Dina Rose

This is a great book about feeding children. I wish I had read it when my girls were just starting solids.

The author's position is that when we emphasize nutrition and try to control our kids' eating, we create stress and, ironically, UNhealthy eating patterns. She advocates not emphasizing nutrition but the teaching of good eating habits, specifically eating a variety of foods, eating foods in proportion to their health benefits (lots of veggies, less ice cream), and eating in moderation -- listening to our hunger, eating when hungry and stopping when not hungry. She gives multiple suggestions for methods to support learning these habits.

Her idea of what constitutes healthy food is sometimes extreme -- she wants a diet of mostly unprocessed natural foods and, while I agree that that is probably good for you, it can be tough to achieve when you're busy. She emphasize dealing with picky eaters more than dealing with overeaters, which is my situation, but she has advice for overeating as well. She places more emphasis on toddlers and preschoolers and starting right than on shaping things up when problematic patterns around food have been established -- one of the reasons I wish I had read this sooner.

If your kids are adventurous eaters and you don't have struggles around food, you probably don't need this book, but I think it's a valuable read for the vast majority of parents who do not have food and feeding going as smoothly as they would like in their households.

her blog, It's Not About Nutrition, is great too.… (mais)