Your Child's Weight: Helping without Harming (Paperback)

by Ellyn Satter (Author) "The mother was getting more and more impatient with me, and I didn't blame her..." (more)
Key Phrases: restrained feeding, eating competence, competent eater, Ellyn Satter's Division of Responsibility, Secrets of Feeding, Healthy Family (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
As much about parenting as feeding, this latest release from renowned childhood feeding expert Ellyn Satter considers the overweight child issue in a new way. Combining scientific research with inspiring anecdotes from her decades of clinical practice, Satter challenges the conventional belief that parents must get overweight children to eat less and exercise more. In the long run, she says, making them go hungry and forcing them to be active makes children preoccupied with food, prone to overeating, turned off to activity, and likely to gain too much weight. Trust is a central theme here: children must be able to trust parents to provide as much food as they need to satisfy their appetites; parents must trust children to eat only as much as they need. Satter provides compelling evidence that, if parents do their jobs with respect to feeding, children are remarkably capable of knowing how much to eat.

About the Author
MORE ABOUT ELLYN SATTER

Ellyn Satter, MS, RD, LCSW, BCD is an internationally recognized authority on eating and feeding. A family therapist and feeding and eating specialist, Satter has a private psychotherapy practice in Madison, Wisconsin. Her books, journal and magazine articles, teaching materials, seminars and media interviews have made her well-known to the lay public, professionals and the media as the leading authority on nutrition and feeding of infants and children of all ages.

Satter's stated mission is to revolutionize feeding and eating. Her unconventional advice? Do what comes naturally. "As long as adults do their jobs with feeding, children do a good job with eating. They intuitively eat the right amount of food to grow well. They naturally push themselves along to learn to like new foods. We did too, at one time. We did, that is, until it was educated out of us by well-meaning adults and misguided, puritanical rules about eating." Satter knows whereof she speaks, given her 40 years’ experience helping people of all ages with their eating and with feeding their children.

Satter's clear and vivid explanations of normal and distorted eating and feeding have made her a popular interviewee and speaker. The author of the Division of Responsibility in Feeding (parents are responsible for the what, when and where of feeding, children are responsible for the how much and whether of eating), Satter has led nutrition, health and mental health professionals as well as the general public to adopt wise and emotionally healthy approaches to feeding and eating.

Satter's books are valued by both professional and lay readers as authoritative, practical, humorous and entertaining. Your Child’s Weight: Helping Without Harming (Kelcy Press) recommends solving the problem of children overweight throughout the growing-up years by "doing the opposite of what seems right...feeding children rather than restricting them." Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense (Bull Publishing) helps parents observe and understand their children and translate that insight into good feeding. Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family (Kelcy Press) teaches fast, efficient, delicious and nutritious food management for the "thinking cook." How to Get Your Kid to Eat...But Not Too Much (Bull Publishing) details feeding and solving feeding problems, birth through adolescence.

Product Details

• Paperback: 472 pages
• Publisher: Kelcy Press; 1 edition (June 13, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967118913
• ISBN-13: 978-0967118918
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #9,019 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank You Ellyn Satter!!, June 16, 2005

By	Samantha Miller - See all my reviews

In the age of chronic dieting, increasing obesity, and an epidemic of eating disorders, Ellyn Satter's approach to feeding children makes sense! As a former dieter myself, I know dieting does not work, so to impose a "diet" or restricted form of eating on my children doesn't make sense. Ellyn Satter explains in a common sense and non-judgemental way how to stop "restricted feeding" behaviors and allow children to regulate their food intake. Parents are responsible for providing a variety of food, (including food that some people may feel is off-limits, such as chips and cookies)and children are responsible for deciding what and how much to eat. Satter also strongly emphasizes the importance of family meals. It was a tremendous relief to me to hear that I don't have to control the amount that my children eat - that they can be trusted to regulate their own food intake and to grow in a way that nature intended for them. Satter emphasizes that it is OKAY not to be "skinny" and that some children are just larger than others - and it's normal and healthy for them. Satter has a common sense and loving approach for parents of children who are actually at an unhealthy weight to help them get back on track. I wish I had read this book when my children were infants - I would very highly recommend it for any parents who have weight or food issues of their own - read this book before you pass on those issues to your children. I thought I was "over" my own issues and still managed to pass them on! This book should be required reading for parents who are "dieters."

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life-changing for my whole family, September 14, 2005

By	K. Adams - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I stumbled on this book while searching for family meal plans. What a revelation. We have one child who we have worried over for years regarding her eating habits and high weight. My husband actually picked up this book and read it cover to cover and, uncharacteristically, led the way in a radical change about how we think about meals and food in our household. This book is full of common sense for families who may be struggling with a child's weight problem. The basic idea is so ZEN--stop controlling, stop struggling, stop worrying and you change the very nature of the problem. Now we're no longer trapped in the double standard of telling one kid to stop eating and the other to finish her food. We're seeing our picky 3 year old actually grab a carrot on his own!! My overeater pushes back from the table when she's full and doesn't crouch over her plate like a famished animal. My middle child is learning to sit in her chair and enjoy the food that is available instead of asking for alternate meals. My husband and I actually have time to catch up with the kids. And I have been able to look at my own eating patterns (and their origins) in a new way. This is a profoundly wise book and I'm so grateful to have discovered it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helped dd loose weight without trying - , July 20, 2006

By	Deb "Jerzy" (Jerzy shore) - See all my reviews

How much damage did my parents do to me by making me "clean my plate" because "there were children starving in Africa!" Urgh. After 20 years with a weight problem, I'm finally getting it under control (with the help of WW) A few months ago - I realized that dd was heading towards obesity herself - and I was helping her ! After reading this book, incorporating some of the suggestions, she lost 10 lbs over the past 3 months, without even trying. Definately urge an overweight parent to read it before putting a child on "a diet" or otherwise limiting food. So glad I did before I made the same mistakes with my other 3 children!