Mind How Your Kids Eat is Alicia Eaton’s latest book, written for parents who are trying to do the right thing in a food environment that has become increasingly difficult to navigate.

Ultra-processed foods dominate supermarket shelves, snacking is constant, and diet talk has quietly crept into childhood. Parents are now having to manage relentless requests for sugary treats, often without clear guidance on how to say ‘no’ without conflict - or how to help children recognise the difference between true hunger and emotional cravings. It’s no surprise that many parents feel overwhelmed, guilty or afraid of getting it wrong.

But today’s eating challenges go far beyond sugar and snacks.

Many children struggle with food fussiness, strong preferences or refusal. Some experience sensory sensitivity to smells, colours, textures or even sounds. Others fall under the umbrella of ARFID or neurodivergence, where eating feels genuinely overwhelming rather than simply “fussy” or behavioural.

Alongside this, increasing numbers of children have developed food anxiety following illness, sickness or food poisoning - a pattern seen far more frequently since the pandemic, where fear of being sick, contamination or loss of control can disrupt eating for months or even years.

And in a difficult but unavoidable reality of today’s environment, more and more children are also struggling with weight-related concerns. Parents are often left unsure how to respond - wanting to support their child’s health without creating shame, fear or lifelong problems around food and body image.

What all of these challenges have in common is this: they are rarely about food itself.

Mind How Your Kids Eat helps parents understand how eating habits and emotional patterns around food are formed - and why the messages children absorb in childhood tend to stay with them for life. It offers a psychologically informed, practical way forward, without diets, pressure or perfectionism.

Clear, compassionate and grounded in real family life, this book gives parents the confidence to support their child’s relationship with food — calmly, thoughtfully and for the long term.