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Grow by Reflecting and Exploring your Inner Self.
Getting to know yourself better.
Our upper elementary students participated in the talk: "Intuitive Eating: Listen and take care of your signals!" given by Asociación Estima, a private non-profit organization that addresses the growing incidence of Eating Disorders (ED) in El Salvador.
During this talk, they spoke of different issues related to food.
There are three ways we can feed ourselves that take into account the connection with hunger and satiety signals.
1. Diet: Diet is an approach based on food restriction and control. In this case, its aim is to follow an eating plan with strict rules about what and how much we can eat. However, this approach can be counterproductive if not carried out properly, as it can lead to anxiety about food.
2. Not paying attention to the signals: this is when we eat without identifying hunger signals, without appreciating the qualities of what we will eat, and eating for the sake of eating.
3. With attention and connection to hunger and satiety signals: Intuitive feeding bases itself on this third way of eating, where we focus on listening and respecting our body's signals. By encouraging this practice in our children, we teach them to identify when they're hungry and when they're full.
Some tips for implementing this approach include:
1. Encouraging internal listening: encouraging our children to connect with the physical sensations their bodies signal when they are hungry or satisfied.
2. Allow healthy choices: Offer a variety of nutritious food so our children can decide what to eat within a context of healthy options.
3. Avoid labels and judgment: Do not categorize foods as "good" or "bad." Instead, promote a balanced and flexible relationship with food, where occasional guilty pleasures are allowed without excessive restrictions.
Intuitive eating invites us to reflect on how we feed ourselves and how we can foster a healthy relationship with food in our children. Listening to and respecting hunger and satiety cues is fundamental to creating a balanced and mindful eating habit.
By adopting this approach, we strengthen our children's food autonomy and provide them with the tools they need to make healthy diet choices.
