Breaking Free of Picky Eating: A Science-Based Program for Parents

Breaking Free of Picky Eating: A Science-Based Program for Parents

A practical, empathetic guide to help parents of picky eaters expand their child's eating flexibility. Severe picky eating and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) can turn every meal into a stressful battlefield and negatively impact a child's growth and health, social and emotional development, and family relationships and functioning. Breaking Free of Picky Eating provides parents and caregivers with essential information to help them better understand and support their picky eater. It explains how restrictive eating accommodations, borne out of love and concern, can inadvertently maintain food restrictions. The book introduces SPACE-ARFID, a parent-based psychotherapeutic approach to eating problems in children, which is itself an adaptation of the evidence-based SPACE treatment, designed to empower parents to help their child. In this practical step-by-step guide to the SPACE-ARFID process, parents will learn to identify and change restrictive eating accommodations, restore structure to mealtimes, and cope with challenges, all while making no demands of their child. Packed with real-life case examples, practical worksheets, and exercises, parents will learn how to respond to restrictive eating supportively, involve their child appropriately, and celebrate every step of progress. A practical, empathetic guide to help parents of picky eaters expand their child's eating flexibility. Yaara Shimshoni , PhD, is a clinical psychologist and clinical assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine (community faculty). She is an active researcher and clinician specializing in the treatment of childhood restrictive eating, anxiety, and related challenges. Together with Dr. Eli Lebowitz, she has worked to develop and study SPACE-ARFID, the adaptation of SPACE for children with clinical picky eating. Eli R. Lebowitz , PhD, is co-director of the Yale Child Study Center Anxiety and Mood Disorders Program and associate professor in the Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine. His research focuses on the development, neurobiology, and treatment of anxiety and related disorders, with special emphasis on family dynamics and the role of parents in these problems. He is the author of more than 100 research papers, books, and chapters on childhood and adolescent anxiety, including the bestselling Breaking Free of Child Anxiety and OCD: A Scientifically Proven Program for Parents .