How to Raise an Intuitive Eater: Raising the Next Generation with Food and Body Confidence

by Sumner Brooks, Amee Severson, Elyse Resch M.S., R.D., F.A.D.A. (Foreword by)

Overview

With the wisdom of Intuitive Eating, a manifesto for parents to help them reject diet culture and raise the next generation to have a healthy relationship with food and their bodies.

Kids are born intuitive eaters. Well-meaning parents, influenced by the diet culture that surrounds us all, are often concerned about how to best feed their children. Nearly everyone is talking about what to do about the childhood obesity epidemic. Meanwhile, every proposed solution for how to feed kids to promote health and prevent weight-related health concerns don’t mention the importance of one thing: a healthy relationship with food. The consequences can be disastrous and are indistinguishable from the predictable and well-researched impact that dieting has on adults. Weight cycling, low self-esteem, deviations from normal growth, and eating disorders are just some of the negative health effects children can experience from the fear-based approach to food and eating that has become the norm in our culture.

Sumner Brooks and Amee Severson believe that parents want the best for their kids and know a parent’s job is to make them feel safe in the world and their bodies. They want them to grow up to be competent, healthy eaters, living their best lives in the bodies they were born to have. Intuitive Eating is more talked about than ever, and the time is now to make sure parents truly understand what it means to raise an intuitive eater. With a compassionate and relatable voice, How to Raise an Intuitive Eater is the only book of its kind to teach parents what they need to know to improve health, happiness, and wellbeing for the littlest among us.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250786623
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/02/2024
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	479,704
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

SUMNER BROOKS is a mom and licensed registered dietitian nutritionist (LD, RDN) based in Oregon who has spent over 13 years working in the field of nutrition and eating disorders. Her experience includes providing nutrition therapy for adolescents and adults, public speaking and pursuing advanced training in trauma-informed, weight-inclusive healthcare. She is also the founder of the online training platform Eating Disorder Registered Dietitians and Professionals (EDRD Pro).

AMEE SEVERSON is a Registered Dietitian (RD) in Washington State (CD) with a private practice outside of Seattle, Washington. Amee specializes in eating disorder recovery, healing and preserving food-body relationships, and focuses on gender-inclusive and LGTQ+ affirming care. She is a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, and a Certified Body Trust Provider.

Editorial Reviews

"This is what parents need to teach their kids — and themselves — especially those who want their kids to be confident, healthy adults."
—Good Morning America

"Parents looking to get their kids’ eating habits off to a positive start will find this a useful resource."
—Publishers Weekly

"This informative resource offers compassionate help for parents attempting to build a healthy relationship with food, for both themselves and their children."
—Library Journal

"In their deeply detailed, richly nuanced new book, 'How to Raise an Intuitive Eater: Raising the Next Generation with Food and Body Confidence,' registered dietitians Sumner Brooks and Amee Severson offer parents an alternative framework for approaching child feeding that focuses on well-being, not weight."
—Seattle Times

"I’m so glad this book exists! Sumner Brooks and Amee Severson demystify the process of intuitive eating for kids, explaining how to navigate that essential balance between structure with food and unconditional permission to eat—all from a foundation of inclusivity and body respect. Not only do I plan on recommending How to Raise an Intuitive Eater to many of my clients, but soon I’ll also be using it myself as a new-parent-to-be."
—Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, CEDRD, certified intuitive eating counselor and author of Anti-Diet

"How to Raise an Intuitive Eater is a compelling book that will teach you to identify and heal the wounds of a toxic diet culture. Brooks and Severson provide readers with accessible, well-informed, and evidence-based recommendations to protect and support your kids in developing food and body confidence, deftly presenting what family nutrition books aspire to - strategies parents can use to positively influence their child's today and tomorrow, with simple, actionable steps to help their kids with one of the most important experiences they have every single day - the experience of eating."
—Lindo Bacon, PhD, author of Radical Belonging and Health at Every Size

"If you only ever read one parenting book, let it be How to Raise an Intuitive Eater. That’s how vitally important, wise, medically-sound, and cutting-edge this brilliant book is. A must-read for all parents and any clinician who works with children, eating disorders, or both, this comprehensive classic embodies preventive care by realigning parental good intentions with truly sound skills and philosophies. Children raised with this guide will truly be fortunate. I will be recommending it to everyone I know."
—Jennifer L. Gaudiani, MD, CEDS-S, FAED, Founder & Medical Director, Gaudiani Clinic and Author of Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders

"This is the book I've been looking for forever, both as a health journalist and as a mom trying to raise kids who don't fear and resent their appetites or their bodies the way too many of us were taught to do. Brooks and Severson ask us to go deep and wrestle with our own internalized fatphobia and food fears, to work through the body baggage that most of us show up to parenthood still figuring out. But they also answer all of our practical questions, like what to do about juice, or how to respond when our kids want a snack 20 minutes after breakfast. How To Raise an Intuitive Eater is warm, wise, impeccably researched, and thought-provoking. I will be returning to it often; this book is a must-read for every parent."
—Virginia Sole-Smith, author of The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America

From the Publisher

12/20/2021

Dieticians Brooks and Severson take on “diet culture’s unrealistic ideals” in this cogent argument for allowing a child to determine his or her eating habits. Teaching children to “respect their unique body in a world that wants us to self-loathe” is crucial, the authors write, and they caution parents against using food as a reward or punishment, because it can lead to children having a conflict-filled relationship with food. Brooks and Severson’s plan consists of countering diet culture (by encouraging self-compassion), letting go of the myth of perfect parenting (mess-ups are learning opportunities), and embracing a holistic view of health (which involves managing stress). They recommend a flexible eating routine that takes into consideration kids’ preferences, and suggest helpful exercises, such as creating “lunch box cards” for kids to give to adults with an explanation of the family’s approach to food, or drafting a statement to remind parents why they’ve chosen to raise intuitive eaters. The authors tend to drive home the same points many times over, but they aren’t short on encouragement. Parents looking to get their kids’ eating habits off to a positive start will find this a useful resource. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

02/01/2022

Much attention has been paid to childhood obesity lately, and as a result parents might find themselves worrying about what and how to feed their children. Children have innate wisdom about eating and about their own bodies, even from infancy, argues this guide by registered dietitians Brooks (a mother and founder of the online training platform "Eating Disorder Registered Dieticians and Professionals") and Severson (a Certified Body Trust Provider and Intuitive Eating counselor, with a focus on gender-inclusive and LGBTQ+ affirming care). Brooks and Severson acknowledge the class implications of diet: for families facing food insecurity, getting enough food of any kind on the table becomes a more pressing need than fostering a positive relationship with food, and families facing discrimination or poverty (because of human trafficking, racism, immigration status, gender identity, etc.) are more likely to experience food insecurity. Brooks and Severson also address mental health. They say that parents must start by compassionately confronting their own attitudes about food in order to guide their children with the same kindness. The authors set out three principles: provide unconditional love and support for your child's body; implement a flexible eating routine; and use your intuitive eating voice. The book also discusses movement, health concerns, and sports; its final section has advice for different stages of child development. VERDICT This informative resource offers compassionate help for parents attempting to build a healthy relationship with food, for both themselves and their children.

Library Journal