Raising Confident and Competent Eaters - Free Webinar

As part of National Eating Disorder Month, this webinar will help parents become the best "influencer" of their teens' diets

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., Feb. 17, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- "Unapologetic Eating" author Alissa Rumsey will join Fusion Education Group (FEG) next week for a national webinar focused on raising teens who have healthy relationships with food.

"Every day kids face countless people and media influencing everything from their diet to body image," said Lynna Martinez-Khalilian, M.Ed., FEG Vice President of Education. "As we continue to learn how our eating habits and diet is established early on in our lives, we hope that Alissa's expertise will help parents better steer kids toward a healthier relationship with food."

FEG, a national leader in personalized learning, continues its free national webinar series. FEG is committed to empowering parents to best support their children's social, emotional, and physical well-being and academic success. Rumsey, MS, RD, CDN, CSCS, is a registered dietitian, nutrition therapist, and certified intuitive eating counselor. She is enthusiastic about helping people reclaim the space to eat and live, unapologetically. The webinar information follows:

Title: How to Raise Confident and Competent Eaters Who Have a Healthy Relationship with Food
Date and Time: Feb 23, 2023, at 1:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Registration: Families can register here (a zoom link will follow)
Guest Speaker: Alissa Rumsey, MS, RD, CDN, CSCS

Rumsey is the author of Unapologetic Eating: Make Peace with Food and Transform Your Life. She is the founder of Alissa Rumsey Nutrition and Wellness, a weight-inclusive nutrition practice that offers virtual counseling, group programs, and online trainings to help people liberate themselves from dieting, cultivate a peaceful relationship to food and their bodies, and live a more authentic, connected life.

"We live in a culture where diets are an answer to an assertion that something is wrong with how we take care of our bodies," Rumsey said. "When we challenge that assertion and learn to trust our own bodies, amazing things unfold. Parents need to know and trust that their kids have the ability to make positive decisions about food, when they are equipped with the knowledge and confidence to do so."

As children enter adolescence, they start to own their food choices. Teens are barraged with social media influencers declaring what constitutes the perfect body and incessant images and advertising of foods. This path is difficult for teens to navigate and an equally challenging time for parents to support them.

The National Eating Disorder Association reports that eating disorders have the second highest mortality rate of any mental disorder, surpassed only by opioid-related deaths, and will impact 30 million Americans at some point in their life. And according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the current and long-term health of 14.4 million children and adolescents is affected by obesity, making it one of the most common pediatric chronic diseases.

With the objective of teaching parents what "confident and competent" means in relation to food and eating, Rumsey will also cover the AAP's recent guidance and share the red flags for concerns about eating disorders. Additional learning objectives include:

• Understand what it means to raise a "healthy kid" from a nutrition and food perspective.
• Appreciate the influence and impact of social media and media messages on children and teens relationship with food and their bodies
• Receive actionable strategies that parents can use to support their children
• Acquire the knowledge to lay the groundwork for children to have a peaceful relationship with food and their bodies

FEG is guided by the fundamental belief in the immense potential in every person; its mission is to help each student flourish, academically, socially, and emotionally. FEG hosts monthly webinars free and open to the public to support parents raising middle and high schoolers. Recent speakers include New York Times best-selling authors Lisa Damour,Ph.D. and Jessica Lahey. Families can find recent webinars here and additional social, emotional, and academic resources here.

Families can learn more about food disorders here and more from the AAP here.

About Fusion Education Group: Fusion Education Group (FEG) is a revolutionary innovator in personalized education. FEG provides accredited personalized education for more than 9,000 middle and high school students at Fusion Academy, at its 80 campuses that offer one-to-one instruction; Barnstable Academy, which offers traditional college prep in a small school setting in New Jersey; and Fusion Global Academy, which offers one-to-one personalized education through a completely virtual campus that serves students in all 50 states and 33 countries. Information about FEG's national events is here.

SOURCE Fusion Education Group