JP resident and registered dietitian and nutritionist Stephanie Meyers is preparing to host a virtual webinar with The Rashi School on March 21, and also has a new book coming out in May.
Meyers did not set out to be a dietician, however. She studied communications and thought she wanted to be a broadcast journalist before she realized “this is not the life for me,” she told the Gazette.”
After realizing she enjoyed reading about eating, food, and nutrition, she took a nutrition class. “I couldn’t believe it was a field you could study,” she said, and was excited at the idea of making a career out of it. She then decided to double major in nutrition and communication, which she said is the “intersection of my work now.”
Much of Meyers’ work focuses on helping parents work with their kids on healthy eating habits.
“The virtual event is for the Rashi community, but also for prospective families,” she said. She said the school focuses on a “sort of whole person-centered approach. There’s many opportunities they have to think about how they’re caring for themselves and others. That’s so core for the work I do.”
March is also National Nutrition Month, so the event, titled Families Eating Well, comes at a key time. Meyers said that as part of the event, she will talk about “key parenting practices” related to eating. Meyers herself has two daughters ages 13 and 9.
She said that while she is “not a parenting expert,” the “challenges are all too real” when it comes to kids and eating. She said many parents come to her private practice saying things like their kids don’t eat enough vegetables, they’re eating too much “junk,” are “begging for candy,” or are “not very adventurous.”
Meyers said, “We’re going to talk about in the presentation how you can deal with food rejection or resistance.”
Much of Meyers’ approach with parents includes reframing how they communicate with their children when it comes to food and the phrasing and word choices that are made. She said instead of “pressuring” kids or trying to “tell them what to do,” she said a :much more effective approach is to ask open-ended questions and really listen to the child’s response, especially when it comes to foods they are resistant to.
Meyers is also a mindfulness meditation instructor, and said that this also plays into her nutrition work.
“My experience as a mindfulness meditator is to see those struggles as giving you one of two options,” she said. “My job as a parent is to cultivate curiosity and/or connection.”
She said asking kids to “use adjectives” to describe a food in question can be very helpful, as well as to ask things like “what would help it?”
The pandemic has also exacerbated existing issues around food and mealtimes for many families.
Meyer said that as a person with privilege, she acknowledged that she has “not endured the majority of the challenges in the pandemic,” but recognizes that there has been an “incredible, incredible increase in food insecurity in the country.”
Another issue for many families has been everyone being home together a lot more and figuring out mealtimes.
“For me in my private practice,” she said, “everything that [clients] kind of tried to ignore came rushing to the surface during the pandemic. The pandemic caused a substantial change in how much of the struggle people were living every day.”
She said that parents are looking to help their kids “feel differently around food.” Meyers also said that there has been a “significant rise in children experiencing eating disorders.”
Advice for parents struggling with the pandemic includes having family meals “as often as you can. Even three family meals a week is associated with significant improvement” in kids’ wellbeing, Meyers said, adding that it “doesn’t just have to be dinner,” it could be breakfast or something as simple as eating a snack together. “Any amount of family connection is important.”
Meyers’ book, titled End the Mealtime Meltdown, will be available on May 1.
“I’ve been working on this book for 11 years,” she said, ever since her older daughter was around two years old. She said she coined a phrase—“table talk”—which is “what you say to your child about eating while they’re eating. I gathered up this research [and] found that most of the time, what we’re saying to kids about their eating is counterproductive.”
She said that “parents may not realize there’s an easier way to parent your kids about food and eating,” and the book will help parents deal with things like “conflict at the table” as well as providing children “with the skills they need for a lifetime of healthy eating.”
Meyers has lived in Jamaica Plain for the past 16 years, and said the Arnold Arboretum is one of her favorite parts of the neighborhood, along with the “like-mindedness” of the people who live in the neighborhood.
“You can be just who you are, and you’re welcome here,” she said.
To register for Meyers’ webinar, which will be on Monday, March 21 from 7 to 8pm visit eventbrite.com/e/six-key-parenting-practices-for-raising-healthy-eaters-registration-268593298787. For additional information, call 781-355-7317.