I am so excited that you have chosen to work with Coastal Therapy Group in your journey through parenthood. I wanted to start this series by sharing a little bit about myself! My name is Colleen Delaney, and I am a mama to a sweet and sassy two-and-a half year old boy named Dax. As a mom, my child’s health, wellbeing, and happiness are the most important things in my life. I love nerding out over childhood nutrition and child development and spend a lot of my time learning as much as I can about both of these topics.
First, to give you an idea about my professional background, I am a postdoctoral fellow at Rutgers University. Basically, this means my day job focuses on research and teaching. In 2019, I finished the last step of my PhD in community nutrition, just 2 weeks prior to my delivering my son! I also am a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN) and teach clinical courses at Rutgers University. I have published over 80 peer-reviewed abstracts and journal articles in the fields of nutrition education, community nutrition and child nutrition.
Even before my journey into parenthood, I have had a passion for helping parents better understand nutrition science to make small and simple changes that help their whole family live a healthier life! To dig a little deeper, I have spent the last decade researching the impact of parent feeding styles and behaviors, and the home and community environments on child health. There is so much information out there, sometimes it is hard to find reliable information. My goal is to help translate nutrition science in a way that is easy to understand while reducing any parent guilt. I want to meet you where you are at and I understand that feeding kids can be hard! I hope I can offer you practical and easy tips from my research that you can use in your home today!
My philosophy on parenthood and child nutrition is pretty simple. I take an “All Foods Fit” approach to nutrition, for both kids and adults! I truly believe that all foods have an importance to our health, whether it be social, mental or physical wellbeing, and that with teaching mindfulness and guiding our children, we can help them live their healthiest life.
I follow an authoritative or “gentle” parenting style. Authoritative parenting focuses on being responsive to your child’s needs while also holding limits and expectations for your child. This can be as simple as having set meals and offering them to your child (this is your limit) while allowing your child to decide how much (or if!) they eat any of the food offered (this is responding to their need). Research has shown that an authoritative parenting style is associated with kids being healthier and having healthier diets. I’ll share easy to use tips to incorporate authoritative parenting into how you feed your kids.
A little about my background:
Credentials
PhD: Doctor of Philosophy in Community Nutrition
RDN: Registered Dietitian/Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (these credentials are interchangeable!)
Education
Dietetic Internship, Rutgers University
Doctor of Philosophy, Nutritional Sciences, Rutgers University
Bachelor of Science, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Spanish, Lebanon Valley College
