I've always been interested in the relationship people have with food. For years, I was a professional dancer and when we weren't on stage, my fellow artists and I were worried about dieting, our lives went around what we ate, and what we didn't eat. This was our world.

Later I left dancing to become a social worker. I felt free and I also stopped dieting, As I played around with eating the foods I had always considered off-limits, I began to reconnect with my body's signals and normalize, my habits: I would allow myself that chocolate bar after my sandwich at lunch, or the bowl of ice cream before bed.

My only rule was: I had to eat when I was hungry, and stop when I was full. Surprisingly, once I less cared about food, I actually ate less and dropped the 10 pounds I had always been worried about. Not only was this a valuable lesson for me, but also one that I have seen repeatedly among the hundreds of patients who would come to me to help them solve their eating problems.

My job today is helping kids develop healthy eating habits. Feeding our children is one of the first and most important ways, so it's up to us to help them have better relationship with food.

But helping parents help their children with food problems has become increasingly complicated in recent years. So, how do we give our children advice to manage them? It all comes down to helping them connect with their own bodies.

The idea that you can use humor, laughter, and play to make you healthier probably seems too simple to be true. However, it is really true and simple. The sense of humor, laughter and play plays an important part in keeping you healthy.

Treat the blues with a sense of humor, which is closely tied to laughter. Laughter is infectious（有感染力的）. Have you ever heard a big laugh of a young child and been able to keep yourself from smiling? When laughter is shared between people, it makes them closer to each other and increases their happiness. Smiling is the beginning of laughter and a smile is also just as infectious as laughter is. You can experience something by smiling at everyone around you, and you will feel happier just by sharing a smile, even with a stranger.

Play is an important part of making sure that we stay healthy. We are often encouraged to make sure our children play, and are told of the benefits of being out playing. However, what we often forget is that it is just as important for old people to make play be part of their life as it’s for children. Physical play is important for the old and it certainly helps prevent illness. While the studies are still in the early stages, the studies that have been done have shown that physical play certainly plays a part in preventing cognitive (认知的) falling.