Review: How to Get Your Kid to Eat: But Not Too Much

How to Get Your Kid to Eat: But Not Too Much by Ellyn Satter

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This might be the best book on parenting I've read so far. I have had a lot of anxiety around Sasha's food consumption - no doubt based on my own ambivalence around food issues, but nevertheless it has been stressful. Is she eating enough? Is she eating enough of the right things? What do I do when she doesn't want to eat?

Satter's premise is simple. As a parent, it is my job to determine what Sasha eats, and her job to decide how much of it to eat. When put that way it seems so simple, but the ramifications in our family have been staggering. It has enabled me to completely let go of feeling stressed out at meal times. It is easy to say "you don't have to eat that if you don't want." And it has definitely reduced the "control" oriented fights around food. Satter is realistic too - she says that having family dinners is probably the best thing you can do, and that they should have carbs, protein, and vegetables. But then she says that if the only way to do that is with a frozen pizza, then do it with a frozen pizza. She also suggests that as your child is learning to try new foods or doesn't like what's being served that you should be sure that there are carbs at dinner for them to fill up on. She has other helpful tactics for snacks, kids who don't want to eat at the table, etc. She is completely against feeding kids a separate meal than adults, which I believe in too, but has some ideas on how to make that palatable (pun intended) for everyone. For example - every meal should have at least one item on the plate the kid likes. Hence our dinner the other night of spinach lasagna and strawberries.

The book starts with newborn feeding and goes through adolescence, so there are parts of the book I didn't find relevant, but I did like that the themes she suggested would be relevant over the long haul - that the tactics might change but the strategy would be consistent. There were also sections devoted to more serious eating disorders than a picky toddler, but while irrelevant to me, was still good to see her method applied in different ways.

I've been recommending this nonstop to parents of young kids. A classic in our family's library for sure.



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