This week we welcome Dina R. Rose who has a PhD in sociology from Duke University and is the author of the popular blog, It’s Not About Nutrition where she focuses on helping parents find the right approach to get kids eating right.

After her mother’s premature death from obesity-related illnesses at the age of 65, Dina knew she wanted to give her daughter a better — and happier — food-life. Dina made helping parents solve their kids’ eating problems her life work. Most parents know what their children should eat, but have trouble putting this knowledge into practice. Dina offers parents the relief they need: practical, research-based strategies so they can stop struggling and start succeeding.

A Food Sociologist, Dina answers the how not the what when it comes to nutrition. The foods children should eat is not so much a mystery as getting them to actually accept and enjoy a regular healthy diet.

In her workshops and one-on-one sessions, Dina gives parents the tools to teach kids to eat right without having to rely on calorie counting systems, complex menus, or portion limits. By making smart decisions based on the latest in parenting, sociology, nutrition, and food psychology research, parents can learn to:

• Deliberately and consciously shape children’s eating habits.
• Identify why children eat the way they do.
• Manage events as they happen so unexpected treats don’t ruin your plans.
• Use taste and texture to teach kids to eat a wide variety of foods.
• Avoid the 3 most common ways parents inadvertently teach bad eating habits.
• Teach children how to try new foods.
• Identify how parenting style influences children’s eating.
• Solve eating problems that arise at different developmental stages.
• Know what to do instead of bribing and begging kids to eat.
• Consciously shape children’s relationships to food.

Look for Dina Rose’s upcoming book, It’s Not About Nutrition: Unexpected Lessons In Teaching Your Child Healthy Eating for Life. For more information on how to get a preview of this book, visit the It’s Not About Nutrition Web site and make sure you visit Dina’s blog as well for the latest in parenting and nutrition.

The clip below features Dina Rose on Better Connecticut where she provides tips for parents on how to feed their children healthy foods.

Are you a social media fan?

Join the It’s Not About Nutrition community on Facebook and catch up with Dina Rose on Twitter.

So focused in our day to day work we often overlook the big picture that surrounds our lives. When it hits though, the realization of our existence conjures difficult questions. Who am I? Where am I going? What am I doing all of this for? This week we’re shining a light on four books that awaken sleeping souls to worlds both within and around the self in their own unique ways.

Transitions: How Women Embrace Change and Celebrate Life by Abigail Brenner

Abigail Brenner, M.D., author of Transitions: How Women Embrace Change and Celebrate Life, is a board certified psychiatrist currently in private practices as well as an ordained interfaith minister who helps people design, create, and perform personally meaningful rituals. She is also author of  SHIFT: How to Deal When Life Changes, and the co-author of The Essential Guide To Baby’s First Year, to be released April 2011. Transitions: How Women Embrace Change and Celebrate Life from CreateSpace is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry

From Brunonia Barry, the New York Times bestselling author of The Lace Reader, comes an emotionally compelling novel about finding your true place in the world.

A respected Boston psychotherapist, Zee Finch has come a long way from a motherless childhood spent stealing boats. But the actions of a patient throw Zee into emotional chaos and take her back to places she thought she’d left behind.

The Map of True Places from HarperCollins is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Blessed: Living A Grateful Life by Ellen Michaud

Sometimes we just need to stop for a moment and absorb the quiet moments in the world around us–to take a deep breath and appreciate the things in life that make us thankful and bring us joy. Blessed: Living a Grateful Life is a call to do just that. In this heartfelt collection of her online columns from Diane, the flagship magazine of the Curves women’s fitness center organization, author Ellen Michaud reminds us of the everyday blessings that surround us, but we all tend to overlook.

Blessed: Living A Grateful Life from Reader’s Digest is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Into My Father’s Wake by Eric Best

From Eric Best, a solo sailing odyssey and journey of personal discovery in which the author, a former journalist and Wall street strategist, comes to terms with his dead father and learns the meaning of forgiveness.

Into My Father’s Wake from CreateSpace is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.