Prenatal or Breastfeeding:

Nutrition during pregnancy plays a role in the development of the unborn child. And, there is a lot of information and ongoing research looking at benefits associated with breastfeeding, proven, disproven, hypothesized or otherwise. This website has several topics about pregnancy and breastfeeding. Pick one and then discuss your thoughts about it (or respond to another student’s comments after reading the same topic). Compare the information to what you have learned in the book or elsewhere.

Nutrition During the Growing Years

This week we are exploring more about feeding infants and children. For those of you who have had the experience of being responsible for what a child eats, you know just how challenging this can be. Ellyn Satter is one of the top presenters in the field of childhood nutrition. I invite you to her website this week https://www.ellynsatterinstitute.org/ (Links to an external site.) .

Here you will pick a topic about feeding children that interests you. Read the information under the topic you pick and then report back to the class what her suggestions are and ALSO (important for full credit) give specific examples of how you think one might apply this information. Make sure you let us know which topic you are picking to discuss. You can pick from Articles, Newsletter or Division of Responsibility. If you see many students have already posted on your first choice topic, pick another.

Be specific, not vague, in your examples, as they may help others. Here is an example,” in our house, we find that sometimes our kids don’t want to eat what we have made for dinner (often, actually, with 3 different taste buds and 1 of them very picky) so we were making dinner and then, 15 minutes after, someone who had hardly eaten, was in the kitchen looking for food.

For a few weeks, we decided we’d let them have cereal for dinner if they didn’t like what was on the table and, yes, of course, then all they were eating, much of the time was cereal. We didn’t want to cave to short-order cooking (very frustrating and doesn’t encourage children to ever try other food) and we didn’t want to battle at dinner time.

So, now what we do is we put food on their plates, making sure there is always at least one item each person likes (maybe baby carrots for my daughter or apple slices for a son, etc). When they are done eating, they ask to be excused. If they have eaten, they are “excused to the sink” meaning they do not have to finish any more of the food on their plate.

But, if they have hardly touched their food, and we know they are going to be back in the kitchen 15 minutes after dinner, they are “excused to the counter” which means “your food will be waiting for you when you are ready to eat.” This has worked for ALL 3 children. They expectantly wait to see where they are excused to and, if it is the counter, they finishing eating until they are full rather than waiting to come back for snacky food.

(Your explanations don’t need to be this long, but we have had such great success with this method, for all 3 eaters, that I like to share it. Keep in mind, it helps greatly if you cut off snacks 2 hours before your meal. A hungry kid is much more inclined to eat.)”

Ellyn Satter Childhood Obesity Webinar: Lecture

(Links to an external site.)

This webinar (part 1 of a two part series) considers competent eating and issues that might alter that. After listening to this lecture, what are three new ideas that you took away with this talk? How does this compare to what you thought before taking this class? How does this information compare to the information presented in the book? How might you apply this information, either now or in the future?

Last Updated on July 26, 2019