May 14, 2008
Family Meals Focus #26
Interpreting the news and research about feeding and eating

The previous four Family Meals Focus issues addressed each of the components of the Satter Eating Competence Model (ecSatter): #22, Attitude; #23, Food acceptance; #24: Food regulation and #25: Context-management skills. As I told you in FMF #21, ecSatter is the definition of optimum, functional and sustainable eating attitudes and behaviors that I developed during my long clinical practice, informed and corrected by research observations about adult eating attitudes and behavior and child feeding dynamics.¹ The model has been carefully tested and continues to be tested.^2,3 My name is on the model to protect it: To keep others from assigning meanings to the model that are different from those I intend. This newsletter integrates the four components of ecSatter. The information is excerpted from the second edition of Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family.

Eating is a complex brew of preference, habit, attitude, intuition, knowledge, and physical necessity. All must be considered in addressing eating, and critical to them all is enjoyment. Enjoyment of food and reward from eating are essential to having eating and feeding turn out well. When the joy goes out of eating, nutrition suffers. The common themes in all four parts of ecSatter are permission and discipline: the permission to choose food you enjoy and eat it in amounts you find satisfying, and the discipline to provide yourself with regular and reliable meals and snacks and to pay attention when you eat them.

ecSatter doesn't say how much to eat. Telling you how much to eat would make you go by the numbers rather than going by what your body tells you. Your body signals of hunger, appetite and satiety give you a far more sophisticated way of managing how much than any food plan or calorie prescription. To help your body regulate, develop your eating capabilities in the two main areas related to how much to eat: structure and internal regulation.

DETERMINING HOW MUCH TO EAT
Provide regular, reliable and rewarding meals
Depend on your capabilities with internal regulation

ecSatter doesn't say what to eat. Telling you what to eat would put you in your head rather than in your body and undermine your eating competence. The key to nutritional excellence is variety growing out of genuine food enjoyment. To support nutritional health, develop your eating capabilities in the two main areas related to what to eat: providing meals and accepting food.

DETERMINING WHAT TO EAT
Provide regular, reliable and rewarding meals
Depend on your capabilities with food acceptance

While many fear that giving permission to eat preferred foods in satisfying amounts will promote gluttony, in practice quite the opposite occurs. Foods that are no longer forbidden become ordinary foods that can be consumed in ordinary ways. Large portion sizes become less appealing in the context of regular and reliable meals and snacks featuring adequate amounts of rewarding food.

ecSatter gives permission to eat. Eating is okay. Eating enough is okay. Enjoying eating is okay. Eating what you like is okay. Taking time to eat is okay. Making eating a priority is okay. People feel better about eating when they acknowledge their joy of eating and go with their feelings rather than fighting against them. The theme of the second edition of Secrets is the same as the first: The secret of feeding a healthy family is to love good food, trust yourself, and share that love and trust with your child.

References

1. Satter EM. Eating Competence: definition and evidence for the Satter Eating Competence Model. J Nutr Educ Behav. 2007;39 (suppl):S142-S153.

2. Lohse B, Satter E, Horacek T, Gebreselassie T, Oakland MJ. Measuring Eating Competence: psychometric properties and validity of the ecSatter Inventory. J Nutr Educ Behav. 2007;39 (suppl):S154-S166.

3. Psota T, Lohse B, West S. Associations between eating competence and cardiovascular disease biomarkers. J Nutr Educ Behav. 2007;39 (suppl):S171-S178.

Copyright © 2008 by Ellyn Satter. Published at www.EllynSatter.com.