I.What is competent eating (Satter, 2008)?
Competent eating is made up of both permission and discipline:
- The permission to choose food you enjoy and eat it in amounts you find satisfying.
- The discipline to provide yourself with regular and reliable meals and snacks and to pay attention when you eat them.
Fundamental to eating competence is maintaining the food context:
- Making eating a priority.
- Taking time to eat
- Providing regular and reliable meals and snacks.
- Choosing food for those meals and snacks.
"Throughout the early and late grades and high school, learning about food management is in the context of adults' continuing to take primary responsibility for the what, when and where of feeding. Children are responsible for the how much and whether of eating. Children of all ages who are fed regularly and reliably, internalize the meal habit," Ellyn Satter.
