One of the most common questions I am asked is ‘What books do you recommend?’.
I’ve listed my top three recent reads. These aren’t recipe books but they are really important in terms of learning about your own ‘food parenting style’ and putting some perspective on food and family meals in your life.
How to Raise Intuitive Eaters by Sumner Brooks and Amee Severson.
This book looks in depth at our own relationship with food, the language we use around food and our bodies and the impact this has on our children.
It highlights how ‘health’ has been narrowed down to one body shape and effects of this on our overall health and wellbeing. It looks at triggers of eating disorders (both binge eating and restrictions) and what we can do to help our children’s future health. For more on this please check out our courses.
How to talk to children about food by Dr. Anna Colton.
Clinical psychologist and eating disorder specialist Dr Anna Colton guides you through a judgement- and shame-free journey from pregnancy to a child’s adolescence with accessible scientific and psychological understandings. How to Talk to Children About Food will help you to:
· Learn the developmental stages of eating and gain the tools to support children through the ages
· Navigate and manage complex food feelings without anxiety, anger or distress
· Identify eating disorder behaviours and know when to intervene
· Break negative eating cycles and patterns
· Build a positive relationship between food and your child/teen’s body
The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children by Shefali Tsabary.
This book doesn’t talk about food but I read it with family meals in mind.
If we aim for perfection in everything our children do – how this will likely lead to failure not on ability but on our impossibly high standards. It explains the benefit of allowing our children to be ‘average’ at things and finding their own way with their skills and interests.
Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating: A Step-by-Step Guide for Overcoming Selective Eating, Food Aversion, and Feeding Disorders by Katja Rowell and Jenny Mc Glothlin.
If you have a fussy eater at home this will help you identify different approaches to helping your child. We have a tendency to take the authoritarian/ clean your plate approach but this is most likely not serving you or your child.