Is Your Child a Healthy Eater

What makes a child a “healthy eater?” Is the healthy eater one who eats vegetables but no sweets, soy products but no meat, who checks nutritional labels for sodium and fat content? To the surprise of many parents, healthy eating has little to do with any of the above, and more to do with the child’s capacity to develop a balanced and moderate eating (and activity) lifestyle that includes nutritionally dense foods from all of the various food groups, in the form of at least three meals a day, plus snacks. The child who knows how to eat healthfully is one who has learned to recognize and respond to his own needs and to solve problems and make intelligent choices, not only about food, but also about life and living.

The following quizzes will help you to make an assessment about the quality of your child’s eating.

Does your child skip meals when he isn’t hungry?
Does your child consistently refuse to sit down to dinner with the family because she is “going out to eat later with her friends?” Does she then tell her friends that she cannot eat dinner with them because she has already eaten at home?
Is your child fearful about eating fat, protein, and sugar?
Does your child believe that a person should only eat when she has to, and that she should stop before she is full?
Is your child prone to reading nutritional labels on foods for fat and sugar content before eating?
Does your child count calories?
Is your child typically trying to lose weight by dieting?
Is your child worried about looking fat even when he or she is not?
Do you worry that by honestly confronting your child about your concerns regarding her eating lifestyle, you might make matters worse?

If your answers to this part of the quiz are “yes,” your child may be developing unhealthy eating patterns that could put him or her at risk to develop an eating disorder.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Does your child trust her own instincts to know when she is hungry and when she is full, when to start eating and when to stop?
Does your child assume control of the important areas in her life, such as her studies, hobbies, and interests? Can she set priorities and act on her intentions responsibly? Is she interested in learning and engaging in meaningful activities?
Can your child face feelings, recognize problems and find effective solutions for them?
Can your child trust that you care enough about her and her well being to get out of bed in the morning to prepare a nutritious breakfast and to eat it together with her before sending her off to school?
If you have already left for work when your child is preparing to leave for school, do you leave the breakfast table set and ready for her and a prepared brown-bag lunch in the refrigerator?
Does your child’s life naturally include a goodly amount of exercise and physical activity?

Though parents are not the cause of eating disorders in their child, knowledgeable and proactive parenting can do a great deal to prevent the onset of these disorders and the unhappiness that accompanies them.

If your couldn't answer "yes" to most of the questions in this section of the quiz, then the book When Your Child Has an Eating Disorder will hold a lot of answers for you.

Psychotherapist Abigail H. Natenshon has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders with individuals, families, and groups for the past 31years. She is the author of When Your Child Has An Eating Disorder, A Step-by-Step Workbook For Parents And Other Caregivers, Jossey-Bass, 1999. Based on hundreds of successful outcomes, this book shepherds concerned parents step-by-step through the processes of eating disorder recognition, confronting the child, finding the most effective treatment for patient and family, and evaluating and insuring a timely recovery. A guide to eating disorder prevention, this book is useful to parents, health professionals and school personnel alike in countering the pervasive epidemic of unhealthy eating and body image concerns, and destructive media and peer influences. Her work can be reviewed further at www.empoweredparents.com and www.empoweredkidZ.com.