moment, would be eating bowls and bowls of cereal, with the biggest smile on her face; humming the whole time. I had to teach her how to flip the ‘off’ switch by waiting and checking back in with her body 20 minutes later.

This is the opposite of the Picky Eater; kids whose palates and senses don’t develop until they are older. (If at all, there are some adults who are still picky eaters, and not that ‘into’ food.) Trouble Transitioners are so stimulated by the tastes and sensations (early ‘foodies’; and I say that in the best sense of the word), that they are on their third helping before they feel the signal that they are ‘Done, or Full”. By the time they hear the signal and stop, they are usually STUFFED. This way of eating can, over time, become habitual as the cue to feeling ‘DONE’ and STOP EATING, is triggered after larger quantities. The obvious result can be weight issues, which create other problems.

Parents can worry about how to handle this without at best, creating bad feelings and power struggles, or at worst, an eating disorder. (Although parents, you can let yourself off the hook, it takes more than that to create a true eating disorder; some disordered eating, perhaps, not a full blown eating disorder.)

So in the interest of giving your ‘foodies’ some tools to prevent problems from developing, here are some tips:

1) Enjoy and show your kid that you love how much they love food and the tastes. Celebrate this.

2) Teach them that they are their own “BODY EXPERT”, and it is their responsibility to become the best “BODY DETECTIVE” possible. This means listening carefully to their stomachs for the signal that they are DONE, OR FULL. Educate them that some bodies take longer to send the signal; it can just be a whisper after one bowl of cereal, but they need to WAIT 20 minutes to hear it well.

3) While they are waiting, let them do an activity with you like clearing the table, doing the dishes. If they want more, leave their food on the table so they know they have access to it and can have it if their body tells them they are genuinely still hungry. (Avoids power struggles)

4) Teach them how to listen to their bodies; Think of gradations of Hunger/Fullness; 1-7 from Starving, to Stuffed. Help them to Listen Carefully and EAT WHEN HUNGRY STOP WHEN DONE, OR FULL.

5) There are some foods that lend themselves to stimulating your tongue and mouth to the point where it makes it hard to flip the “Off Switch”; some salty foods, or sweet, depending on your palate. Teach your kid to just step away after some, and remind them they can have more later. (Try it yourself!)

Teaching kids HOW to WAIT and STOP, is a part of preventing eating problems from developing, and empowers them to eat well for life.

Happy Mealtime!

Donna’s Other Articles:
How Do You Teach Eating?
Starting Solids
How To Get Those Greens In
Dining Out With Children
Flatware That Is Fun
Who Wants To Eat Vegetables?
Finger Foods Strike
Yogurt For Kids With Sugar?
Finger Foods For A Baby

Donna Fish
*********
Donna Fish is a licensed clinical social worker with a private practice in Manhattan, where she lives with her husband and three daughters, writes her own blog and blogs for The Huffington Post. With the publication of her book: Take the Fight Out of Food: How to Prevent and Solve Your Child’s Eating Problems, she has appeared on and in NPR, Parenting Magazine, Weekend Today Show, Fox News, USA Today and MSNBC and has lectured at Early Childhood Centers of Sarah Lawrence College, Wellesley College, Georgetown University and trained the Head Start Staff of NYC. She lectures to private schools in NYC: Bank street, Village Community School, Dalton, Chapin and more. Donna blogs for us every month- lucky us!

What on earth does she mean by that, you are wondering to yourself. I know, I know, There are a million diet tips out there, what could this one be?! The premise is simple in two ways, but demands some work in a different way than simply following a diet. It goes like this:

1) Connect with your body’s signals. This is called self-regulating. Unfortunately though, we can have very set ideas on how we are supposed to be eating, which may not be what works for your partiular body or mind, i.e.: “I need to eat breakfast, that is healthy, but I really don’t want to eat until 10:00 a.m. and if I do eat breakfast, I end up eating more than if I skip it.” ONE WAY OR EATING DOES NOT FIT ALL. Some thrive with structure, some rebel and end up overeating. Some people graze and would prefer to eat all day. (Many women’s blood sugar levels don’t remain as stable as those of men, which is why you might find yourself needing to eat every 2-3 hours while your boyfriend, husband can go all day).

2) Figure out how you ‘talk to yourself’ about your food. Our head can override what our body tells us to eat at a fairly early age, and the conversation continues your whole life: This is your ‘tape loop’. It is the way you talk in your head to yourself about how you have eaten, are going to eat, or are eating. Key, is figuring out what your response in terms of these conversations tends to be: Do you tune out the voice and land up overeating? How nasty is that voice? How self-congratulatory the first three days when you have dieted successfully? What about after that?

I know that from working with people on eating issues for years now, that until you can figure out not only your ‘tape loops’, your inner dialogue, but most importantly, what really tends to work for you, YOUR FIT, in terms of food and your lifestyle, then all attempts at eating in a particular way will be temporary and be harder to maintain and roll with the changes as you move through more sedentary jobs, childbearing and rearing, stressful events, and vacations and good times. I believe food should be savored, enjoyed and should fit for you; as I always say: You may not be failing your diet, your diet may be failing you. In fact, you CAN figure out how to ‘Eat Outside the Box’. FOR LIFE.

The other day my 15 year old daughter decided to get back into exercise. She set up the Wii Fit game on our television, stepped on the platform, and was promptly told by her ‘person’: “You have gained 5 pounds, and you haven’t worked out in three months!”

What did she do? She immediately stepped off, and hasn’t gone back to the Wii Fit since.

We joked in the family about how this little ‘person’ (which she had in fact, designed!) had totally psyched her out. I thought to myself: “Do we not have enough of an inner critic when it comes to our body image? Do we really need that outside person; friend, neighbor saying: “Now dear, you really have gained some weight?” Really? Geez, I hadn’t noticed, thanks for the help!”

How you take that criticism, how you handle the accusation, whether it is self directed, or from the outside; how you handle failing or FEELING THAT YOU ARE FAILING, will have a huge impact on your motivation and ability be consistent in your goals. Some people can shrug their shoulders and take self criticism in stride, some people are motivated by harsh self criticism. When the criticism becomes excessive however, often the only response is to for duck and cover: basic avoidance of that critic by shutting down. Usually vis a vis dieting, it goes like this: “I blew it, so I will start again tomorrow. Better not really notice or think about what I am eating now.” Total shut down from that voice that is noticing what you are eating and berating you. All that ‘conscious eating, counting points, calories, carbs whatever, out the window. Anyone out there ever start and then stop a diet? How many times, right?!

I would argue however, that FEELING LIKE YOU ARE FAILING IS NORMAL AND PART OF LIFE. Making mistakes, messing up, not succeeding in exactly the way you had imagined it to be, or had set out is absolutely part and parcel of any effort and achievement.

Okay, I know FAILURE is not exactly a headline grabber, or a word that we like to use. Well, I am here to take “FEELING LIKE A FAILURE” OUT OF THE CLOSET. Again, it is totally normal and you can bet that the person you admire most in the world has felt it too. In fact not just felt it, but achieved it. I would venture to say that most successful people have failed multiple times. The difference is that they keep trying.

Your failures are DATA; this information will help you adapt and modify your efforts. In a word, you will learn what you need to about the situation, about yourself, and how you can make the necessary adjustments to create small successes. This will keep you going.

In the book “Outliers”, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hours; the time it takes to be able to do things well. To succeed. What is barely mentioned however, is how those people who are able to put in those 10,000 hours, cope with the days they feel they have failed. I would put money on the idea that they don’t feel successful every moment of those 10,000 hours, but they are able to handle their failures, their disappointments without abandoning their efforts entirely.

What is talked about in the book is the concept of delayed gratification. We know that in order to do this you have to be motivated to show up and keep working, to get to the gratification piece. That is the key: How do you stay motivated to show up, to keep up your efforts in the face of difficulty, failures, disappointments?

Given that failure is kind of ‘built’ in to a lot of dieting history, plenty of people have lost and gained the same 10 – 20 – 150 pounds over many years, I would venture to say that we are primed to feel like we are failing, the moment things start to go badly. Okay, let’s say it: “fail”.

So how do we keep up the efforts in the face of failure, like those ‘outliers’, to put in those 10,000 hours to ensure success? A lot of how you ‘self- talk’ and respond to your inner critic in the face of failure, will have to do with how you handle a bad day on a diet, and then how you put in the time.

Typical scenario:

You’ve joined the gym; you’ve even been working out with a trainer, or signed up and started going to those classes. You feel great! You’ve changed some of your eating habits, even started that new diet that everyone’s talking about and it is terrific! You’ve been doing it a month, and you’ve noticed your body changing; you’ve lost 8, maybe even 10 lbs.

Then you notice that the weight isn’t coming off so fast. You have a day when you are desperate to eat without thinking, without measuring, without counting, without being conscious, and boom! There you are. You wake up the next day, feeling like crap.

You say to yourself: “I have totally blown it; I will definitely start my diet tomorrow, but given how much I ate last night, I might as well ‘let go’ today too, and I will definitely re-start tomorrow. Forget the gym today”.

You spend that day eating all the things you don’t let yourself have, and you don’t let yourself notice how full you are, because you know that tomorrow you are back to the regime. What’s another day?

You go back to the gym, and you get on the scale. You of course expect that you’ve gained weight, but the next few days you are ‘good’. But you step on the scale 4 days later, and the weight still hasn’t budged. You’re really getting pissed now, and starting to think that this whole gym thing isn’t working. And this diet is obviously not working either. You feel totally discouraged. Your motivation is down, you feel like a failure, and you again are feeling fat, even though the same weight two weeks ago, felt thin. (In fact, it was thinner than you had been in 5 years!)

This happens to be one of the most common places that people tend to lose their motivation. Their enthusiasm for the diet and exercise wanes as the result doesn’t seem to be coming and what is that word again? “Failure!”

How you self talk in the face of your ‘inner mean girl or guy will have a direct result on your ability to get back to your efforts. If you are brutal to yourself, it is likely that you will totally shut down, and want to avoid this whole thing entirely; face it here you have failed again, just like all those other times!

Some options to consider:

“I needed that time off and I am going to see it as restorative. If I keep this up I am likely to continue losing as I had been doing before.”

“I know I have failed at this a million other times, but I think I need to change my current plan. I can’t get to the gym more than 2 times a week, so I will also walk to work one day.”

“I need to build in more carbs, because I can’t live like this. I know that if I eat the bread I love every day, but don’t overeat it, I can probably balance things.”

Small changes and adapting your goals keeps your motivation up as you achieve them. Always re-evaluate your diet and your fitness program to tweak things to fit your life and help you stay consistent. A few tips:

PREDICT THE PLATEAU:
EXPECT TO ‘POOP OUT’ SOME WEEKS WITH NOT JUST YOUR DIET BUT YOUR ATTEMPTS AT EXERCISE. PREDICT THEM. BUILD THEM IN.
Leave room for days here and there where you feel need to eat more than usual and hang out on the couch. Your body and mind need breaks. Let them energize you; don’t’ use them as an excuse to stop your efforts entirely

PREDICT A DAY OF EATING WHAT YOU HAVEN’T ALLOWED YOURSELF. Particularly if it s food you can’t live without. At least knowing you can have it maybe once a week, will help you from shoving it down your throat, thinking it’s your ‘last supper’ as you make promises to resume your low or no carb diet tomorrow. If limiting this food works for you, great. If it doesn’t, give it to yourself every day and then see if you really want to have it, or have less of it. It is always there tomorrow. Yes, you can lose weight eating the foods you love.

MAKE MODIFICATIONS AND CHANGE YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR YOURSELF IF YOU ARE FAILING:
Change some of your goals. You might have started off too big and are overwhelmed. Changing the plan to fit you is what is going to help you keep it going. Don’t worry about the endpoint. Small bits really do add up, and again, consistency is key. Your goals will keep adapting as you keep succeeding.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, YOU ARE THE BOSS AND THE EXPERT IN WHAT WILL WORK FOR YOU BECAUSE YOU KNOW YOURSELF AND YOUR LIFE.

Quick story: The other day a friend was telling me how fantastic she has been feeling having cut out all carbs and sugar for a few months. No bloating ever, no weight gain, she feels fantastic! Despite all my anti-diet preaching and beliefs, for a moment I started to think about how maybe I should try this, hey, maybe I wouldn’t wake up feeling bloated, or puffy when I eat whatever these things are that make you puffy and bloated. I have to tell you guys, that no sooner did I even have the THOUGHT to try this, did I find myself stuffing candy and bread down my throat. I was starving! What on earth was this, I was wondering after the second day I was not just failing at cutting out carbs and sugar, but hey, that was all I was eating!!!

I simply had to laugh. I think I was failing this diet big time. And I hadn’t even started. The minute I realized that this was not going to be a good idea for me, I resumed my usual eating, which feels by and large, successful to me. 80/20. It’s good enough.

I will live with my puffy days.

Happy Eating!

Anyone who has read my book, or hears me speak, knows my basic theme; that if we can reconnect with our body’s signals, and teach our kids to stay connected to theirs and then use some common sense about nutrition, then we can maintain and/or rediscover a healthy relationship with food for life.

I thought to post this feedback to share some of how others put it, and to share another useful website; http://butterbeanskitchen.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/

This morning I had the pleasure of hearing Donna Fish speak at a school about kids and their relationship with food. She is a parent of three, a clinical social worker with a private practice in NYC, and the author of Take the Fight out of Food.

Her general approach to creating healthy relationships with and around food for kids, has less to do with food and more to do with helping children develop decision-making skills about food for life. Children can be taught, as babies she says, to think about their decisions, to check in with themselves and be body-detectives. Each of us knows better than anyone else what feels right – from the inside out. Encouraging our children to experiment and listen to the messages their bodies give them, and then encouraging them to trust their instincts, creates confidence. this is the type of confidence that will allow your child to think through their decisions, and then feel good about their decisions as they grow and are faced with peer pressures.
At Butter Beans, we do believe that food changes everything. Eating, affords many lessons that influence just about every other aspect of our life. It isn’t just about the food though. In the case of school lunch, students line up to make their plate, and there are choices to consider! Do I want soup? Do I want both sides, or do I want to save room for a salad or a sandwich? Do I want yogurt? What’s the fruit today? What is my friend going to have?
Having only good things to choose from is great, but choosing, for a timid eater, or for a student new to the lunch line, takes some getting used to. Learning to do so – to take in options and making the most appropriate ones for you on a daily basis, is an amazing life tool. Giving students support in honing this skill, is important.
How to do that? Reviewing the menu with your child before they are faced with lunch, works wonders.
Taking your child shopping and letting them pick out different types of foods, is fun and empowering for them. Donna Fish recommends talking about the food groups as they relate to your child. Protein – essential for focus – let them pick out the protein foods they like at the store.
Having supportive, friendly staff is also important – we’ve got that covered:)
The lessons don’t have to come all at once. In fact, a little at a time is probably the best way to go about it. Teaching our children to chew is a gift that literally lasts a lifetime. Chewing on our food allows for proper digestion and assimilation, and also makes it easier to connect to our body wisdom that lets us know when we have had enough, or when we need more of something. Chewing on information, is a similar process.
Our children’s number one job is to take care of their bodies. It is our responsibility to give them the tools to do so well.

First off, and most importantly, I need to thank all of you who write to me and tell me how helpful “Take the Fight out of Food” has been to you and your family. I would like to open up this blog to be a place you can send in specific questions and I will respond; perhaps this can help others with similar issues, and it is a way for us to begin a conversation.

I am starting this off with a recent query I received; I am publishing it with permission and some changes to preserve anonymity which is what I will do whenever I publish anything that is written in, so no worries that anyone will recognize your identity!

Q) I have 2 sons who are picky and have multiple food allergies.  My husband is overweight . I am 39 and have a history of dieting starting in my early teens, even though I have never been more than 20 lbs. heavier than I was in high school. The dieting, as you know, led to bingeing and weight gain.  In college I started the binge/purge cycle. I did that for 2 years. I quit and was vegetarian for a while.

Due to my kids’ allergies I started reading about nutrition. Because of what I’ve read, and more, I am now vegan. I enjoy eating this way and I don’t give it much thought. My husband is not on board at all. What do I feed him and the kids?

I’m trying to get the boys off cows milk. One of them likes soy milk and drinks it, and the other is worried about heart disease.

I believe, based on my personal experience, that your way is the best way, i.e, teach them about nutrition and how to listen to their bodies. It develops a healthy relationship with food for life. However, I am having a hard time viewing foods as equal (not good or bad) when the research is telling us differently. Do I share my beliefs with my children? What do I feed them?
Cows milk vs. milk substitute, chicken vs. tofu. I don’t even know if they will eat it.

I recognize that this is an ongoing eating disorder for me. I recently read a book about orthorexia nervosa and could relate to that diagnosis. I don’t want this problem to be passed down.

A) Yikes! First off, you have your hands full with allergies and different needs! Very difficult, and whenever there are specific medical issues, it is important of course to adhere to those.
Secondly, thanks for your openness and willingness to acknowledge your own issues. It can be a lot of what we “bring to the table” along with the food and is a first step to helping us give our kids the best relationship with food, they can have.

Sounds like you are probably going to need to have the milk and soy options. Regarding your husband, I wouldn’t try to convert your husband to this if he flat out refuses, and, I would argue, drinking milk isn’t something you want your child to be worried about.

I understand your concerns with the food industry and how to protect your children the best way you know how. My daughter is a vegan and is often trying to help me and all of us in our family understand her point of view and why she feels so strongly about staying away from meat, dairy and fish.

However, that being said, she is old enough to take responsibility for making sure her body gets the additional vitamins that she is missing and she shops and often cooks her own food. (Not always, we do help out, but it is not something everyone in the family wants to eat this way all the time.) Given your husband’s reluctance to take on a vegan diet and how young your kids are and that their growing bodies do need the vitamins gotten through more easily obtained foods, I think it best to wait until they are older and let them make the decision.

I think it is easy to get really worried about all kinds of different types of food, for all kinds of reasons. I do believe in moderation though, as the best defense against not only allergies, but also obsessional thinking about food, and I think it is important to give kids the tools to help them feed their bodies well, know the variety of food groups that they need and how to take responsibility for those choices so that they are equipped to also deal with the outside world when they are on playdates, at school, and can’t always eat exactly the way you might like at home. Nothing wrong with having a vegan diet yourself, and exposing them to your meals, this may sensitize their palate and they may end up making that choice when they are older, but I wouldn’t over worry about their exposure to a non vegan diet.

Make sure they know what their bodies need. Help them figure out how to ‘balance’ the food groups that they are having, even if they are a picky eater. Teach them about the reasons the different food groups are important and what they do. One of the best things you can do to give them a healthy relationship with food is to educate them about why their bodies need calcium, protein, vitamins and vegetables. Connect the benefits to the activities they love, and help them to know their own bodies and eating styles. Even a picky eater can be getting enough within the limits and the different food groups. (Chapter 4 has specific information about what say, a 7 year old needs in terms of protein, or a 1 year old and the amounts of calcium.) Help them stay connected to their bodies, so that they don’t eat from their head, but rather from how they feel from the inside. Chapter 5 has a 1-7 Hunger Fullness Scale adapted for kids, so that they can figure out how much to eat that works for their own bodies.

Most importantly, try to help take some of their fears out of eating. You don’t want your kids developing too much anxiety over the foods that they might want to eat, or will end up needing to eat, because it is too difficult for them to limit their exposure. Try to adopt a ‘for the most part’ attitude about their eating habits, which helps deal with anxiety over needing to eat a ‘perfect’ diet. It sounds like you are doing the best you can for your kids, and they will profit from your concern to feed them healthy, you just don’t want to overdo it. You might have ongoing excessive anxiety about food that is making sense to you with all the information about the food industry, but be aware of how your anxiety may be funneled into this rationale, and how it may be spilling over into your kids; and their worries about food. Any eating disorder is accompanied by extreme anxiety, so be sure to address that, and then try to be help your kids be less worried about the foods they eat.

Just yesterday I was giving a talk at a New York City school, and the room was filled with caring parents who all wanted to make sure that they were doing their best to ensure that their children could have the best eating habits possible.

At one point, a mom raised a question that brought me to the goal I always have in my work with not just kids, but also adults: To be able to “Eat Like a Kid”.

Now when I say that, I don’t mean only that you eat candy, or chips, and don’t ever feel any of the aftermath that we struggle with in adulthood, like hmmm, bloating? (Anyone see Jamie Curtis in the film where she is suddenly in her daughters’ body and she’s eating fries like crazy and saying: “Hey, no bloating!”

In any case, what I do mean, is what all those books on Intuitive, or Mindful Eating refer to, and have as their goals; to basically Eat When You’re Hungry, and Stop When You’re Full.

Hey, not so easy, right?

From a fairly young age, we get a bit sidetracked from our body’s basic signals and our head starts to override those messages. We “think” ourselves out of those signals.

A couple of things that can deride our connection to our body:

1) An idea that you need to lose weight and therefore, need to limit particular foods from your diet

2) Someone else or messages from the media that lead you to believe that certain foods are going to be ‘bad’ for you this or that particular year, and they are foods you love.

Basically, in a nutshell, beginning to think that you need to eat in a way that is different than what is your habit, and/or intuitive.

So, this does not mean that you have to ignore some of these realities, but rather that they need to be re-thought.

1) Make sure that your approach to eating is realistic and that do-able.

2) Be mindful of your tendencies; Do you wait till you are starving, or tend to repetitively eat till you are totally full all the time? Experiment with eating earlier, sooner, rather than later, to stave off emergency hunger, (which leads to stuffing), and play around with eating less, but reminding yourself that you can have more later

3) Even though you might believe that some foods have control over you vs. you control over them, pick one or two to experiment with: Have access to them at all times, keep them with you in your hand and decide:
Do You need this now, or can you Wait, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, maybe tomorrow, certainly the next day. Don’t cut yourself off of the food thinking that you CAN’T have it.

These are tips to find your way back to an eating style, that can incorporate some realities that are necessary, but perhaps can free you up to Eat Like a Kid!

Anyone catch Jennifer Ringer, the New York City Ballerina on the Today Show the other day? She was on to talk about the recent review in the New York Times of her dancing where she was called out by Alastair Macaulay, for looking as though she had had a few too many sugarplums. He stands by his word claiming that ballet is an art form where the aesthetic is about the body and line, and hey, if you want to go out of that standard, you can be a modern dancer.

There has been an overwhelming show of support for Ms. Ringer; not the least being that The Today Show invited her on to respond to Mr. Macaulay’s review. Perhaps they were going with the groundswell of people crying out against this particular body politic, perhaps they were doing a tie-in with the upcoming movie “The Black Swan” where Natalie Portman portrays a very very thin ballerina. (She reportedly lost 20 lbs. for the role; this from an already thin girl.)

No matter whether you are in support of the reviewer, or the public’s outcry against his comments of her body; I would wager that almost every female watching this morning were desperately searching for a sign of, well, her fat.

Even with the “television adds 20 lbs.” thing, she looked pretty trim. Ann Curry must have been muttering to herself: “And I am a big fat pig!” as Ms. Ringer sat beside her, giving us a relative point of view for size. Ms. Curry of course being quite slim, Ms. Ringer appeared smaller next to her.

Bring on the tutu though, and we are dealing with a whole different story. The standards for a ballet body in particular have always been more exacting than any other dance form, but clearly have changed some since the Balanchine days. About 18 years ago, I was brought in to consult with the School of American Ballet dorm staff who were concerned about eating disorders with their students. There was a need to balance the demand that the ballet world and in particular at that time the Balanchine aesthetic for the female dancer, with the health of the students and young professionals to be.

I must comment on the obvious expansion of New York City Ballet’s body policies. In reference to this, Ms. Ringer commented that there is a variety of ‘body types’ in the company, and that certainly she was one of the ballerinas with a more ‘womanly shape’.

Perhaps the critic is simply mourning a bit of a passing of a Balanchine aesthetic that had been such a strong part of the company. Perhaps there would not be such a range of ‘body types’ or ‘womanly figures’ were Mr. Balanchine still alive.

So women of America, take heart, eat and be merry. Have that extra sugar plum this holiday season resting assured that you will not lose your job or be critiqued in the press for those few extra pounds. As I said after having switched from my former job as a dancer: “Clothing hides a multitude of sins, and hey, no one ever fired their shrink for gaining a few pounds!”

Happy Eating!

It’s that time of year again, and if you pack school lunches 5 days a week, it is just the beginning of this particular job that can be just a teeny tiny bit monotonous.

Whenever I do any lectures on kids and food, concerns about lunch and school often come up.  I figured it would be a good time of year, to put these common concerns along with some tips, out there.  Feel free though to write me or send comments about your own particular worries, or questions, and I will be happy to continue this conversation.

Concern #1:

1)    My kids’ school won’t allow nuts or peanut butter; what can I give them that they might eat?

Edamame, hummus, and of course turkey and cheese are great protein alternatives if your kid will eat them.

2)    My kid never seems to eat their lunch; they always come home with their lunchbox full, or they will only eat the treat.

Don’t sweat this one.  Many kids are way to excited and busy at lunchtime to focus on the food.  They are distracted, socializing, thinking about who is sitting with whom.  Capitalize on their hunger which is always massive right after school.  Bring them a turkey sandwich, stop off for chicken rice and beans, basically in a word, if they are hungry feed them real food.  Otherwise they will be snacking until dinner and not want to eat what you serve them in the evening.  Focus less on needing to eat dinner type food at dinner and if they aren’t that hungry, they can eat cereal or yogurt.

3)    My kid is a really picky eater and doesn’t like to eat much at once.  How do I make sure they eat enough?

IF they are really picky and won’t try new things, let them have the same thing every single day.  Don’t sweat it.  Regarding amounts, think smaller; half a sandwich, a burrito, a yogurt and fruit with whole wheat crackers.  A piece of cheese.  Let them also portion out their own food, so they are feeling like they have some control over the amount of food they are eating.  They will be more likely to ask for more.  Most of the time, picky eaters are still getting what they need, and they grow out of it.   They are probably eating just right for their appetite and body.

4)    My kid always eats the other kids’ treats.  They have Ring Dings, and I want him to stay away from that kind of junk food.

You can’t protect your child from the junk world.  What you can do is teach him how to balance junk food with healthy food that does good things for his body.  Let him pick his favorite junk food and figure out when he wants to have it;  limit it to once a day but he gets to pick when.  Perhaps he can bring in his own Ring Dings and trade them for the apple if it isn’t forbidden and overvalued in his mind.

Teaching your kid balance and thinking through their own food decisions will arm them to eat well for life.  Try not to sweat the small stuff, and don’t get obsessive about healthy food.

Happy school starting!!