Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family - Softcover

Why did I write this book? It's part of my mission to revolutionize eating and feeding. But like any worthwhile project I have ever done, I backed into it. I thought I had a clear direction but what I hadn't anticipated is that, like a spirited child, Secrets has been a most willful book! In response to reader request, I started out to write a short and simple primer about child feeding following my golden rule, the division of responsibility in feeding: The parent is responsible for the what, when and where of feeding, the child is responsible for the how much and whether of eating. The problem that soon became apparent is that the cornerstone of that division of responsibility is family meals, and today's families have extraordinary difficulty getting meals on the table. It's not for lack of commitment or trying. There are too many barriers: lack of time and food skills, guilt and anxiety about eating and, not the least, all the rules that have taken the fun out of eating. Thus, Secrets turned into a book about reclaiming the family meal for the enjoyable, connecting, soothing and energizing backbone of the family. We all absolutely depend on knowing we are going to be fed. To do well with eating, we have to have meals. We must make meals a priority or we will scare ourselves and our children, whether we know it or not. We'll grab at not-so-good food, and end up feeling hungry and unsatisfied, both emotionally and physically.

I was born and raised on a farm in South Dakota and moved to Wisconsin to do an internship in dietetics after I graduated from SD State University in Brookings. I have remained here since, marrying and raising three now-grown children: a girl and two boys. My daughter is married and has three daughters. After earning a masters in nutrition at the University of Wisconsin in Madison I practiced as an outpatient dietitian at a large medical practice. I wrote my first book about child nutrition, Child of Mine; Feeding with Love and Good Sense on the cusp of my transition to becoming a mental health professional. It was intended as a farewell gift to my own sweet and wonderful experiences with raising my children and my clinical practice as a dietitian in pediatrics.

To my surprise, I have become an authority on child nutrition and feeding and have gone on to consult, teach, train, write magazine and journal articles and write books two and three: How to Get Your Kid to Eat...But Not Too Much and Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family. I keep trying to find time to write about adults and their eating, something more about children seems to come up and claim my attention. Children have a way of doing that! In my 35 years of practice I have developed a uniquely freeing and effective approach to helping adults with their eating. That book may be called something like Secrets of Being a Healthy Eater, but the title smacks of tofu and virtue. My son-in-law suggested Celebrate the Cookie, which has a nice ring to it but implies a cookie cookbook. I have nothing against cookie cookbooks, but I don't plan to write one. The current title attempt is Eating Joyfully in a Food-Crazed World. Suggestions are welcome.

In these times of book-world upheaval, my solution to being an economically solventor perhaps survivingauthor has been to diversify. Along with my writing and training endeavors and after getting a second masters in clinical social work, for the last 20 years I have been in private practice as a psychotherapist specializing in eating disorders. Ten years ago I established Ellyn Satter Associates with the mission of providing resources about eating and feedingbooks, teaching materials, training materials and trainingfor the public and for professionals.