How to Talk to Kids about Food; A Parent’s Handbook by Monika Kosicka-Slawinska

Our attitudes towards food are influenced by many factors: our genetics, family environment, the food we eat and the messaging we hear. They come into focus when we are raising and educating children. Challenges may come, particularly if we have a child who is reluctant to eat, or if we (the parent/caregiver) have a history of disordered eating. Many of us raising children today grew up in the 1990s, immersed in diet culture, and this has had lasting effects.

In this short book, I bring together my knowledge of genetics, my experience talking to children about difficult topics in clinic and my parenting journey so far. I consider how our language and behaviour around food and body image impact our children and their experience of the world and how we can change the conversation to improve their (and our) sense of wellbeing.

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Monika is a registered London-based genetic counsellor. She sees individuals/couples in clinic who have a family history of cancer or single-gene condition and offers genetic testing and discussion around implications of a genetic diagnosis and options regarding management and family planning. She has been working in the NHS for the past 15 years.

Prior to this, Monika worked as an associate producer across several important documentaries including Bloody Foreigners: The Untold Battle of Britain (Channel 4), Who Needs Fathers (current affairs series for BBC2) and The First Test Tube Baby (The Discovery Channel).

Monika has a passion for science communication and, in particular, effective communication with young people. She supports children and young adults going through predictive genetic testing for tumour predisposition syndromes and is published (in science literature) on the topic of whether parents, who have a baby conceived by preimplantation genetic diagnosis, plan to tell their children about their conception.

‘How to Talk to Kids about Food; A Parent’s Handbook’ is Monika’s first book and one which she hopes will have a positive effect on the children we are raising today.

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