She notes that highly processed foods do provide energy, but unprocessed foods are the ones that best supply “vitamins, minerals, dietary compounds and biologically active agents with anti-inflammatory, cancer-preventing, immune-boosting properties.”

Some unhealthy foods can be part of a diet, she explains, so long as they don’t crowd out the essential nutrition that “promotes physical and emotional health, supports the immune system and reduces the risk for disease.”

With a younger child, we can keep our conversations at home neutral, even lighthearted, by deferring to biological realities. For example, we might say, “You know how plants need both water and sunlight to grow? Well, humans need more than just calories to be healthy. A funsize Milky Way will give you energy, but if that’s where most of your fuel comes from, eventually your leaves will start to turn yellow. A pear gives you the same amount of energy, plus a lot of other nutrients you need for health.”

The self-care angle

Framing eating as a critical way that we care for ourselves supports our children’s growing independence and also keeps adults out of fruitless, even dangerous, power struggles over food. The diets of younger children reflect what adults make available, but teenagers inevitably have far more freedom, which they will sometimes exercise at their own expense. In my practice, I’ve worked with anorexic adolescents who dissemble about what and when they are eating, and with overweight teenagers who wished to lose weight yet gorged on sweets to protest diets imposed by their parents.

To promote an attitude of caring for themselves around food, we can help children and teenagers tune in to their appetites to determine how much to eat. Despite the rush of family life we should aim to ask mealtime questions such as, “Are you hungry?” or “How hungry are you?” or “Do you still feel hungry, or are you good to go?” (Nutritionists note that some highly active young people may not be able to use their appetites as a reliable guide for how much they should eat.)