Dear Laura - The Division of Responsibility Doesn’t Work for my Family - is it me, or the model?

Hey team - welcome to ‘Dear Laura’ - a monthly column where I fashion myself as an agony aunt and answer the questions that readers submit. If you’d like to submit a question for me to answer next month - then you can leave it as a comment below or email hello@laurathomasphd.co.uk and put ‘Dear Laura’ in the subject. I’m happy to answer Qs about anti-diet nutrition, developing a more peaceful relationship to food and weight-inclusive health, body image challenges, and, of course, challenges with feeding your kiddos. Please give as much detail as you’re comfortable with and let me know if you’d like me to include your name or keep it anon.

Here’s this month’s question from Heidi:

I've been struggling with the division of responsibility ever since my kids were little - at a time when I tried to become an intuitive eater myself after decades of dieting and disordered eating. Now my kids are 7, 9, and 11 years old and thankfully, still intuitive eaters.

My middle child has the most challenges in terms of trying unknown foods and she won't eat cooked vegetables - they literally make her gag when she tries them (we don't force her, sometimes she's open to trying something new). But she eats raw veg and for the most part sticks with pasta, cheese, bread and fruit or cereal.

Dealing with sweets and chocolate is still a bit of a work in progress, but generally we're doing okay.

But the one thing I can't get over is that the division of responsibility strikes me as a not very intuitive approach. It might have worked when my kids were toddlers but generally it seems to me that nobody ever talks about how difficult (and in my view non-intuitive) this is with older kids.

So my question is - am I missing something or how can you teach kids to trust their bodies and follow their bodies signals if they don't get to choose WHAT to eat?

I think we found a somewhat working system for us but I'd love to hear how this could / is supposed to work with older kids, pre-teens and even teenagers.

Would love your perspective on that and felt emboldened after reading your most recent post on breastfeeding where you hinted at limitations.

Years and years ago, when I was just a fledgling Registered Nutritionist, I remember asking a question about feeding kids in a professional Facebook group. The DoR devotees CAME AT ME. This, apparently, was the gold standard model for feeding children and I wasn’t to stray from it. Nor was I to question Her Royal Highness Ellyn Satter - the Queen of feeding families.

Fast forward, taking lots of training, reading many, many books, supporting parents professionally, and, the biggest lesson of all - having my own kid - I feel a little differently about it now.

And here’s the part where I reveal I’m not a Division of Responsibility (DoR) purist.

Like, I just don’t think it’s the be all, end all when it comes to feeding kids.

• Can it be a helpful framework for some folks? Sure.
• Do I use it with my own kid? Kinda.
• Do I use it in my work with families? Yes and no.

Let’s back up a bit.