Embracing Intuitive Eating for Children: A Guide to Nurturing Healthy Food Relationships

1. What is Intuitive Eating?

   Intuitive eating is an eating approach that encourages individuals to listen to their body’s internal cues regarding hunger, fullness, and satisfaction ⁽¹⁾. They do not rely on external diet rules and regulations. This type of eating helps in developing healthy relationships with food.

   This type of eating style encourages a person to listen to and follow bodily sensations as a guide to when and how much to eat. It is based on the idea that the body knows how much food it needs.

   Intuitive eating is observed to be similar to mindful eating, with a slight difference. Mindful eating focuses on the present moment while cooking and eating food, minimizing any distractions and focusing on each bite. Intuitive eating has similar principles but aims to help people unlearn negative beliefs about food and their bodies. It also helps in building trust in themselves.

2. Relevance to Children’s Wellbeing

   Intuitive eating lays a foundation for a healthy relationship with food and promotes positivity in physical and mental health. It has several key aspects highlighting its relevance: 

   • It encourages children to listen to their body’s natural hunger and fullness cues, which helps in developing a balanced approach to eating and contributes to establishing lifelong healthy habits.
   • Learning about their bodies and fostering positive attitudes towards food can help reduce the risk of developing eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorders. Intuitive eating can also help prevent the occurrence of extremes of emotional dieting and restrictive dieting.
   • Intuitive eating helps in developing a positive body image by emphasizing the acceptance and appreciation of one’s body.
   • It also helps children develop healthy relationships with their emotions, in turn contributing to emotional well-being and resilience.
   • Intuitive eating acknowledges and respects individual differences in appetite, preferences, and nutritional needs.
   • Intuitive eating allows the inclusion of all foods and also emphasizes the importance of nourishing the body with a variety of nutrient-rich choices.

   Intuitive eating is relevant to children’s well-being as it promotes a balanced, positive, and individualized approach to nutrition, fostering lifelong healthy habits and addressing health and well-being.

   Children who can hold on to this eating habit benefit and they develop healthy relationships with food, eat a healthier diet including fruits and vegetables, and can maintain moderate weight as they grow up ^{(2, 3)}.

Intuitive eating is a way of developing a healthy relationship with food. It was introduced by dieticians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch ⁽⁴⁾. It helps in teaching children to listen and follow their physical hunger and satiety cues rather than emotional and external triggers. 

Children are born with the natural ability to eat intuitively. Such as babies drink milk when hungry and stop drinking it when full. The same occurs when they are started on solid foods. Gradually children are exposed to increasing amounts of external eating influences. Therefore, as they get older, they start eating out of boredom, because the person alone is eating and the food is present, or because they have learned new rules about when and what to eat. When in preschool, children start expressing hunger for a specific kind of food, especially for the ones they consider tasty. Applying the principles of intuitive eating with kids can help maintain their natural ability to eat when hungry. It can help in preventing external influences from affecting their eating patterns as they get older. 

According to the USDA’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the dietary pattern of a child depends on the dietary pattern of their home environment ⁽⁵⁾. This means, modeling intuitive eating in front of children can help them continue or relearn how to practice it themselves.

Following are the ways in which intuitive eating can be introduced into the eating habits of children: 

• Set Boundaries: Adults may provide food, but the responsibility of deciding when and how much to eat should be left to the children. It is important to stick to these boundaries and their choices should not be influenced.
• Offer Choices: When possible, the child should be allowed to choose whatever they want to eat from a limited option.
• Allow Self-Serving: The children who are old enough they should be allowed to serve themselves. This allows for managing their portion sizes.
• Accept their Choices: Children should be informed about the nutritional value of each food. But once they have made a decision, it should be respected.
• Focus on Feelings: Instead of making judgments about food, the focus should be on how eating feels. For example, if the child eats until satisfied, they would feel good. Eating uncomfortably full will make them feel unpleasant.
• Set Aside Space and Time: To eat meals, a specific space and time should be designated. It is important to set aside enough time to eat mindfully.

While introducing teaching or modeling intuiting eating, the following should be avoided. 

• Categorizing foods into good, bad, healthy, and unhealthy
• Criticizing child’s choices and giving them titles as picky or fussy
• Trying to sneak more or less food onto the child’s plate
• Denying or taking away food as a part of punishment
• Making comments on body weight, shape, or size
• Giving rewards and bribes for being good, or eating all

The caregivers need to apply the above not-to-do things to themselves. Also, children take in information from their surroundings, therefore hearing a caregiver being self-critical about food teaches them to think the same way.

Teaching intuitive eating may require significant adjustment. Children may have to confront some of their own beliefs about food and their bodies to change the behavior of children. This may be challenging.

Additionally, ensuring the consistency of intuitive eating in each place a child goes may be difficult. This behavior may be less manageable in the school environment or at other people’s homes.

There are a few ideas that can be helpful for busy parents or guardians to help children eat more intuitively: 

• It is important to make sure each meal or snack served to the child has at least one food that they like. This can reduce the risk of pressuring the child to eat.
• Family-style meals can be served with toppings on the side. This can help the child to personalize the content and amount on their plates.
• Input can be asked from the child for any new recipe.
• Model intuitive eating behavior by sitting down with them to enjoy food in a guilt-free and stress-free manner.
• Accept the child would not always like everything offered. There are chances their taste would change over time.
• Have a set time for meals and snacks making sure that the child has an eating moment in 2-3 hours intervals throughout the day.
• Avoid using food as a reward for certain behaviors of the child.
• Mindful eating behavior can be encouraged by questioning the child regarding the texture and flavor of foods.
• Allow the child to leave the table when full. However, it should be made clear that once all have finished eating, they will need to wait until the next meal or snack to eat again.

Intuitive eating may not be universally effective. Also, Individuals may vary in their ability to adopt and adapt to it based on their needs, preferences, and circumstances.

Intuitive eating is a holistic approach to nutrition that emphasizes listening to and trusting one’s body cues for hunger, fullness, and satisfaction. It offers numerous advantages for promoting a positive relationship with food and overall well-being. It is also essential to acknowledge the potential cons and challenges associated with this approach. 

Misinterpretation of hunger and fullness cues, lack of structure and nutritional education, external influence and social challenges, health conditions, concerns about weight gain, and emotional challenges are factors that individuals may face when adopting intuitive eating. While navigating the complex landscape of nutrition and well-being, it is important to foster a culture of openness, understanding, and respect for diverse approaches. Intuitive eating if implemented thoughtfully and with consideration of individual factors, can be a valuable tool in promoting a positive and sustainable relationship with food for many individuals.