Nutrition & Body Books for Parents and Kids

If you’ve been to my house, you can see that books are something my family loves to give and receive. Books can be a personal gift that someone can use and go back to over and over. Elizabeth and I often get asked about food and nutrition book recommendations from clients, friends and social media followers. We’ve pulled together 2 lists of our favorite feeding, nutrition, and body image books to give as gifts. This post includes books for parents and kids. Look for a Part 2 post in the next week with books for adults about developing or continuing a healthy relationship with food and your body.

Books for People that Care for Children:

1. Child of Mine or S ecrets of Feeding a Healthy Family by Ellyn Satter: Do you know someone who is either expecting a baby or a family that may be interested in learning more about how to take the stress out of feeding? Child of Mine is great for a new or expectant parent and leads the reader through feeding from birth. Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family may be a good gift for a family of young to older children. It also supports parents in establishing the Division of Responsibility in Eating and includes easy recipes to get dinner on the table. My favorite thing about these books is that they decrease pressure and stress on parents, when many “self help” books may leave someone feeling like they have a big “to do” list.

2. Love Me, Feed Me: The Adoptive Parent's Guide to Ending the Worry about Weight, Picky Eating, Power Struggles and More by: Katja Rowell: This book, about feeding children, is easy to read and implement. Satter’s Division of the Responsibility is present throughout and Rowell further translates feeding into doable steps. It is specifically written for adoptive parents, but I recommend this book to anyone feeding children.

3. Born to Eat by Wendy Jo Peterson and Leslie Schilling: Born to Eat is a fabulous book about child-led weaning for a parent of a baby getting ready to transition to eating solids. However, this book is also a guide on how the whole family can approach food, weight, and bodies from a weight-neutral perspective. This is a resource that can be used for many years to come.

4. Social Media Wellness: Helping Tweens and Teens Thrive in an Unbalanced Digital World by: Ana Homayoun As a parent of a 6th grader, I’m finding myself being less concerned about how I feed my daughter and more focused on how I handle electronics. I love Homayoun’s approach to how to think about teens' use of electronics, using a wellness model. This is a great resource!

Children’s Books About How Awesome Bodies Are:

5. Shapesville by: Andy Mills and Becky Osborn: This is a picture book for young children (preschool) that highlights that people have different sizes, shapes, colors and talents. Talking to children about their own unique talents can model what is truly important. The book includes discussion questions for parents and educators.

6. Listening to My Body by: Gaby Garcia and Ying Hui Tan: Elementary aged children enjoy this book about listening to the very wise signals of our bodies. When so many messages we receive is about controlling or overriding messages from our bodies, it’s awesome to reinforce the wisdom of our bodies to kids.

7. I like Myself by: Karen Beaumont and David Catrow This is a fun and important picture book about self esteem. It encourages kids to love and accept themselves just as they are!

Non-Diet, Body Positive Books for Tweens/Teens

8. Celebrate Your Body (And It’s Changes, too) by: Sonya Renee Taylor I bought this book for my daughter as soon as it was released. I loved the feeling of handing her a book about puberty that I knew had images and discussion of all different bodies and no diet talk!

9. Coming in April: The Intuitive Eating Workbook for Teens: A Non-Diet, Body Positive Approach to Building a Healthy Relationship with Food by: Elyse Reach You can preorder it now! I can’t wait to have this as a resource for teens!

10. Conquer Picky Eating for Teens and Adults by: Jenny McGlothlin and Katya Rowell I have already purchased 3 copies of this workbook for me and my clients. This workbook walks the reader through thinking about what has influenced the way they eat and helps them takes steps forward.

I love giving and receiving books as gifts. What are your favorite books for parents, kids and caregivers about food, nutrition, bodies and self care? We'd love to hear about your gift ideas.