Food Pyramid

We absolutely love J's Speech and Feeding Therapist, Heather. She has known J since she was a tiny baby. Heather is tremendously kind and talented in her field. Everything you want from a therapist. Regardless of these facts, therapy wasn't working for J. It's just too stressful and stress is counterproductive to eating and trying new foods when you are a child with severe food aversions. This is one of those times when a parent has to make a decision. Do we continue with therapy with a highly trained specialist that we adore?  Or can I get her to eat myself? I usually choose to stick with the specialists. They do have the techniques and knowledge from years of specialized education to treat a child like mine. But this is a unique situation that is going to require a unique plan. So we have officially ended our therapy appointments. And I'm it! Time to get my girl to eat.

Have you ever found something so fabulous that you want to share it with everyone you know? Shout it from the roof tops? Or write about it in a blog? :)

This is one fabulous book....

Just Take A Bite by Lori Ernsperger, PhD and Tania Stegen-Hanson, OTR/L

I'm going to be writing a lot about this book, but right now, I will just share one activity J and I worked on today.

We created a food pyramid. This is to get J to recognize what foods go in different catagories and will also help her to see how different foods are important for a growing body.

We started with a piece of butcher paper. I drew the basic pyramid and added the labels to each section.

As I cut food pictures out of magazines, J glued them into the right section of our pyramid.

She had a good time with the glue! In the end, we had a very nice food pyramid showing all foods that I would love for her to eat along with some familiar favorites.

This led to a short discussion about the cookie on the top. "It's the smallest part of the pyramid for a reason. You should eat just a little." I hope she got the message.

This activity introduced J to food groups. One small part of our "plan" in my new role as therapist is to increase J's knowledge of foods and digestion. I have put the pyramid on our pantry door and we'll continue to discuss food catagories. And I'm sure we'll continue to argue about why cookies aren't located further down the pyramid.