NS Hodgepodge Good
Food Key Messages
What’s Your Parenting Feeding Style?
Feeding our children is one of our most important jobs. One thing that makes feeding
hard is the lack of preparation parents get in early childhood feeding and child
development. We know that food is important, but so is HOW children are fed, and WHY
they behave that way around food.
Understanding your feeding style is key to feeding and raising healthy children. Feeding
styles are characterized by how demanding and sensitive a parent is to the child in the
process of feeding.
There are four feeding styles: Authoritarian, Permissive, Neglectful and Fearless Feeding.
Of these, only the Fearless Feeding Style leads to positive eating habits such as eating
more fruits, vegetables, and dairy products, being tuned in to appetite signals (hunger and
fullness), and a healthy body weight. The other three styles are linked to impaired
appetite regulation, weight problems and less healthy eating, and do not help with picky
eating.
The Authoritarian Feeding Style is ‘parent-centered’, made up of eating rules and
performance such as “eat three bites before leaving the table’ or ‘finish the meal before
getting dessert’. Rewarding with dessert or other food, restricting certain foods or
amounts, and pushing children to eat are practices of the Authoritarian Feeding Style.
This may cause the child to dislike mealtimes or certain foods, become a picky eater, or
have problems with inadequate eating and underweight, a poor sense of appetite
regulation, or overweight and weight gain.
The Permissive Feeding Style is about a lack of structure or boundaries. Parents are
reactive to food requests, complaints of hunger (even when a meal was recently eaten)
and may cater to the child’s food preferences. Meal structure is lacking, and frequent
eating may occur. Children use outside factors to determine hunger or fullness. Head
hunger, boredom, advertising may trigger eating in addition to ‘tummy hunger’. Children
raised with a permissive style may become overweight due to lack of limits on sweets
and snacks, may become pickier, or less likely to try new foods and become underweight.
The Authoritarian and Permissive Feeding Styles tend to cause the most feeding
problems for children.
The Neglectful Feeding Style is about irregular shopping, empty cupboards and
refrigerators, and no plan for meals and snacks. Meal structure and food availability may
not be important to the parent, and that affects feeding the child. Children who experience
this feeding style may be insecure about food and eating, unsure of the next meal, if they
will like it, and whether it will be enough.
The Fearless Feeding Style promotes independent thinking and self-regulation, but
also sets boundaries. This is where Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility comes
into play. (See Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility in Feeding). The parent
determines what food is served, when and where it will happen, while allowing the
child to decide whether they will eat what is prepared, and how much. Structure,
boundaries, choices and trust are the basis of this Fearless Feeding Style. It is
associated with leaner children who are tuned in to their own appetite, and is a
promising style for preventing and managing childhood obesity and picky eating.
Most parents have a dominant feeding style, but all four styles can show up from time to
time. Our feeding styles can arise from our own childhood experiences, a child’s weight
status, his behavior around food and even the parent’s weight status. For instance, if a
child is overweight, a parent may use an authoritarian feeding style, set strict limits on
seconds, and access to food. If a parent has a past eating disorder, she may use a
permissive style, attempting to avoid the food issue.
The point of this is to bring to light the influence of feeding styles on your children’s
eating. You can be offering the most nutritious meals, but if it is done without structure,
or with pressure and absolutes on eating performance, it may backfire and negatively
colour your child’s relationship with food, his eating, and his health, not to mention
negative meal time struggles.
The idea is to use the Fearless Feeding Style that allows your child the space and
time to learn about food and eating in a safe and trusting environment, without
ultimatums, bribes, or drastic measures that ultimately backfire. If you are having
trouble with your child’s eating, take a step back and re-evaluate. Do you have
enough predictability and structure with meals and snacks? Are you being too pushy
about food, or too lenient? Is your feeding style getting in the way? How are the
other adults in your child’s life influencing their eating habits?
Adapted from post Sept 2013 from Jill Castle, co-author of Fearless Feeding: How to
Raise Healthy Eaters from High Chair to High School
*Please consult your local Public Health Nutritionist before you start the program. We
can help you gain a good understanding of these key messages, and what healthy eating
for young families looks like. It is important that we do not contribute to the nutrition
misinformation that is out there by endorsing unscientifically proven diet or food
therapies, products or services. Our own personal food practices that contradict these
Good Food Key Messages are not shared.
Brenda Leenders, Public Health Nutritionist, Colchester East Hants Health Authority