5 Things Parents Need to Know About Intuitive Eating for Kids

Dr. Wendy: You've heard let them listen to their body. But what if your four-year-old's body is telling them that they want chocolate and chippies for dinner every single night? today we're gonna diving into intuitive eating, really understanding what is intuitive eating for your family. And maybe who it actually applies to. Welcome to Family in Focus. I'm Dr. Wendy Schofer, the pediatrician helping parents lead meaningful change without harm. Here we focus on the connection and practical shifts that help families thrive at every size. Let's get started. So if you go to that moment that I have a sneaky feeling you may already know, where you put a plate in front of, say, a four-year-old child who will not be named right now, and your child looks at it and just kind of is like, I'm not hungry for that. And you're standing there, and all of a sudden all the questions are coming up, like, I'm supposed to be honoring their hunger cues, isn't that? The whole point? Should I be giving them a menu to choose from? Or do we just go to the clean plate club, which is what I grew up with? And of course, that whole question that's really deeper where you're like, Am I just gonna be messing this up either way? Have I created issues here? So let's understand a little bit more about intuitive eating, because honestly, what I've been noticing. Is that there is a pattern that is happening right now. A pattern where we take something that is designed for grown-ups, healing, from years of diet culture, and then we try to hand it to a person who's still learning what their hunger cues even feel like. And these are two very different jobs. So intuitive eating is a an approach. That was developed by dietitians to help adults who were unwinding so much of this internalized diet culture that each and every one of us is experiencing as adults. It was not designed for children. There is no research on its effect in kids. And that's not a knock on intuitive eating as an approach. It's just that we're taking a tool. And we're trying to apply it to all ages and stages when we don't actually know that this is helpful. And I will offer that I'm seeing ways in which this is being used and it's actually not helping children develop the way that they need to. So just because a topic is popular or trending, it doesn't mean it fits your family. And so the bottom line here is that learning and growing is the approach. Okay. That is what we need as we're developing relationships. And it's not necessarily chasing the well, the trendiest trend that's going on right now. So here are the five things you need to know about intuitive eating. And children. So number one, yes, intuitive eating was built for adults, not kids. And so your child hasn't lived through, thankfully, all of the years of diet culture that you and I have. They don't have all that undoing to do. Undoing to do, yeah. So there's a different starting point. And we need different tools in order to be able to help our children. Number two, Kids are still building skills of reading their own body. And that's really learning the difference between, well, what is what does it mean to feel hungry, full, bored, upset, anxious, content, satisfied. And that's really a developmental process. It takes practice and a little bit of predictability to practice against that. Number three, Routine is what makes body signals readable. So when food comes on a rhythm, a a schedule routine, kids get a chance to feel mild hunger before a meal. They get to eat and then they get to experience what it feels like to feel content or satisfied. And that contrast is how they learn what those signals mean for them. A routine does not mean a dictator's schedule. It means enough structure that their hunger and well, their rhythms, like their circadian rhythm, it can all sync up. Number four, the short order cook cycle is real and it often backfires. And so that's what it looks like when a kid says, you know, I'm not hungry for that, and we swap in an alternative. It makes sense in the moment because quite honestly, you just want them to eat and you want them to be happy and you don't want to hear about it. And over time, it significantly feeds picky eating. So being calm and firm, let's say solid About what's offered at a meal isn't being harsh. It's just being steady. It's giving them some steadiness to work with. And number five, you are in this house too. If a menu of options genuinely works better for your family, for your own relationship with food, you get to do that. So the kids aren't the only one at the table. The goal is A family that's learning and growing together and not saying, okay, this is the perfect protocol that you have to adapt or the one that you have to absolutely avoid. You get to see what fits and works for your family. So let's call out the specific trap that is being set for parents. So we think that giving kids more freedom now always equals healthier relationships later. And yet when we hand a young child full control over what and when they're eating, thinking that while we're honoring their body, what actually happens is we're removing the very structure that they need in order to learn. in order to start hearing the signals from their body. I want to highlight something here that this does come from a very good place that we're doing this. You know, you read that control around food is harmful, and it can be. And so the instinct is to pull back all of the structure. But structure and connection, they are not opposites. A predictable rhythm is a form of care and love and a gift. It's not control. So I want to offer you some things to try, to experiment. So this week, pick your family's natural snack and meal rhythm and just hold it without it becoming something that is like a full-time job. So setting up a schedule. This is what our meal times will look like this week. This is when the snacks are going to be available. And then when your kid says, Hey, I'm not hungry for that. You get to say, cool, that's okay. This is what's here. And there's another snack coming at three. And then you can just let it be. Notice what's happening over a few days. Okay. This isn't about what happens at one meal or one offering. It's at looking at those patterns. What you're doing here is that you're modeling trust, trusting your child to also trust their body. I trust you to get hungry. I trust the rhythm. And I don't have to fix this right now. Let's be honest, there's a whole lot of diet culture that we're still trying to unlearn as adults. And there's so much tension that we're holding on to about structure, control, restriction, listening to bodies. And that's where so much of the work that I do with families, within Family and Focus, is squarely with parents, because quite honestly, we need the help. We need the help to heal our own relationships with our food, our body, and then we have what we actually want to model for our children. So if you want some more help doing that, that is exactly why Family and Focus exists. You can definitely check out the program offerings on the website as well as in the show notes. hey, remember, while I'm a doctor, I am most definitely not your doctor. This podcast is for education, not medical advice. So yeah, take what fits, leave the rest, and just be kind to yourself as you're leading change without harm in your family.