Feeding kids has never felt harder, and today we chew on how much of that difficulty is manufactured. Jennifer Anderson, MSPH, RDN, founder of Kids Eat in Color, joins me to cut through the conflicting six-second advice and hand parents something better: a way to make their own calls. You are the expert on your own child. If a strategy is making things worse in your house, that’s reason enough to drop it.

What you’ll take away:

Why a consistent meal and snack routine is the best place to start when feeding feels like chaos

What grazing does to hunger and fullness cues, and why fewer, fuller meals usually serve kids better

Why “good food, bad food” language backfires, and what to say instead: different foods do different things in your body

Why dessert as a reward teaches the opposite of what you want

Where food dyes actually rank against what matters most: calories, protein, water, and fiber

The line between typical picky eating and ARFID, and a simple screener to tell the difference

Please please please:

Pre-order Jennifer’s book Feed Them Well

PSA Eat screener for ARFID and extreme picky eating

Ultra-Processed Foods and Kids’ Behavior: What the New JAMA Study Means for Your Family

A new JAMA study followed over 2,000 preschoolers and found that higher ultra-processed food intake at age three predicted worse behavior at age five: more anxiety, withdrawal, aggression, and hyperactivity. At age three, UPFs already made up 45.5% of these kids’ daily calories.

The good news: researchers modeled what happens when you swap just 10% of UPF calories for real food, and behavior scores improved across every domain. Small and intentional beats dramatic and unsustainable.

In this episode, I walk through two quick rules of thumb for spotting a UPF, why “organic” and added-vitamin labels give parents a false sense of security, and how to actually reduce UPFs at home using the authoritative approach.

Study: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2845768Later this month, I’m launching the Authoritative Approach Study Group: a daily text message with one small parenting nugget, plus a weekly Zoom call for live coaching, cases, and Q&A. No course logins, no homework piling up. One registration covers two adults, so both parents (or you and a co-caregiver) can learn together and stay on the same page. Seats are super limited.

Authoritative Approach Study Group

Quick video on how to save yourself a lot of headaches and time when your child wants to watch a show but you don’t have 47 minutes to flip through 3 different streaming services to find what they want to watch.

Also, if you are interested in learning and actually implementing authoritative parenting, I have an upcoming authoritative parenting study group starting on May 19th. It will be a really cool experience (I think) for parents to learn authoritative principles and approaches to make parenting more enjoyable from toddlers through teens. Daily lessons delivered straight to you over text message so you don’t have to do any digging to keep learning & growing paired with weekly live learning for cases and Q&A time! Click this button to learn more ⤵️