About Peggy Crum, MA, RD
Over the course of her career as a registered dietitian, Peggy recognized that traditional nutrition advice is not helpful to most people. In fact, it can be harmful. The abundance of information about nutrition and health has overwhelmed consumers.
Beginning with her work in pediatrics over 20 years ago, she embraced the family as the source of sound nutrition. It is the rhythm of hunger and gratification that is comforting from the beginning of life. Trust in being fed allows the youngster to move away from the meal to learn and grow and then to come back later for another meal. The parent is encouraged seeing the child thrive. This relationship allows both parent and child to grow, the parent in offering a wider and wider assortment of food and the child in being more adventurous. The outcome? Variety at meals and snacks–the key to healthful nutrition.
Throughout her work Peggy promotes normal eating using the Satter Eating Competence Model. Peggy is the nutritionist for the employee health promotion program at Michigan State University.
The Joy of Eating 
Hi Peggy,
This looks wonderful!! It is so professional looking. I will begin to recommend your blog to patients/clients. Another job well done!!
Take Care
Esther
Hi Peggy,
I really enjoy your blog. I’m a new member of the Ellyn Satter Institute. I’d love to connect with you sometime and learn more about what you are doing.
Katja
Hi Peggy,
Great blog. I recently found it and have enjoyed reading your posts. As a MSU alum I’m glad to see there’s a great nutrition resource such as yourself available to students on campus. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for reading and for your comment. Actually, I am the nutritionist for the health promotion program for faculty, staff, and retirees as well as their spouses/partners. Ronda Bokram is the nutritionist for Student Health Services. She has some great programs–for instance, she arranged for Darryl Roberts to come with his new film. Glad you found The Joy of Eating!
Hello Peggy,
Glad to see this blog running strong. Keep up the good work! I will be citing it for my patients
Hello, Dr. Eneli!
Thanks for you well wishes. Glad to have you and your Ohio constituents on board. Take care-
Peggy
Peggy,
I love your blog and the attitude that you communicate regarding food and eating. I just wondered if you could say anything about the point of view that the more processed foods make it harder for us to eat intuitively because the combination of sugar/fat/salt makes us crave them more and keeps us undernourished so we keep eating. I don’t want this to be true because I am so tired of being afraid of food. That point of view makes it very difficult for me to break out of a restrictive mindset. Any thoughts?
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for reading. You are right that food manufacturers have the recipe of what tastes good to most people. However, they do not know precisely what appeals to your senses. But you do. As long as you take the time to eat in a focused manner. This sounds easy and it can be, but to do it effectively, you must treat all foods as equal. Otherwise, if you feel badly about what you are eating, your mind checks out and you cannot be relaxed and focused on your internal regulators.
You can learn more about these techniques and approach to eating. Find a practitioner who has trained with Ellyn Satter. Most of us call our programs “How To Eat.” Or you can get the second edition of her book, Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family (2008). In Part I of the book, she details the intervention in detail. If you do well with self-help books, this is for you.
My experience in working with many people is that once they allow themselves to taste their food, it no longer appeals to them in the same way. One client told me that she went from eating a whole sleeve of thin mint cookies in one feel-bad session to realizing she didn’t really like them–once she gave herself permission to eat them and relaxed about it! Now, I’m sorry that her cookie eating experience was ruined but I have a feeling she didn’t really enjoy them anyway!
All the best in breaking free from restrictive eating.
Peggy
Hi Peggy I am glad Ellyn shared your link., I am a RD in Manistee MI and a graduate Treating the Dieting Casualty a couple yrs back. I love Ellyn’s work and am happy you are sharing it with everyone there at MSU. She actually gave me your name back when I went to the training as a possible contact/mentor. One of these days I would like to start teaching “How to Eat” classes here in Manistee. Right now it is mostly logistics (location,etc) and 3 young children slowing me down but I will get there someday 🙂 Hope you don’t mind if I contact you one of these days.
Hi Amy,
We are making some inroads here at MSU. It takes commitment and a consistent message. I did the dieting casualty training with Ellyn in 2007 and have been offering group and individual programs ever since. I will be pleased to help you when you are ready. In the meantime, you might want to try writing down some of your reflections–you could be a blogger!
Warm regards–Peggy
Peggy,
No pressure, but I love reading your blog and hope that you will post again soon. I also wanted you to know that I am finally recovering from my disordered eating. I am working with Marcia Herrin whose approach is very similar to Ellyn’s. It is hard work, especially to break out of the fears about food and health. But I just don’t want to give any more of my time and life to this useless obsession. Thank you so much for your blog. Please keep writing.
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for reading. I’m glad the “archived” posts are helpful to you! Seriously, it’s good to hear that you are making progress with your recovery.
My writing energy has to go towards my graduate classes and my job right now. I hope to have time for an occasional post to The Joy of Eating. I’ve got a couple of ideas simmering…
Peggy
I simply want to tell you that I am new to blogs and definitely enjoyed your blog. Most likely I’m planning to bookmark your blog . You definitely come with excellent articles. Thanks for revealing your web site.