Eating competence: nutrition education with the Satter Eating Competence Model.

The Satter Eating Competence Model (ecSatter) conceptualizes eating competence as having 4 components: eating attitudes, food acceptance, regulation of food intake and body weight, and management of the eating context (including family meals). According to ecSatter competent eaters are confident, comfortable, and flexible with eating and are matter-of-fact and reliable about getting enough to eat of enjoyable and nourishing food. The ecSatter Inventory (ecSI), a reliable and validated 16-question, paper-and-pencil assessment tool, assesses the 4 components of eating competence. (To access the ecSI, obtain permission for use and receive further information about scoring and application, write ecSI@ EllynSatter.com.) The priority with ecSatter is enhancing and dignifying the importance of eating by making it positive, joyful, and intrinsically rewarding. The ecSatter practitioner makes individuals the priority by waiting to be asked before offering meal-management or any other food-management advice, joins with individuals right where they are, supports their efforts in feeding themselves, respects their food preferences, and trusts their inherent capabilities and tendencies to learn and grow. Problems with eating competence can range from the simple and straightforward to the involved and even entrenched. The nutrition educator’s task is to do primary intervention: education, anticipatory guidance, and early problem solving. The level of the intervention is dictated not by the level of complexity of the problem, but by the level of services that can be delivered.