The Satter Eating Competence Model (ecSatter)

Source: Training Development Resources/Eating Disorders — Ellyn Satter, "Eating Competence: Nutrition Education with the Satter Eating Competence Model" (J Nutr Educ Behav, 2007)

A non-restrictive, relationship-first model of eating competence built on four components: eating attitudes, food acceptance, regulation of food intake, and management of the eating context (including family meals). The core stance: make building the relationship the priority, not correcting what someone eats — advice should wait to be invited, and a practitioner should join people where they are, respect their food preferences, and trust their inherent capability to learn and grow, since being overly prescriptive tends to produce shame, resentment, and inconsistent behavior rather than change. Practical guidance directly transferable to peer coaching (not just nutrition education): dignify eating rather than moralizing it ("eating is one of life's great pleasures," "be dependable about feeding yourself") instead of treating it as something to minimize or apologize for; watch for "encoded messages" — even a well-intentioned word like "healthful" can decode to someone as "don't eat so much" or "don't eat what you like," so it's worth asking what someone actually hears in your language rather than assuming neutral intent lands neutrally; address feelings about food without trying to fix them — someone sharing shame about what they can afford to feed their family, for instance, needs acceptance and affirmation, not a change in feelings (trying to change someone's feelings to hit a nutrition goal is doing therapy, not education, and is out of scope); and support internal regulation through open questions ("how do you know when you need to eat?", "what makes you decide to stop?") rather than external rules, since trusting the body's own hunger/fullness signals is the actual goal, not compliance with an eating plan. Distinguishes restrained eating (chronically eating less than wanted in pursuit of weight control) from disinhibition (periodic excessive/impulsive overeating, often itself a response to food insecurity or restraint) — the fix for disinhibition is addressing the underlying food insufficiency and restraint, not adding more restriction on top of it.

Satter's Hierarchy of Food Needs

Source: Training Development Resources/Eating Disorders — Ellyn Satter, "Hierarchy of Food Needs" (J Nutr Educ Behav, 2007) — a Maslow-adapted companion to the Eating Competence Model above

Ranks food-related motivations from foundational to highest, with the key rule that needs at each level must be reasonably satisfied before the next level becomes accessible or relevant: enough food (driven by hunger/food insecurity — high-energy-density food gets prioritized regardless of nutritional quality, because filling and sustaining matters more than what's "ideal"); acceptable food (once basic hunger fear eases, whether food is culturally/personally acceptable becomes relevant); reliable, ongoing access (planning ahead becomes possible once today's meal feels secure); good-tasting food (aesthetic/taste preferences re-emerge once security is established — under real scarcity, taste preference drops out almost entirely); novel food (willingness to try unfamiliar food requires enough security that "wasting" it on something disliked doesn't feel risky); instrumental food (choosing food for a specific physical, cognitive, or spiritual outcome — analogous to self-actualization — is only sustainable once every lower level is consistently met). Practically: a coach or nutrition educator working with a food-insecure young person pushing hard on "eat more vegetables" is aiming at a level of the hierarchy the young person hasn't reached yet — the more useful intervention is further down, on reliable and filling access to food first.

Harm Reduction as Indigenous Logic

Source: Training Development Resources/Eating Disorders — Nalgona Positivity Pride (Gloria Lucas), "Harm Reduction as Indigenous Logic," from the Eating Disorder Harm Reduction (EDHR) Course

Frames harm reduction itself as a continuation of Indigenous logic rather than a purely modern public-health invention, built on holism/relationality (all beings and systems are interconnected — harm reduction similarly treats forms of oppression, resilience, and wellbeing as linked rather than separable), respect for ancestors and intergenerational survival knowledge, oral tradition (the way harm-reduction "street smarts" get passed down, much like Western public-health harm reduction itself emerged from drug-user and gay communities during the 1980s HIV crisis), and communal rather than individualist values. Explicitly broadens harm reduction beyond individual behavior change to include the social and systemic conditions (colonization, forced displacement, food scarcity) that produce risk in the first place — illustrated through the story of the Cherokee "Trail of Tears" pole bean, carried and preserved through forced removal as an act of cultural and physical survival. Useful framing for a coach working with Indigenous or otherwise systemically-marginalized young people: harm reduction isn't just permission to reduce a behavior's severity, it's continuous with much older survival wisdom, and the goal includes systemic conditions, not just individual habits.

Healing Is Not Linear — Historical & Systemic Context

Source: Training Development Resources/Eating Disorders/Eating Disorder Harm Reduction subfolder — Nalgona Positivity Pride graphic

Names the systemic backdrop that non-clinical, individual-behavior-focused ED frameworks often miss: historical trauma, poverty, complex trauma from lived experience, mass incarceration and heavy policing, housing insecurity, settler colonialism, environmental racism, and higher rates of intimate partner violence in unhealthy relationships. A reminder that recovery framed purely as an individual psychological project can miss what's actually driving risk for some young people, and that "non-linear" healing includes systemic instability, not just emotional relapse.

(The "Eating Disorder Harm Reduction" subfolder is a full multi-module EDHR course (Nalgona Positivity Pride) with several more lesson study guides, transcripts, and graphics beyond what's captured above — this pass covers the flagship "Indigenous Logic" lesson and one graphic, not the complete course; a fuller review would need a dedicated pass through the remaining lesson files. Specific clinical eating-disorder harm-reduction tactics (for vomiting, laxative use, bingeing, restricting, over-exercising) are covered at guidance level in Adv_PeerPlus_Training_Dev_Resources.md, developed with input from ED specialists — that entry deliberately doesn't reproduce step-by-step tactics, consistent with how self-harm-adjacent content is handled elsewhere in this knowledge base. "EDHR Treatment Consent and Disclaimer.pdf" is an administrative consent form, not extracted. "Towards A More Social Justice-Based Eating Disorder Practice Workbook" (22MB) was not attempted given its size. Two unresolved Drive shortcuts remain: "ED Harm Reduction" and "ED Harm Reduction: Oral Health.")