🌟 Exciting New Series Alert! 🌟
Hey there, ever feel like you're caught in a daily struggle over meals and snacks with your kids? You want the best for them, a life free from the food battles you knew, but it seems like every dinnertime turns into a skirmish over greens and grains.
This week on Nourished to Bloom, we’re exploring these very struggles with our first installment of "How to Raise an Intuitive Eater." As a mom raising three young children, I've seen firsthand how our well-meaning attempts to steer kids towards “healthy eating” can backfire, creating more stress than health.
Here's a nugget from this week that truly struck a chord...
Our typical approach—limiting sweets and emphasizing "healthy" choices—might be setting our kids up for the same dieting traps we've wrestled with. In trying to protect them, we might inadvertently be passing down our tangled food legacies.
Think about it. Have you ever restricted a treat with the hope of nurturing good habits, only to have your child fixate on the very thing you’ve withheld?
🍬 Instead of a sugar ban, envision a world where your child naturally reaches for an apple and finds equal joy in a slice of cake, without a side of guilt.
This episode is all about reexamining our roles and fostering an environment that lets the natural intuitive eater in each child—and in ourselves—flourish.
What You'll Find This Week on Nourished to Bloom:
🍎 The truth about diet culture’s hidden influence on our parenting.
🤗 How embracing intuitive eating can transform family mealtimes
💪 Why healing your relationship with food is the first step in raising an intuitive eater
🌈 Practical strategies to implement intuitive eating practices in your home
This series aims to offer parents the tools to support intuitive eating habits in their families, promoting lifelong health and happiness. 🌿
Your journey to a peaceful family mealtime starts here.
If you have any specific questions or topics you'd like us to cover in the upcoming episodes, send and email to kara@karatrochta.com and I’ll be sure to answer it!
Your question may be just what someone else needs to hear!
Join The Nourished to Bloom Community: www.community.karatrochta.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/karatrochta
The Nourished to Bloom Podcast Show Notes: www.podcast.karatrochta.com/shownotes
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I think it's safe to say that most of us as moms want
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to raise our children to be as healthy as they possibly
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can. I know that as moms we always are
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wanting what is best for our kids and that comes
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with helping them learn how to establish healthy eating
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habits too. But sometimes our well meaning
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approaches to eating by restricting sugar or not
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allowing quote unquote junk foods and making sure that we're only
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giving quote unquote healthy options may
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actually be doing more harm than good in the long run.
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So we are kicking off a series called how to
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Raise an Intuitive Eater. And so in this series I'm going to
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give you some background information to help you understand
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how to approach intuitive eating as a
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parent and then also over the course of the next couple of episodes,
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share with you some strategies of how we've implemented intuitive
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eating into our household. As I am currently raising
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three young children. So I hope you'll join me on
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this little mini series and let's get started on
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learning how we can raise intuitive eaters.
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Welcome to the Nourish to Bloom podcast where your faith meets
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your health. I'm your host, Kara Trochta, a registered dietitian
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and certified Catholic Coach, and I'm here to help you cultivate a deeper
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connection with your body, your spirit and and the nourishment that sustains
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them both. In a world filled with noise and
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confusion about food, health and body image, this podcast
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offers truth and healing from a Christ centered perspective.
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Together we'll untangle the deep roots of diet culture and discover
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what it means to truly care for ourselves through joyful
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nourishment of mind, body and soul. We're here to dive into
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the transformative power of intuitive eating coupled with the rich teachings of our
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Christian faith. With every episode, I'll be cheering you on,
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offering insights, inspiration and practical tools to help
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you heal your relationship with food and embrace the beauty
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of your body as a temple of the Holy Spirit with
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confidence and courage that can only be found in
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Christ. Join me as we journey together towards a more holistic approach
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to wellness, one that honors the wisdom of your body as God's
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creation, the teachings of our faith, and the unique purpose
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you're called to fulfill. You were made to
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bloom, to come into full beauty and health in order to
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bear good fruit for the Lord with your life. So if you're ready to
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nourish your body, feed your soul and bloom into the best version of
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yourself, then you're in the right place. And I'm so happy you're Here.
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Welcome to Nourish to Bloom, where every day is a sacred
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invitation to thrive. Hey there. Welcome back to the
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Nourish to Bloom podcast. I hope that your week is started off
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with it being blessed and beautiful. The sun is out here in
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Texas and the last couple days have been gorgeous. I will
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say we may be hitting record temperatures the next couple
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of days, so it's almost like it's shorts and tank top weather
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all over again. But if you know,
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Punxsutawney Phil is actually right. Winter will be around for another
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six months, but we are soaking up the sunshine here in Texas.
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So I hope that wherever you are, that you are having
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a beautiful and blessed week. So excited to be back here
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with you and starting this new series called how
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to Raise an Intuitive Eater. So with different clients I've
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worked with, different workshops I've held different speaking engagements I've
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been at, one question always kind of comes up on how we can
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incorporate this intuitive eating lifestyle as parents to help
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our kids start to embrace an intuitive eating lifestyle. So I'm
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excited because this year, this series is going to help answer maybe some of those
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questions that you've had. I will say if there is a particular
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question you have about how to raise an intuitive eater,
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send me an email. It's caraaratrakta.com but
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send me an email with what your question is and I will do my best
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to answer it in the next few series of podcast
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episodes. So if there's something that is weighing on your mind, just send me an
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email and I will be sure to address it. But
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so excited for this because I think that it's something that
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we, as parents, we all want to raise our kids to be
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healthy and to have a healthy relationship with food and. And
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to not maybe struggle with food or struggle with the
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relationship with their body in the ways that we ourselves have. I know that was
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a huge motivating factor for me, was I.
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My first child was a daughter, and I didn't want to have
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her go through the same body image struggles that I did for, you
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know, a part of my adult life. And then in
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having two sons, it was also just this kind of flip side
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of, you know, I want to raise sons who are, you know, looking
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at women as more than just their outward appearance and they're in their
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body. And so it was just really this whole shift for our family in
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this and this perspective shift that really, you
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know, fueled my intuitive eating journey because I knew that it was about more
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than just healing my own relationship. And for My own personal
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reasons of, you know, no longer wanting to struggle with dieting
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and weight loss and to really embrace my body the
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way that it is and the way that God created it to be.
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But it just had a much greater impact. It was really
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the, the, the motivation behind creating
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generational shifts, that what I was passing down to
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my kids wasn't going to be a dieting legacy or wasn't going to
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be, you know, a legacy of, you
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know, solely focus on the outward appearance of anybody's body and
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how the, the lies of diet culture making us
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believe that, you know, the thinner you are, the healthier you are, or that
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the thinner you are, the happier you are or the more worthy you are. And
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so I really wanted to create that shift within my own family and
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with my own kids. So that was a huge motivating factor. So I'm excited to
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share some of this with you in today's episode. And like I said, and
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the next few episodes, I'll be sharing some of the strategies that
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we have implemented in our own house, some of the, the
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struggles and the conversations that we've had within our own house,
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just to really help you feel empowered to maybe make
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this change for your family and embracing this intuitive eating
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lifestyle. But we know, based off of previous
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episodes and things that we've talked about, that diets
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and food rules are really fueled by this idea of
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deprivation and restrict. And what we may
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notice if we start to examine how we approach feeding our own children is
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that we often embody that approach of deprivation and
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restriction in feeding our own kids. They mimic the same
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characteristics of a diet. We are well meaning behind
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it. We, you know, when we try to make sure that our
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kids are eating healthy and not eating too much sugar or not allowing
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them, quote, unquote, junk food, we're doing it from a place of
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love, of them, of wanting them to be the healthiest and the best that they
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can be. But in the long run, we're actually
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maybe creating this cycle of setting them up
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for more harm than good. We're setting them up for that deprivation
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and dieting cycle that maybe we ourselves have been victim to
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for so long or that maybe was handed down to us from our
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parents. And so we also have to remember that
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when we have these deprivation and restriction behaviors,
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it's putting these, these foods in that novel category.
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We're putting, you know, giving them more energy, more emotional energy.
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We're saying that this is really special. We're putting it off limits. And
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so it starts to consume their thoughts, it starts to lead
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to, they really want this, but they're feeling deprived and they're either they're going to
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find a way to get it, whether that's sneaking the food, whether that's throwing a
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fit until we give in, it's all of those things. And
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so, you know, we're kind of setting them up for maybe some of the same
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struggles that we've had by continuing that
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deprivation and restriction cycle. But we can, but when we
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embrace this intuitive eating lifestyle,
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we're showing them how to be more attuned with their body and, and with that
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Christ centered perspective, just helping them understand how beautiful,
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how beautifully their bodies were created by God and
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the purpose for their bodies, right, Their, their bodies were created
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with God's kingdom in mind, with a particular plan in mind for
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their life. And that their body is going to be the way in which they
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are able to, to honor God and to worship that plan.
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Even just thinking about the way they play, right, that
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play for them is a way that they're moving their body, that they
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are attuned with their body, that they're trying to figure out what it is that
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their body can do. And that's all just a beautiful form of
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worship of a way to give gratitude for their bodies
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and, and what God allows them to accomplish and
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play through the use of their bodies. And so
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really if, if you are wanting to raise
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an intuitive eater, first and
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foremost you have to become an intuitive
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eater. So in order to foster a healthy relationship with food
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for our kids, we ourselves must have a healthy
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relationship with food in our bodies. So really it
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is foundational. Your kids will likely not
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be successful as an intuitive eater if not go
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first. So we have to change our own mindset about how we
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view food, that food is not good versus bad, and that
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we have to learn to make peace with food ourselves before we can expect our
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children to be able to do the same. Because ultimately we are
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that role model for them when it comes to eating, just like we are the
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role model for them for so many other things in life. And so
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how we handle food, how we handle body image and
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dissatisfaction will likely be the same way that our children do.
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I think we have to sit here, we have to remind ourselves
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that we were all born intuitive eaters, that that
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was part of God's good design, that he designed our
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bodies to, with that internal wisdom to know
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when and what and how much of something it was going to need.
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Go back and think about when your child was an infant. They cried
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when they were hungry. That was Their cue, something in their body. They
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got this message in their body that they were hungry and they needed nourishment and
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they relied on us. And so they informed us through crying that they
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were hungry. We fed them and they ate until
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they were full and satisfied and that was it. I mean, think about the times
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that maybe you tried to like, con to convince your child to
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nurse a little bit more or to, you know, try to get them to take
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more of the bottle because they didn't meet that, that quota that we thought
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they needed, you know, the number of ounces, and they would just reject it or
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they would turn their head. That was them being attuned with
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their body and their body's cues and signals. That was them embrac
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embracing that internal wisdom and being that intuitive eater that we
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were all born to be. And so that's what we're trying to help
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them recover. Because somewhere along the way, we've all,
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we've interrupted that intuitive eater that's within them by trying
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to, you know, limit certain foods
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or making them eat on this certain schedule or making them eat more,
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you know, their whole plate in order to be able to have dessert. And just
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kind of these, these disorder eating patterns that we've
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projected on them. I mean, I for sure was one of them. I remember
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I was so proud of myself because my oldest, my daughter
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didn't have a chicken nugget until she was three years old. In hindsight,
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it was so silly, but I was caught up in my own food rules about
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what was good and what was bad. And so I, I
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found that I was being my kid's own food
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police, right? That I was actually the one who was putting these
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thoughts in their heads about good versus bad.
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And I was putting them on a path to disordered eating, a
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path that would likely lead them to binge eating
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or to eating in secret or sneaking
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foods. And I was putting them on this path towards dieting
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as adult, as an adult, because they were going to grow up and leave my
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house and then seek out all the foods I never let them have here
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within their own childhood home. And so it took
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me going through that intuitive eating process to see that my approach was not going
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to help my kids have a healthy relationship with food. And that was, you
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know, that decision to implement intuitive eating with, with my own
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family. And so some questions to ask yourself.
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How many times do you force your children to eat on a
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particular schedule? Now, I know life is
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busy, life is chaotic, and sometimes, you know, we have to have these
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set dinner Times and things like that. But I think the weekends,
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beautiful time, especially if you don't have anything going on. To
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really let your children be attuned with their body and
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to lean into those hunger and fullness cues, right?
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Helping them understand what hunger and fullness feels like in their
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body and then matching what they're eating with that particular
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hunger level. How many times do
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we kind of like scoff or throw a fit and tell them, like,
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there's absolutely no way that you can be hungry right now. You just
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ate? Well, we're
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not experiencing what they're experiencing in their body.
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And when we help them understand hunger and fullness, we can help them understand
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if they truly are hungry or if they have a desire to
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eat out of boredom or seeking distraction
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or trying to deal with difficult emotions
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or how many times do you tell your child, no, you can't have cake, you
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didn't eat your dinner, right? It's. It's
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setting them up for, well, cake is something super special,
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and you can only have cake if you eat all your dinner. But
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in a kind of twisted way, you're actually maybe promoting
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overeating, that maybe if you had the cake with the
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dinner, that they were going to eat a little bit of both and then not
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eat their entire plate and they would be satisfied, right?
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Or how many times have we used food to bribe our children
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to elicit a particular behavior that we're seeking out of for
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them? You can have that candy or you can have, you know, that
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treat when and if you do this thing, right? And so we're,
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we're setting them up for bribery and making food and
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the way they eat an indication of, you
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know, earning a particular grade or a certain level of,
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you know, satisfaction that we feel towards them or love that we feel
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towards them. And so we're tying this up and their identities
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into the type of eater that they are,
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right? And so we find ourselves, I mean,
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this happens still in my household where someone will make a comment, oh, so
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and so is such a good eater. And so and so is
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a picky eater, right? We put these labels on arcades and we
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start to really start to promote those
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mindsets of the food police and disordered eating.
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And so we need to uncouple this kind of
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perf eating performance from the,
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the satisfaction that we feel or the love that we feel towards our kids.
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It kind of gets all tangled up, right? And, and we can see this as
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adults because this is how it's played out in our own lives, right? And so
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bottom line, is that when we do these things, all of it is reinforcing
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diet culture and causing that that natural intuitive eater
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to slowly be muted instead of
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embracing and remembering that children are born with that innate ability
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to regulate their metabolism and their hunger if we let them
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and if we continue to support that. And so our
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jobs as parents should be to help our children learn to listen
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to their inner intuitive eater and help them navigate all
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the external influences that are around
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saying, you should eat this way or not. Too much of this,
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and I will tell you, your kids are getting it
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somewhere, even if it is not from you. When my
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middle one was in kindergarten and this
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was definitely post me healing
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my, my relationship with food and my body. And we
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definitely did not talk about calories in our
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household. We weren't looking at that nutrition facts panel. And I remember my
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son coming home one day, and I will tell you, it was
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shocking because it was my son who came home one day and was
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eating a snack or something and he was looking at the calories and
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calories on it. He's like, well, mom, this has so many so calories. And
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my friend so and so told me that if a food has more than 100
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calories, that it's bad for you, that you shouldn't eat it. And
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it was that moment of, whoa, we're dealing with this
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in kindergarten, right? That these kids are, are already
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being, having these food rules projected on them, their
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parents. And we know this because we know that children as young as
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age, you know, six to eight are dieting or being put on diets
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by their parents. But it was just a whole situation of having to help him
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navigate and understand that there's,
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there's foods that are going to have more than 100 calories that offer you a
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lot of nutrition. There's also foods that are more than 100 calories
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that are just fun to eat because they're satisfying. But it was just
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opening that door to that conversation that just
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again, completely threw me because we had not talked about any of that
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in our house. So just know that your kids are going to be exposed to
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this from somewhere. And you get to
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the earlier that you intervene and the more that you take
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part in and creating this narrative around
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food and around health and around their body, you
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will help them, give them the tools that they need to navigate these
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external influences. And so
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one part is that it starts with reassuring your kids that
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hunger them feeling hungry is a natural
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and normal and correct sensation in their body.
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And that our response to their hunger is that we will
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help them feel safe and eliminate any fear of
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deprivation. And research is showing
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that children who are fed on a very strict schedule or who are kept on
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a very limited strict diet can move into
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toddler years already with a disordered relationship with
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food. And long term, that leads to tendencies
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to overeat, it leads to tendencies to binge.
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It teaches them to either eat when they are not hungry,
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or they will rear their independence and refuse to
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eat, which then upsets their parents. And we're creating these food
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fights across every kitchen table in America.
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And so we, when we can help them, you know, embrace
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this natural hunger and fullness cues, it's showing
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that we trust them and we
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trust their bodies and that they can trust us to do our part. So
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trust is crucial to helping kids retain their innate
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ability around hunger and fullness. So
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Ellen Satter is a dietitian and she's kind of the guru
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in the realm of child nutrition. Diet. Diet, dietitians.
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And I will fully admit I do not do work with children
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around intuitive eating. My work primarily focuses
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on the parents and primarily women and helping them
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establish a healthy relationship with food. But we can
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see some of these patterns that when mothers embrace
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this lifestyle, we see these positive changes with, with
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kids. But Ellen Satter created
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this term called the division of responsibility
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when it comes to feeding children. And so
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parents have a responsibility and kids have a responsibility
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when it comes to eating. And the parents job is to provide
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the food. So we get to make the food, we get
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to plan the food, we get to present the food, we get to offer the
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food, we get to provide the food to our children.
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And it's the kid's job to eat how much or
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how little they want. And some of that is
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based off of preference and satisfaction. Some of that
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is based off of how food feels in their, in their body. Some of that
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is based off of their hunger. Hunger
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levels. Right. And I find this always interesting because it was kind
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of a light bulb moment for me of, you know, we,
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we make this food for our kids and they just, they just turn up their
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nose at it. Right. And sometimes that's just kind of, they're going to
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be their normal reaction. They're not really sure of how this looks or what the
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flavors are going to be. So one way that I found that has helped is
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to kind of deconstruct, deconstruct certain things. So if it's a casserole, trying to
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deconstruct portions of it to where the kids can see kind of the familiar
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items that are in that particular dish and then helping them
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kind of maybe relate it to something else that they've tried before in the past.
00:21:38
So they kind of get an idea of what this flavor might
00:21:41
be. But then the other kind of big light bulb moment was just that
00:21:45
realization of we are all unique
00:21:48
beings, right? We are all uniquely created with our own
00:21:52
preferences. And so sometimes whatever it is that
00:21:56
you offer your kid, they're just not going to like it because
00:21:59
they just don't like that food. Just the way there are certain foods that
00:22:03
you won't eat because you don't like it, and there's certain foods that I won't
00:22:06
eat because I don't like it. The same is true for our
00:22:10
kids, but we tend to go into this, like,
00:22:13
overdrive and, and make a big deal about it because they're not
00:22:16
eating. And so a strategy that we've
00:22:20
implemented in our house is that, you know, if you really don't want
00:22:24
this, we encourage you to try it. But if you really don't want this, there's
00:22:27
always the option for you to make a sandwich or
00:22:31
to make a bean and cheese taco, something else that they could have,
00:22:35
but I'm not the one cooking it. They're responsible for
00:22:38
choosing something else. And you might be able, Cara, they're just going to eat
00:22:42
sandwiches every night of the week. And, you know, maybe that's the
00:22:46
way it starts because they feel a little independent and they're like, oh, I get
00:22:49
to make these choices. But the reality is, is that it all kind of levels
00:22:53
out and there's that healthy balance of, you
00:22:56
know, them eating more of a variety of things because
00:23:00
they, they're not feeling pressured at the table.
00:23:04
We're not creating these food fights at the
00:23:07
table. And so just remember that our job is to provide
00:23:11
the food, and your kid's job is to eat how much or how little they
00:23:14
want. And Ellen Satter believes that really
00:23:18
we have this. This over control and under support,
00:23:22
and those are the basis of many childhood weight problems. Right?
00:23:26
We're trying to over control our children's weight and what it is that we're
00:23:29
eating because we're projecting a fear, our own fear onto them. As
00:23:33
far as, you know, we fear that their bodies are going to look a certain
00:23:37
way. And so then we, you know, harbor this fear of, like, oh,
00:23:41
well, they're going to be made fun of or they're not going to be healthy
00:23:43
or this, that or the other thing based off of that outward appearance.
00:23:47
And so we have to remember that it's Just like in
00:23:50
adults, when we promote this restriction and deprivation, it's going
00:23:54
to cause more harm for our kids. We're going to see
00:23:57
that there, there's a greater potential for weight gain because
00:24:01
of that restriction and that deprivation. We're going to see that
00:24:05
they're disconnected from their biological
00:24:09
hunger and fullness cues. They've lost that attunement with their body and
00:24:12
they've lost that trust with their body. And this ultimately results
00:24:16
in lowered self esteem. And so
00:24:20
we have to, in our, in our goals of trying to help our kids be
00:24:24
as healthy as possible, we have to allow them
00:24:28
access and the ability to
00:24:31
eat all kinds of food. Not only just those
00:24:35
nutritionally dense foods, but also those
00:24:39
play foods is what we call them in our house. The world calls
00:24:42
it junk food, but we look at it as play food, right? It's something that
00:24:46
brings more satisfaction, maybe more fun to the meal. But when
00:24:50
we, when we stop this, you know, labeling food
00:24:54
good versus bad, it leads to teaching
00:24:57
our kids to trust their own
00:25:01
internal knowledge instead of teaching them to react to our
00:25:05
own external messages. And so we're helping
00:25:08
them foster trust in their internal signals instead of
00:25:12
leading them to mistrusting those internal signals. And
00:25:16
so Ellen Satter goes on to suggest some ways that we can help do this
00:25:19
is by putting all foods on the table at once,
00:25:23
beginning to share the power of nutrition early,
00:25:27
using a non moralistic terms for food, putting a
00:25:30
variety on the table and in the lunchbox, not to be a short
00:25:34
order cook for your child, and then trusting your child's innate abilities.
00:25:38
And so in our upcoming episodes, we're going to break some of these down a
00:25:41
little bit more and go a little bit bit deeper. But this is just kind
00:25:44
of a highlight of some things that we can do and some areas that we
00:25:47
can start helping our kids really again embrace
00:25:51
that inner intuitive eater. And then we also need to remember that our
00:25:55
kids grow in spurts and this and that they can
00:25:58
be self regulating. Right?
00:26:04
For you personally, there are probably days that maybe you don't feel as
00:26:07
hungry as others, but does someone make you eat on the days
00:26:11
that you really aren't hungry? But how many times
00:26:15
do we get so caught up with our kids and they're eating that, like,
00:26:19
you know, if our kids aren't eating very much for a couple of days, we
00:26:22
think oh gosh, something's wrong, we gotta intervene, right? But we have to remember that
00:26:26
our kids are they, they grow in spurts and that they're going to
00:26:29
be self regulating. So there's Going to be days that they're
00:26:33
hungrier than others, that they're going to eat a lot on
00:26:37
certain days and not so much the next day, that their growth
00:26:40
demands and their activity levels all
00:26:43
influence their hunger levels and their
00:26:47
knee and their the amount of
00:26:50
calories and energy that they need. And this is the
00:26:54
same in kids just as it is in adults. So when we
00:26:57
teach our kids to self regulate their intake, they're going to end up
00:27:01
balancing out over the whole week, week. So it's not
00:27:05
necessarily needing to look at this from a meal to meal or a day to
00:27:08
day, but just remembering that it's for the most part and that
00:27:12
all this is going to balance out over the week. If you are offering all
00:27:16
kinds of food, your children, when they're self regulating and they're
00:27:20
in tune with their body, they're going to naturally gravitate towards
00:27:23
the things that their body knows that it needs. So it's
00:27:27
just like in our own life, it's about this bigger picture of what our health
00:27:31
habits are, not the specific foods that we ate at any
00:27:35
given day or any given moment. And so it really
00:27:39
comes down to helping our kids feel empowered towards
00:27:42
eating versus feeling controlled. Because if we
00:27:45
continue to try to control them, they're going to rebel.
00:27:50
And that's when you start to view your child as a picky
00:27:53
eater or you start to notice your kids sneaking
00:27:57
foods or you know, binging off of a certain thing.
00:28:01
It's them trying to create some independence.
00:28:04
And so we are so powerful in this role of helping them feel
00:28:08
empowered towards eating healthy and towards feeling
00:28:12
comfortable and good in their body. And we're that primary role
00:28:16
model. So we have to remember to approach all foods with a
00:28:19
neutral attitude and not be pushy about good foods
00:28:23
versus bad foods. And that we need to help them feel empowered and
00:28:27
safe in choosing foods. Yes, having conversation about
00:28:30
nutrition and being open to how nutrition supports their body
00:28:34
and allows them to, you know, do and move in certain ways,
00:28:38
but not so much that we are labeling foods good versus bad
00:28:42
or saying you need to have X amount of this, but
00:28:45
just letting them feel empowered. So letting them get involved in
00:28:49
the kitchen and preparing food, letting them serve themselves,
00:28:53
serving their own plates, helping them
00:28:57
foster that, that internal wisdom. So knowing that
00:29:00
when they are hungry they will eat, letting them order
00:29:04
for themselves at restaurants, you know, when it's age appropriate
00:29:08
and involve them in the shopping and the meal preparation,
00:29:12
these are all really great ways to help them feel
00:29:15
empowered when it comes to their health and empowered
00:29:19
to making healthful food. Choices
00:29:22
and just remember that that childhood is
00:29:26
really a time that we can experiment with food and that it can
00:29:30
take 15 plus exposures to foods for child
00:29:33
to be able to accept new foods. And so
00:29:37
really knowing that if they don't eat, if they don't eat at one time, that
00:29:40
that's just. We don't just maybe throw that recipe out the window, but just knowing
00:29:44
that we have to continually offer these things over and over and over
00:29:47
again. And so when you're going to offer a new food, offer it with
00:29:51
a familiar food as well so they don't feel like there's nothing for them to
00:29:55
eat eat. And then just remembering that it's okay for
00:29:58
kids to not like certain foods.
00:30:02
So just to kind of recap of how we can
00:30:06
help begin this process of raising an intuitive
00:30:09
eater. It starts with the changes that we're making at
00:30:13
home. First, us healing our own relationship with
00:30:16
food, but then also helping our kids understand hunger and
00:30:20
fullness. Helping them develop their own coping
00:30:23
mechanisms to deal with emotions that don't have them turning to
00:30:27
foods, and then keeping a variety of play foods and
00:30:31
nutritious foods in the house. And then letting your child know that
00:30:35
you trust them and that they will be
00:30:38
guided by their internal voice about food and
00:30:42
eating. And then helping your kids find activities that, you
00:30:45
know, give them a sense of identification and increase their self
00:30:49
esteem and things that they enjoy instead of again
00:30:54
allowing food or the way they eat to be how they're, they're
00:30:58
labeled. Right? This is critical to help them
00:31:01
root their identity in Christ and know that there's no
00:31:05
performance necessary to be the recipient
00:31:08
of Christ's love. That they are loved no matter what they
00:31:12
are loved no matter what they, what they eat and what they don't eat.
00:31:16
And they are loved no matter the way that their bodies look. And
00:31:20
that's how the Lord loves us. And so we can take that as really that
00:31:23
role modeling of how we approach our children
00:31:27
instead of really looking at it from,
00:31:31
you know, trying to micromanage or control what they're
00:31:34
eating because we desire for them to be a healthy eater.
00:31:38
So just remember that when we start building our kids up around their
00:31:42
relationship with food and we start making changes in our own
00:31:45
relationship and our approaches to eating, that we're really
00:31:49
creating a lifestyle that truly supports, supports our health
00:31:52
without sacrificing our happiness. And we can end the
00:31:56
food fight. So I know that we covered a
00:32:00
lot in today's episode, but
00:32:04
I just want to remind you that in the next upcoming episodes that we're
00:32:07
going to go through a few more strategies, things that I've implemented in my own
00:32:10
house, some suggestions from other experts on just how to
00:32:14
help you start and establish raising healthy eaters
00:32:18
and intuitive eaters in your own home. So I hope you'll
00:32:22
tune into the next couple of episodes again. If you have
00:32:26
a particular question you want me to answer, send me an email
00:32:30
caraaracharakta.com shoot that email over and I will
00:32:33
be sure to go ahead and answer that in an upcoming episode.
00:32:37
Until then, take care. Remember, beauty held is the seed,
00:32:41
beauty shared is the flower. It is your time to
00:32:44
bloom. Have a beautiful and blessed week and I will see you right back
00:32:48
here next week. Talk soon. Bye.
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