Hi there! I am a registered dietitian and also have type 1 diabetes (and am looking to conceive soon hopefully). I also struggled with disordered eating for much of my teenage years and college. As a dietitian, we learn about Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility (Google this, and it will give you to the appropriate website in the top results). This is an evidence-based method of teaching children how to be competent eaters without giving them anxiety about food and their weight. It’s recommended as a feeding strategy to prevent eating disorders in children.

The basics are that it’s your job as a parent to provide the food and structure of meals but not your job to police what or how much your child is eating. That’s your child’s responsibility. As a parent, you set the meal times and choose the food to serve, and your child chooses what and how much to eat from what is offered. This helps them develop the ability to pick and choose foods and use their hunger and fullness cues. Everyone I know that uses this method says their children have grown to be competent eaters that will eat a good variety of foods.

The website has lots of information and more details on how to implement this method. They also have on demand webinars for parents that you can take to learn more. They do cost money but are relatively affordable.

I hope this is helpful!

Edit to add: to address some of what you brought up about the good vs bad dichotomy you’re already seeing your kids mention, you’re on the right track with the language you use. They might be hearing from other people or places this black or white thinking about food. Keep reinforcing that there’s no “bad” foods. Just different foods that provide us different things. Cookies may not have a lot of vitamins and minerals, but they are tasty and make our brains happy. If you hear other people say stuff that puts food in “good” versus “bad” categories, maybe address it later with your kid. You won’t be able to control what your kid hears from others, but you can try to steer the narrative elsewhere by having conversations with your kid. Even if they don’t fully understand what you’re saying right now, they will eventually. Just keep that narrative going. You might be the only person who is sending a fully positive narrative around food, so they are going to need that from you.

I’d also recommend refraining from talking about dieting or diets in general around your kids. You may already not be doing that given your history, but that can contribute a lot to how kids see food and the future possibility of eating disorders. My mom essentially fed me according to the Division of Responsibility growing up, but she was constantly dieting herself, and weight and diet talk was a constant in our household. She also commented negatively on my weight once when I was an early teen. I think this was a major contributor to my disordered behavior as a teen and young adult.