Casey Bonano RD, LD, CEDS-C Featured on The Compassion Circle Podcast: Feeding Your Family Without Diet Culture
Casey Bonano RD, LD, CEDS-C, Founder and CEO of Dallas Nutritional Counseling, recently joined The Compassion Circle Podcast for a conversation about family nutrition, Intuitive Eating, eating disorder prevention, and raising children with a positive relationship with food.
In the episode, “Feed Yourself & Your Family with Guest Casey Bonano RD, LD, CEDS-C,” Casey talks with hosts Angela and Kierstin about how parents can navigate feeding their families while stepping away from diet culture and rigid food rules.
For parents wondering how to raise intuitive eaters—or anyone working to improve their own relationship with food—the conversation offers a compassionate, practical approach to nutrition.
How Do You Raise an Intuitive Eater?
Parents receive an overwhelming amount of nutrition advice.
What should my child eat? Are they getting enough nutrients? Should I limit sugar? What if they only want the same foods? How do I encourage nutritious foods without creating restriction?
Underneath many of these questions is an even bigger one:
How can I help my child develop a healthy relationship with food?
During The Compassion Circle Podcast, Casey discusses approaching family feeding from a place of flexibility, trust, and evidence-based nutrition rather than fear.
Raising an intuitive eater doesn’t mean ignoring nutrition or having no structure around meals. Instead, parents can provide supportive structure while allowing children opportunities to develop awareness of their own hunger, fullness, preferences, and internal cues.
The goal isn’t perfect eating. It’s helping children build a relationship with food that can support them throughout their lives.
Breaking Generational Cycles of Diet Culture
Many parents today grew up surrounded by diet culture.
They may remember being told to clean their plates, hearing foods described as “good” or “bad,” watching adults constantly diet, or hearing negative comments about weight and bodies.
Even when parents know they want something different for their children, changing those patterns isn’t always easy.
Parents may find themselves wondering how to talk about nutrition without creating food anxiety, how to respond when children ask questions about bodies, or how to handle sweets and highly preferred foods without turning them into forbidden foods.
Casey’s work with families emphasizes creating a more neutral, flexible approach to food—one that allows nutrition to matter without making food a source of fear, guilt, or shame.
Intuitive Eating and Family Nutrition
Intuitive Eating is often misunderstood as simply “eat whatever you want.”
In reality, developing a more intuitive relationship with food involves learning to recognize internal cues, removing unnecessary morality from food choices, and making eating decisions using both internal experiences and external knowledge.
For families, these principles can help create a calmer environment around meals.
Parents can still provide structure, expose children to a variety of foods, and support their nutritional needs without requiring children to earn dessert, finish everything on their plates, or categorize foods according to rigid ideas of “healthy” and “unhealthy.”
This approach can be especially meaningful for parents who are recovering from chronic dieting or working on their own relationship with food and body image.
Eating Disorder Prevention Starts With the Environment We Create Around Food
There is no single parenting strategy that can prevent every eating disorder. Eating disorders are complex conditions influenced by biological, psychological, social, and environmental factors.
However, families can think intentionally about the messages children receive about food, weight, health, and bodies.
Reducing weight-focused conversations, avoiding food shame, allowing children to experience a variety of foods, and demonstrating flexibility around eating can all contribute to a more supportive food environment.
For parents, this can also mean examining the diet culture messages they learned themselves.
Changing those patterns takes time—and it doesn’t require perfection.
About Casey Bonano RD, LD, CEDS-C
Casey Bonano RD, LD, CEDS-C is the Founder, CEO, and Managing Registered Dietitian of Dallas Nutritional Counseling, a nutrition counseling practice specializing in eating disorders, disordered eating, chronic dieting, Intuitive Eating, and improving relationships with food and body.
As a Certified Eating Disorder Specialist and Consultant (CEDS-C), Casey also provides supervision and consultation to professionals pursuing advanced training in eating disorder treatment.
Her approach incorporates evidence-based nutrition therapy, Intuitive Eating principles, trauma-informed care, and weight-inclusive nutrition counseling.
Casey’s experience as both an eating disorder dietitian and a parent also inspired Feed Yourself & Your Family, an initiative designed to provide parents with practical nutrition education for feeding themselves and their children without falling into diet culture.
Looking for an Eating Disorder or Intuitive Eating Dietitian in Dallas?
If you are struggling with an eating disorder, disordered eating, chronic dieting, or anxiety around food, working with a registered dietitian who specializes in eating disorders can provide individualized support.
Dallas Nutritional Counseling works with individuals and families to help reduce food rules, improve relationships with food and body, and develop sustainable approaches to nutrition.
Rather than focusing on restrictive diets or pursuing “perfect” eating, nutrition counseling can help clients understand their individual needs and build greater flexibility and confidence around food.
Listen to Casey Bonano on The Compassion Circle Podcast
To hear more from Casey Bonano RD, LD, CEDS-C, listen to “Feed Yourself & Your Family with Guest Casey Bonano RD, LD, CEDS-C” on The Compassion Circle Podcast.
Casey and the hosts explore what it can look like to feed children without passing down diet culture, how parents can support intuitive eating, and why our language and attitudes around food and bodies matter.
If you’re a parent trying to raise an intuitive eater, someone working to heal your own relationship with food, or a professional interested in eating disorder-informed nutrition, this conversation is worth a listen.
You can also watch the full recording on YouTube.
Dallas eating disorder dietitian Casey Bonano RD, LD, CEDS-C joins The Compassion Circle Podcast to discuss Intuitive Eating, family nutrition, and raising children without diet culture.
Dallas eating disorder dietitian Casey Bonano RD, LD, CEDS-C joins The Compassion Circle Podcast to discuss Intuitive Eating, family nutrition, and raising children without diet culture.