Supporting your Child's Healthy Eating Habits

Learn about encouraging healthy, balanced eating habits in children aged 5-12 years.

Childhood is a critical time for developing body image. With your help, your child can see that weight and appearance do not determine their value or worth. Promoting early body gratitude, confidence, and acceptance along with instilling habits can set up a positive lifelong relationship with their body.

Our presenter, Dr Jamie-Lee Pennesi is a clinical psychologist and researcher at Flinders University. She is currently working on the ScreenED project, trialling an eating disorders screening tool with children aged 5-12 years in collaboration with their parents.

The screening tool we have developed is primarily focused on eating disorder behaviours (e.g., dietary restriction, binge eating, purging behaviours) but it also taps into body image issues and emotion regulation problems that are common in children.

This session will cover what to look for’ and ’what are the early warning signs of disordered eating’ including some psychoeducation about children’s eating habits, what disordered eating looks like, early warning signs and where to go for help as well as introducing parents and caregivers to the screening tool and Dr Pennesi's research.