Episode summary

Dr Kirstie Lawton addresses common questions and misconceptions about how to best support a child’s health with nutrition, particularly focusing on how to help them develop a healthy relationship with food that will serve them for life. She explains how to best approach childhood overweight and obesity without turning to negative or restrictive language around food. She also answers questions such as, is it ever okay to put a child on a diet? Should children be allowed to snack? What is the best way to handle picky eating? And should any foods be off-limits for children?

 

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Guest

Dr Kirstie Lawton is an AfN registered Nutritionist and a BANT and CNHC registered Nutritional Therapist with a BSc Hons in Public Health Nutrition and a PhD in paediatric nutrition and dietary interventions from Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. She also completed the 3-year ION diploma in Nutritional Therapy, and more recently, completed her PCGE in Higher Education through the University of London.  

Kirstie has been a paediatric nutritionist for 22 years and has worked both in the UK and internationally. In her own clinic, You Nutrition, she specialises in child, adolescent, and young adult health in clinical areas such as gut, immune and brain health.  

She is the module coordinator for 3 modules on the Graduate Diploma at ION and teaches child health and clinical practice across all ION courses. She is on the Editorial Board for the Nutritional Medicine Institute and is also a health coach at Second Nature.

 

 

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This interview with Dr Kirstie Lawton: Five minutes with Dr Kirstie Lawton

This article on vegetarian diets for children: Vegetarian diets for children

To sign up to Kirstie’s CPD course about children and nutrition: Live CPD | Working with children: From pre-pregnancy to late adolescence

This article about school weigh-ins: Do school weigh-ins cause more harm than good?

This feature about children and caffeine: How bad is caffeine for children's health?