Ellyn Satter was recently interviewed for The Dr. Taz show. This recorded podcast is a great opportunity to hear Ellyn Satter talk not only about food, eating, and feeding, but about emotional health and positive family relationships. Dr. Taz was surprised throughout the interview and repeated to her audience the need to rethink what we’re doing to our kids and ourselves. Satter explains how being positive and self-trusting with respect to food and eating does more for your nutritional, medical, and emotional health than adhering to a set of rules about what to eat and not to eat.
She makes the important point that children can grow up emotionally healthy at whatever weight they are, and that those who weigh less or more than average need good social skills. For a child, trying to get them to lose (or gain) weight means trying to change who they are, and damages their self-regard. Children who are labeled overweight, even indirectly, feel flawed in every way: not smart, not physically capable, and not worthy. So being eating competent won’t give you “lasting weight loss,” will it make you fat? Despite your worst fears, it will not. People who are competent with eating—who approach food and eating with optimism, self-trust, and curiosity—weigh less than those who guide their eating with negativity, self-denial, and avoidance.