Episode 93: How to Help Your Child Have a Healthy Relationship with Food with Jennifer Anderson
/I have an amazing guest for this episode. She is Jennifer Anderson of the amazing Instagram account @kids.eat.in.color. She is a registered dietitian, a mom of two very exciting boys and a cheerleader to hundreds of thousands of parents feeding kids through the Kids Eat in Color social media movement. She helps parents let go of mealtime battles, reduce their stress, and get their kids on the path to eating better.
Here is a summary of what we talked about:
How to have a balanced and healthy relationship with food
How to teach kids to listen to their bodies’ hunger and satiety signals
Setting boundaries around food particularly sweets
Picky eaters and how to get them eat veggies
Find more resources on how to end your food battles with kids by following Jennifer on social media and visiting her website.
Instagram: @kids.eat.in.color
Website: kidseatincolor.com/links/
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic overwhelm. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello everybody, this is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this episode of the Balanced Parent Podcast, I have a really, an amazing guest that I'm so excited to share with you. I'm bringing in Jennifer Anderson of the amazing Instagram account @kids.eat.in.color.
She is a registered dietitian, a mom of two very exciting boys and a cheerleader to hundreds of thousands of parents feeding kids through the kids eating color social media movement. She helps parents let go of mealtime battles, reduce their stress and get their kids on the path to eating better. And I know everybody listening is so excited to hear from you Jennifer. So welcome to the show. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself and what you do?
Jennifer: Thank you so much for having me, Laura. It's great to be here. So yeah, I mean like you said, I'm a mom, I'm a cheerleader to hundreds of thousands of parents and now millions of parents all over the world and I really deeply believe that parents are doing a great job and when we believe that, we can do a little bit better and we can solve our problems even better.
Laura: Oh my gosh, I agree with you. Aren't parents amazing?
Jennifer: Yeah.
Laura: Yeah, right? Just a shout out to all of the listeners here, if you show up for your kid, your families in a way that is just so inspiring. I feel, I don't know about you, Jennifer, but I feel so blessed to get to do this job in this work and work with parents in this way.
Jennifer: Absolutely. I mean parenting is no joke to pay out things that never ends and you know, we have to keep showing up. It doesn't matter what's going on. You know, sometimes we show up barely dragging ourselves to the game and sometimes we are kind of on top of it, but it's tricky to be a parent. It's tricky to feed kids.
Laura: It is, you know, so just a little bit about my own journey around food with my kids, I had a pretty traumatic birth and felt pretty out of control and so attempted to control what I could and food is something that I could control when I had my first baby and we had some feeding issues right at the beginning because she was a NICU baby and so I was really controlling with food for her first two years and then we were at a birthday party and she just had no control around sweets that were there, it was her first birthday party.
I was like, wow, this isn't okay. And so I started looking into intuitive eating and how to raise healthy eaters because I grew up feeling out of control around sweets as a kid and I didn't want that for my kids and I found your account and you're really, really helpful in helping me figure out how to have a balanced relationship, especially with sweets and treats.
And so this is a question that I get a lot from the families that I work with the families who follow me on Instagram and I know my personal story what I did to help my kid, I kind of almost heal her relationship with sweets and now both of my daughters have really healthy relationships with sweets and treats where there's not a lot of pull.
They've got lots of experience self regulating, but can we talk about this for a little bit, you know, okay, the question that I get is kind of, how do I help my kids have a healthy relationship with food where they're not feeling, I don't know, one of the moms wrote in and said they don't have a complex around seats, which I totally had, I can still remember the first time I binged on sweets, it was on like sugar cereal at a friend's house. I just ate bowl after bowl after bowl because we, we weren't allowed to have it at our house. You know, what do we do? Where do we start?
Jennifer: Yeah. Well, first of all, I just want to say there's no one perfect way to do this, where if you do x, y, z, your kid will also somehow be a quote, perfect to eat or whatever, that, you know, kids are so different and I know that I've read plenty of books and you know, they didn't work for my kids at all. So you always have to find the right thing for your family, for your kid. And every kid has different health needs and all of those things.
But one of the things we have to think about is as our kids get older and they're exposed to sweet and you know, maybe we've just not exposed them and that's fine, you know, delaying exposure is a great way to reduce their consumption of sweets without making a big deal, especially if they don't know about it, you know.
So all of a sudden they go to a birthday party and they learn about birthday cake and their life is changed forever where they go over to grandpa and grandma's and they have M and M's for the first time or whatever and all of a sudden the world changes for you and for them because now they know that thing exists and they're going to go to the more birthday parties and they're going to go over to grandma and grandpa's again.
Maybe they're going to go trick or treating if that's something your family does. All of a sudden you have a choice at that time to continue to make it a big deal because we all, we've all had sweets and guess what they taste delicious and they feel good and you know, all these things. Right? So we have a choice are we going to go down the path of, okay, so we are now part of our life or are we going to go down the path of, oh my gosh.
I have to protect my kid from this at all costs. This is poison that I'm putting in my child's body, we have a choice of how we're going to kind of try to navigate this. I have a close friend whose mother was extremely concerned about and he's perceived quote junk food and you know, her kids had allergies and so we've got cause, right?
I mean none of us have bad intentions as to our kids? So she never ever allowed any soda, no, can soda consumption whatsoever under any circumstances. Fast forward he goes to high school. She never have any more control over what he drinks. He drinks so much soda every day.
Within a year, he has a cavity in every single tooth. You know, there's these extreme stories where when we are extreme with our kids. They don't always do what we want, but if we can actually kind of navigate the gray area where no, we're not feeding our kids tons and tons and tons of sugary foods, not a best practice for their teeth or their health or anything else.
You know, we need some volunteer, but if we can try to navigate that gray area of yeah, we do have sweets and they are part of our life, but we're trying to decrease the fascination, the obsession, the curiosity with them so that it's just part of our life and also broccoli is part of our life and that's an important, wonderful part of our life. We can try to normalize sweets to the level that we try to normalize vegetables with just totally different experience with the kids and with feeding.
Laura: Yeah. Okay. So there were two things that I feel like I wanted to pull out there and so we can go down to pass. But when you said “junk food”, I feel so strongly about labeling foods. And so I hope at some point we can talk a little bit about how to talk about food. But I also want to talk about like big thing that I heard you saying there was that kids need opportunities to experience and practice the skill of regulating themselves around food.
That we've been applying all of the control. We've been their willpower for just a lack of a better word, their whole lives and then they go into a space where we no longer have control. They don't have it either because they've never practiced restraint. They've never practiced balance with any of these things.
Jennifer: Not only that, but you've created a fascination. So there's plenty of studies. So if you call something bad and if you restrict it heavily, your body feels restricted and therefore you're obsessed about it. You want it a lot. Not only that, but a lot of us, maybe we grew up with eat your food and then you get dessert Philip.
I've worn by, it's a broccoli and then you get your ice cream. The problem is every time, every single time we use food as a reward, we decrease the value of other food and we remote the value of that. So we have the best intentions. You know, parents have the best intentions.
Laura: Okay, so parents have the best of intentions. We want our kids to learn.
Jennifer: Yeah, we want kids to learn and we think if we teach them that they have to eat their broccoli first and we're teaching them that broccoli is more important. Actually teaching them is that dessert is a reward and it's better and therefore broccoli is worse. And so we actually are teaching kids to be very opposite of what we want them to work.
Laura: Yes, it's the same thing as with chores, when we reward them for doing something, we teach them, you're not supposed to want to do this without this reward.
Jennifer: And it's because I have definitely rewarded my kids to do various things, you know what, I need you to do this or not, I need you to do it right now, but the more you do it, the more you don't want to do it.
Laura: Yes, these messages, these unintended kind of under between the line messages that kids get were saying this a lot overtly through the best of intentions that parents, we're all just doing our best. We are every single one of us who is concerned about what our kids are eating are concerned about because we want our kids to be the healthiest, balanced kiddos and grow up strong and healthy, right?
Jennifer: Absolutely has some intentions because we grew up where the, this is how we grew up. So of course we're going to do that with our kids. There's no reason I don't believe that we should ever give a parent a hard time for what they're doing, They may not have heard of a new method, they may not feel comfortable with a new method, they may not understand why it makes sense because so much feeding kids especially now where we're actually growing up in a different world than we grew up in or that our parents grew up in or that their parents grew up in.
We actually need some different parenting techniques and we need some new ways of teaching kids how to navigate a life. You know, they're going to go out into society into a world that's just kind of like sugar is all over the place and it's in everything.
So how do you navigate that? How do we teach kids to really listen, new their body over time to become comfortable knowing when they're full and when they're hungry and when they had enough cookies and when they haven't and how that's different on different days. We don't have to give our kids a two cookie rule, you know, which is something that a lot of hair as well to cookies any more than that, you know, not enough. The problem is that they always eat two cookies. Always, always, they never have a chance to get their bill of cookies and they also can't stop at one cookie if they're satisfied? Right?
Laura: Oh yes, Absolutely. Okay. So I'm dying to know then what are the things like that we can do, what are some like concrete things off the top of your head. Sorry to put you on the spot.
Jennifer: The thing that I recommend is if your family has dessert and you've been using it as a reward or you know, two more by CIA dessert, stop doing that. Start putting a small child taste portion of dessert on the plate. Some debate. Should you let kids have as much dessert as you want at dinner? I don't think so.
There's no like study that shows what the best thing to do is hear dinner, a small child sized portion is fine and if they ask for more, you can say, well there's no more available for this meal will have more on Tuesday or you know, whatever it is, the thing is you have to stay cool and you need to remember your kid is probably going to freak out if they've been obsessed about this for like what do you mean?
I can't have more because I'm all about dessert right now and now I can't have more and then they're throwing a tantrum or you know, whatever you wanna call it, they're really freaked out because you can't have more, you have to just climb over that mountain, there's going to be a couple of weeks where you're feeling uncomfortable and you're wondering if this is working and and all this sort of thing. But once they realize this is all, but we're also going to have it another time you begin to build their understanding of Oh, okay. It's just the same as broccoli. Really?
Laura: Yeah.
Jennifer: And you know, there may be times when you run out of broccoli and guess what? There's no more available for this meal, that's just part of life that sometimes various foods are not available in unlimited quantities. Right? So it's a lifelong skill sometimes where kids can eat as much as they want and that's a really hard one for parents.
Laura: Yes, it absolutely is. So what you're talking about is holding a firm compassionate boundary, a limit that all of the parents listening here, working on learning how to do, you know, I'm practicing with her kids and it's no different with food. What was interesting for me when we started serving desserts with meals.
So my youngest is almost six and she's only ever experienced that, but my oldest was I think probably two or 2 and a half when we started it with her. So if we're having a dessert served with the main course and it was so interesting to watch their different strategies. So when she first started that she just immediately ate the whole thing and then it was gone and then she ate her other foods with no problems.
That was really anxiety-provoking for me that like, you know, because I was in the midst of my own work with sweets. I think that this is something that is so I mean the food is a microcosm of the parenting relationship as a whole, right? So when we're working on parenting, we have our own work to do and then the work that's exterior with our kids. It's the same with food or at least it was for me, I was going through this food journey with my daughter.
So that was really, I had to do a lot of like self regulation watching her eat like a child-sized cup of putting or whatever it was that we were having. But their strategies on how they eat their desserts are so funny and they still are consistent of my oldest is eight now and she will eat almost all of her sweet treat her dessert, eat the rest of her food and save one bite of the sweet and then just sit with it in her mouth for like 10 minutes.
Yeah, that's whereas my other one, well she's always just done that, gone around in a circle and usually ends, you know? But their strategies are so interesting. It was once I got over my anxiety, it was interesting to watch that develop.
Jennifer: I love what you're saying is like once you get over your anxiety, you can just kind of have this curiosity and your own kids. Like when you're not obsessed about whether you're doing it right or doing it wrong. Obviously you could just be our kids for what they are which is these creative little beans that are sitting at the table and they're just learning to be themselves. I remember watching my first child teach himself how to eat.
I didn't know about baby-led weaning. I was basically just just following his lead, which is he wanted to feed himself. And we mostly had pureed ish type foods at that time. You know, my husband and he felt this like a little method of scooping up the puree and pushing it through the top of this little fist and feeding himself. It was so adorable from what I think is so amazing is at that time I truly didn't care whether I was doing weaning right.
You know, it was following the best practices with responsive feeding for your kid and so it just didn't matter. And so I was really able to enjoy what he was doing, which was so adorable. And my second kid burned it, taught himself to eat totally differently.
Every kid, it's so different and when we can just step away from, you know, the societal expectation that we're going to have Mommy Wars over weaning and we're going to Mommy Wars, like what we're feeding our kids all these things, We lose our ability to appreciate that moment when our kids are just being adorable and learning and growing and you know, all those things.
Laura: It's so true. The stress and anxiety and the worry about doing it right takes us right out of the moment and out of presence and keeps us from enjoying these times with our kids.
Jennifer: I mean that said when I went to the pediatrician and my son had birth issues then all of a sudden the anxiety of course are over there. So there are times when you know other information comes in, you can no longer enjoy the moment because you're freaking out that your kids are growing up.
So are those two, I don't want anybody to feel bad that they are concerned because there are real concerns that are real feeding issues that come up and there are real picky eaters and there are all these things feeding kids can be really tricky and if you aren't able to enjoy the moment, it doesn't mean that you're a bad parent. It just means that you have a tricky feeding situation. Like many of us do.
Laura: Yeah, thank you for that very balanced perspective. We really appreciate that. Okay, so I'm trying to think, should we go to talk about kind of unrestricted access to sweets that happens sometimes at like holidays, like we're recording this, um kind of close after the Easter and Passover holidays, would that be helpful? You think do parents need to know about those things?
Jennifer: Here is something just try to not get worked up over it. There are holidays, they will happen, your kids will have more access to sweets, then you will be able to control. Grandparents will be seeing the kids feeds or relatives behind your back. All these things are going to happen. I'd prefer to just go into it with a very realistic perspective my kid is going to eat enough sweets today that they are going to be very grumpy tonight.
But you know what tomorrow is another day and we will move on. Just like to take a really realistic perspective and not try to over-control it now do I take the opportunities to decrease their access? Sure. You know, I just didn't put that much Candy and Easter but guess what? They complained about it. I was like, well they complain that there's one jelly bean in the egg and stuff.
i don't know what they were expecting, maybe like four, I don't, I don't even know, but the reality is you know candy is a wonderful and joyful thing for kids to experience at holidays and we can allow them to choose how much to eat and that is a learning experience for them. I remember when my son was six and it was the first Halloween that he was really into the experience of candy.
Like he prior to that he just really didn't care that much. Something about six was a big shift for him and he ate so much candy and then he sat on the kitchen floor and he said, oh I think I think I ate too much candy and you know what, he taught himself that. I never said anything, he was able to internalize for himself and put it together. But a lot of candy made him feel sick and that experience is worth.
I don't know, I thought much more than if I had told him, hey, if you eat too much candy, you're going to get a stomach ache. You know your, when your kid realizes that for themselves and they can begin to understand, oh, if I eat that much, I feel sick if I eat this much, you know, it doesn't mean that your kid is never going to eat too much candy again, but it does mean that your child is on the road to being able to regulate themselves over time, right?
Laura: So all adults have times where they over-consume certain things and people-focused with healthy relationships with food, just know like, oh, I overdid it and with no guilt, no shame, no blame, no self judgment around it. That's what we're creating an opportunity for our kids to do to.
Jennifer: Absolutely. And you know what the next day, I'm always amazed when my kids eat more vegetables than usual. It's always fascinating. We don't push veggies. I, you know, I have a very like veggie positive environment at home and they're around pretty frequently, but I never forced them to eat it.
And it's always interesting to see after a big holiday where, you know, they didn't eat that many vegetables and they had a lot of candy, just like we kind of feel gross, might gravitate more towards those foods that are going to make us feel better. The kids do the same thing if you know, depending on their ability to eat a variety of foods?
Laura: Yeah, I've experienced that too. I like to put just veggies in a tray out on the kitchen counter. Usually in that time period between school and dinner, you know? But yes, I see an uptick in how much of that platter is emptied on the days after.
Okay, so that was really helpful. So what about for the families who have some picky eaters, some kids? And what is the definition of a picky eater? Because that's something that, like, I work with some families who say their kid is a picky eater and then they come to me with a list of like 50 or 60 foods that their kids will eat, you know? And then I have some families who come and say their kids a picky eater and they've got like 5 to 10 foods. And so what is the definition of a picky eater?
Jennifer: And interestingly there actually is not an agreed upon. Okay, there are a whole bunch of definitions in the literature and I think it's more of a subjective thing. Now, there are some objective things. Does your child eat less than 20 to 30 foods? Does your child have a physical problem as a result of not being able to eat a variety of foods?
Does your child not eat all of the food groups? Like are they completely unable to eat fruits and vegetables? Those three in particular are really big red flags that not only is your child a picky eater, but their ability to only eat a small amount of foods has the likelihood of having a physical or nutritional improvement on your child.
Well, then it's more of a time to get in there and start trying some new strategies because then usually do need more support if you have an extremely picky eater and that's more along the lines of what I call an extremely picky eater.
But here's the other thing. If you're going into meal to them, then it feels like a complete battle and you're pulling your hair out and you're feeling defeated and you're so frustrated and I don't care if your kid is eating 32 foods or 35 or 50, something is wrong for you and your stress levels and you need some support because it doesn't have to be like, you don't have to be have your blood pressure going up, going to the table and feeling like you're going into a war.
Laura: Even if there are some health concerns, there's still room for taking care of you in that process.
Jennifer: Oh, absolutely. I mean, the first thing I do in my better vice program, which is the program for the families of the eaters. First thing I do is work on reducing your stress because you can't do anything to help your child if you're completely stressed out.
I mean, I've been there, I live this to you know, I have a selective child and one who tends to not eat enough. So stressful. And if we can find ways to reduce our stress, we really open up just an enormous number of possibilities for ourselves and for our child.
Laura: Yeah. I think we can't be overstated that our role, our approach, the energy we bring to the table really makes a difference for kids to it really.
Jennifer: It really does. And for you too, I mean, I don't deserve to be like super, super frustrated. I mean feeding kids is Six times a day, 5, 6 times a day we got it so much always happening. So it's feeding your child is your biggest stressor, what it means you're becoming stressed to your max, You know 5, 6 times a day. I recently heard mom say 90% of my stress is due to feeding my child.
And I think that's totally accurate. So if you're feeling really stressed, you are not alone. In fact, I started feeding kids color because I was feeling super stressed about feeding a child who didn't want to eat enough and I was making these cute little lunches to get them interesting and interested in meals and I thought, you know, I can't be the only parent struggling. You are not the only there are millions of parents struggling all over the world. And then I thought, oh maybe it's just the United States saying no all over the world, all over the world.
Laura: Yeah. Oh, that's really interesting. So do you have any resources for folks who have a picky eater and they're looking at?
Jennifer: I do have a good starting place. So my friend picky Eater guide is 14 pages of help. Like understanding how do you kind of get a get full of your mealtime environment and get really clear on what is your job as a parent versus what is your child's job as the child? Because that is a huge stress reliever when you're doing your job and your child is doing their job when you're able to then work together in much healthier ways. That opens up a load of possibilities.
Laura: I love that. That's something that I have to remind myself of all the time, that there's certain parts of my kids eating, that is not my business, that you know, that is their job and no one likes to be micromanaged in their job. No one does.
Jennifer: Actually like toddlers or children. My kids have yet to grow out of the phase in which they want to be in control of their body.
Laura: Hopefully they never happen. It's human nature to want to control your body.
Jennifer: We really want to, we want to raise our kids right? We want to raise them to grow up and be able to take care of themselves and part of that is starting really early teaching them that it's their job to be in charge of the food that goes into their body and how much they eat and all that stuff. I know recently my kids were in a situation where a relative trying to pressure them to finish their meal. Just remember the look on my five year old’s face, which was, you are crazy and then he looks at me like, what's up with this person? Like, oh, that's how much she wants to eat
Laura: Yeah. Oh my gosh, You know, so the, my one daughter has always been really good at setting boundaries with people. And so she has her very loving bop sha she's polish and food is love and there's lots of pressure for everybody to eat more and more. Her parents were rushed with survivors. There's just a lot with food, there's a lot I'm there.
But she will ask my daughter if she wants more and from when the time and she was really little, she goes with the food that's on my plate is my business. I adore her boundary setting. I admire it so much. It's so good speaking though of relatives or other people's other influences in our kid’s lives.
I did have a couple of people who wanted me to ask you how to handle folks who maybe have a different perspective on how to handle food and so they are embracing kind of the kids eating color approach and it's different. It is different. It's a bit radical than what the mainstream folks are doing, how to approach that with well-meaning loved ones. And then also I've had a couple of questions about how to handle some fat-shaming that might happen and crop up in homes. And so I just was hoping we could chat about those things.
Jennifer: Sure. You know, talking with family is very, very difficult and I find so much of this comes up with partners like my partner isn't on board. My partner is really very on pressuring my child to finish their plate. You know, my in-laws, my mother, my father, my destiny. Boundary setting with family, you know, extended family is just so tricky. It's so tricky. And I don't have any one size fits all answers.
And the reason for that is this. I don't know if your mother has a mental illness. We don't know if your relative is abusive. I don't know if your relative is completely wonderful and wants to do the best and just doesn't know about new techniques. I don't know if you're reliant on living with your family or you're reliant on your aunt and uncle for childcare and if that's the case, you know, you may have to just do abide by their rules because you can't make any changes.
You know, so there's obviously, I think the best case scenario would be probably like my mom. She remembered being a mom and she had five kids and she didn't want us eating a ton of sugar, although she, you know, it was around and she loved it, but I think she remembers setting boundaries with her parents and saying no, you can't send bags of candy for every holiday.
They were just sending bags, bags and bags and she said no, can you please send this? And she told them what to instead. And so with her, we actually had a conversation, it's like, okay, how much can I send, how much candy and how much this? And she's just done a wonderful job of providing toys instead of candy.
And I find this talking with parents who are rational and reasonable and who you have a good relationship with. I don't know exactly what you want. I want you to have ice cream with her once a month, but not every single time you get together because you know, we need to have ice cream too and not in a judgmental way, but say this is best for my daughter. Can you please take her out for ice cream once a month. And the other times can you please go to this part? Because I know she loves it and I know she really appreciate some time with you.
Laura: Yeah. So giving them options of what they can do.
Jennifer: Exactly what they want because they really want your child to adore them just fine and they want to do whatever they want, right? So if you just kind of give them suggestions. Oh, they love going to get a balloon. Oh they love going to the special part of the slide. Oh, they love it when you bring the dog over. Tell them how your child can adore them without the extra candy. And I think that's the best case scenario right now. I have other relatives, but I have to have that straightforward conversation with.
In fact, bringing it up with them would actually come back to bite me. It would mean that other people I know they would then feed my kid more candy just to make me mean, right hoof, right? Not all of us have wonderful relationships with all the people around us and we just have to be very aware. So that's what I do with that person and don't ever say no because I know that that would result in a bad impact for my kids and myself. I don't say, oh you can't, I just say I want you to tell me before you do it right?
Because that's that's the most important thing for me, reducing harm is don't go behind my back because that's not good for my kids, but I want you to be really forthright with what you're going to do and I always say yes because I know that is going to lead to better outcome. So we have to like really look at who we're dealing with and how we’re talking when we're dealing those relationships around us because we can be flexible. We can be flexible with how much candy our kids can eat, but sometimes we have to focus on their safety first.
Sometimes we have to focus on child care and being able to keep our jobs. Sometimes we have to focus on the relationship. And having extra candy is not going to kill them, it is not. And sometimes there is much more important things for us to focus on for the overall safety and benefit of the family. So we have to go in with some flexibility and with some grace for those other people for ourselves. We just have to kind of walk that messy, gray area of relationships, you know.
Laura: Yeah, that was such a beautiful kind of crash course in balanced boundary setting with family. Thank you for that. And I think that that applies to you know, again we're talking about food, but really food is kind of this microcosm of all the things that we deal with as parents and it applies to gifts at birthdays and all sorts of things that you need to set boundaries with so?
Jennifer: Right it's true, there's so much food, you know, it can be culture, it can be politics, it can be are we preparing for ourselves, it can be our way of hurting other people, you know so much is wrapped up in food. I agree with you, it is just a microcosm of so many other things.
Laura: Yeah. And if we really want our kids to just have a simple relationship with food, then sometimes we have to be realistic about who we're dealing with and how to where our power is in our overarching goal is for our kids to have a healthy simple relationship with food.
Jennifer: The other thing to remember is parents modeling the way that they want their kids to eat is probably the most powerful thing that you can do. Now. It realized some parents are picky eaters themselves and they can't always model everything. They have allergies. That's okay. You can eat the way that you want your child to eat.
That is going to have more of an impact on them than what they see grandma and grandpa eating then what they see, you know? And so your aunts or uncle is eating obviously what those other people eating are going to have an influence on your child, but you, as the parents, you are going to have the biggest influence on your life.
Laura: I so agree. I so agree. Okay. I just wanted to ask one more question, I feel I want to be respectful of your time. So we've been talking about food a lot and having a healthy relationship with food and I think that food gets really our relationship with food gets really distorted when we're embedded in a culture that prioritizes thinness and prioritizes dieting and I know that I've had to have conversations with the other adults in my kid's life around negative self talk about their bodies and diet talk.
And so I was just curious if you have any recommendations for families on those conversations or even if like we can't control what other people say. How do we reframe it for our kids or help our kids make sense of maybe what grandma said when she was over.
Jennifer: Right, so tricky again. Yes, so difficult. So, first off, as a parent again, you're gonna have the biggest impact on your child, choosing to not talk about your body and your weight around your child is extremely important. The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that there be no weight talk, especially around older kids starts young too. We now have three year old girls dieting three.
I mean that's like just out of toddlerhood and they're dieting and it's not like 1-3 year old is dieting. This is a thing now that's being measured and observed. Three year olds are saying, oh, I need to lose weight, Oh right there just mimicking us. They're just internalizing what they're seeing around them.
So the more that you cannot talk about your weight and not say negative things about your body around your child, the more powerful that is because again, you're going to have the biggest impact on your child and if you I've been talking negatively, switch it up. You know, start talking to, you know, not the person who's going to say you're an adult, you should never go on a diet. I don't care. Like if you're an adult, you can do whatever you want. No, I just believe that it's your body. You do what you want.
Now I could make evidence-based recommendations which actually wouldn't really include, we lost diet based on the evidences created. But you know, you're an adult, you're free to do whatever you want. But if you are going to choose to try to lose weight around your child, you really, really, really need to come up with a new way to talk about that.
I just wish for every child that they can be in a home where families talk about their bodies being strong. Oh, I'm I'm lifting weights so that my body can be strong. I want to be able to pick you up and throw you up in the air. I want to be able to run around the block and feel good. I want to be able to be strong and due to, you know, vacuum the house more quickly.
There's so many ways that we can talk about our body being healthy or let's say you have a health condition, let's say you have high cholesterol and you're therefore going on a medical diet to try to, to feel that you can actually talk about that with your child.
You can say, oh, I have high cholesterol, this is what that means. I'm okay, but also that to take care of that body, that means to take care of my body. I need to change the way that I'm eating. And you know, that means I'm gonna start eating more soluble fiber. Let's talk about soluble fiber. You can go down the rabbit hole as far as you want. But I think we need to change the conversations with our kids from size, which is something that most people cannot control. And that doesn't necessarily mean that someone is unhealthy. We need to change that conversation away from size and really to help.
I mean, if you have diabetes and yes, I would highly encourage you to learn about taking care of your body and that is going to change the way that you eat. If you have a heart condition, if you have high cholesterol, if you have an eating disorder, if you have absolutely anything, there is going to be a way for you to take care of your body that may include what you eat and it's okay to talk to your child about that, you know,
Laura: Yeah and we can do that without moralizing or judging food categories.
Jennifer: Absolutely, Absolutely. Now my kids know that I'm allergic to salmon right, Which is a really poor food to be allergic to if you're a dietician because dieticians love salmon, you know, I'm allergic to it. My allergist recommended that I not eat it and therefore I don't eat it.
So they actually, they know that, but they know that their bodies are not allergic to salmon and therefore they can eat it. So I think we can introduce our kids to nuance. You know, some foods are good for you. Some foods are good for me. Some foods are bad for me. Some foods are bad for you. Actually understand that kind of nuance early on. What they cannot understand is sugar is bad. Mcdonald's is bending that they, you know, they cannot understand because before they go to their friend of preschool and this has happened, I would guess most preschool teachers have a story like this.
They go to their friend and say, oh, your mom is poisoning you because you have candy at your lunch. Oh, that's what relationships are ruined, that kid feels horrible. It's so much judgment when we categorize foods, just say this is them. We didn't franchise so many people. I mean, there are extreme picky eaters out there, they have 5 to 10 foods that they can eat and then they go to school and the school has them do a sorting activity that says, you know, these foods are good for you.
These foods are bad for you and beyond that some of that child-safe food during the bad category and now because they had an anxiety-based eating issue. Now they can't eat one of their safe foods and that literally puts them at nutritional risk and risk of, we're looking bad consequences, all the best of intentions.
But when we categorize foods, we do not understand what we're doing. Take a mom who are a family right times, they are going to the food pantry, they are using their snap benefits, they're doing all these things very tight budget, they're going to put what they can afford on their child's plate and if their friend comes over it's like, oh, that's junk food.
Guess what? They have just judged that family in an unfair, inaccurate way. We can teach our kids to judge other people for what we mean. And we can also teach our kids have curiosity and understanding that all foods are good, even if all foods are not good for our family. All foods have a purpose and all foods are good and I'm gonna put my money behind that. I will go as far as I can teaching my kids to never say somebody else's food is bad.
Laura: Yes, it's so important to, to understand that kids, especially kids in the six and under range are involved in categorizing and labeling things that that's part of what their brain is doing right now. And so they're very sensitive to what we label things as it becomes very firmly cemented in the neural structure of their brains. It's very hard to change what their brain is doing right then. Right, they’re forming the structure of their brain and how things are categorized and labels is a big piece of that too.
Jennifer: The real challenge is, okay, let's say you really believe that you want your child to think that sugar is bad. I don't judge you or you know whoever for thinking that there are so many messages out there and there's so much diet culture out there and there's extreme eating pattern culture out there, right? We're constantly hearing all kinds of messages.
The problem is what happens when your child has to eat a food with sugar in it? They go over to a friend's house, they are in a situation where they don't have access to food and all the food that they have access to has sugar in it. All of a sudden your chances in a situation or maybe they eat it because it tastes good and they're in a situation where they like, does this make me bad because this is a bad, What does this mean for me now that I'm eating a food that's poisonous, now that I'm eating a food that is bad for me? What does that mean?
I think there is a real internalization of these labels foods onto kids themselves when they're younger and then you bring in this whole moral component to eating and that brings an emotional component to eating. Now you've really complicated that child's relationship with food. Again, don't do any parent for doing this because we are just awash in diet culture and food culture, it is everywhere.
And if at the same time, if you think you can raise your child even without getting them exposed to diet culture, even that is impossible because you gotta, you know the family dinner and everybody's like, oh I lost this much on my latest diet nights of this and and you know, so we do the best we can and then our kids go to preschool and they hear all kinds of crazy stuff there and then they go to school and then they’re hearing crazier stuff.
I think we just want to focus on what you can control at home and what is the best I can do. Yes, I'm definitely going to make a mistake because I didn't grow up with this stuff and that's okay. I mean the parent who doesn't make a mistake, good luck. You will, you will have no, are they were how to relate to you. So yeah, we're always making these mistakes. But I think we can, we can work on it. We can work on having these conversations where we learn about what foods do in your body and teach them to our kids.
You know, one of my kids, he went to he went to school one day and he had, I think he had a small piece of chocolate in his lunch or maybe a couple of chocolate chips in his muffin and the kid said to him, chocolates unhealthy. And my son came back, he was six and he said, you know, so and so said chocolates unhealthy.
But it just does a few things in your body, right? And what he was referring to is a conversation that we had had, where, you know, some foods do a lot of things in your body and some foods do just a few things in your body. Doesn't mean you're being that it just means that they're different. Broccoli, it categorically does just an extraordinarily large number of things in your body that are helpful, Right?
Piece of candy largely does one thing in your body. And that is to give you a quick shot of energy. That's it. And that's how we talk about it. It doesn't have to be wrong to eat something that just gives you a quick shot of energy. What's not wrong? It just is. It also isn't morally superior to eat broccoli, which doesn't give you a quick shot of energy, but does do a whole host of other wonderful, wonderful things in your body.
People draw attention to the fact that foods are different, but they do different things in our body. And as they get older, we can start to slowly introduce things like, well that quick shot of energy is gone. So you notice that your brother is crying on the floor over there.
That's because he he decided to only eat his candy of lunch and he didn't have any protein in fact to keep him going, right? Draw these opportunities come up. We can draw the connections of how foods work in our volume. We can absolutely do that without judging and without saying therefore you are wrong or therefore you are bad.
Laura: Yeah, I love this. I love how you're bringing this nuance and curiosity so that kids can have a really like, I think that that's always been my goal for my kids is that I want them to have a very uncomplicated and very curious relationship with food. They get to just play and see what feels good.
You know, having done this for years with my girls, they are so good at listening to their bodies. If I have just two more pieces of candy, I think my tummy is going to hurt so I'm going to stop now. You know, I had it too much and it hurts and I won't do that again or you know like my tummy feels a little sick. I think I'm gonna go get some broccoli out of the fridge. You know, just they do it. The approach that you teach is just so wonderful and I've benefited from it so much and from this conversation, thank you so much for your time.
Jennifer: Your dear Welcome. Yeah, my pleasure to help parents and to talk about this stuff. I mean I'm so passionate about it. Like any opportunity I always have to like kind of like, you know, turn the flow down because otherwise it can be like a fire hose.
Laura: No, it's so good. We are so passionate here and I love it when folks come on and talk passionately about their topic. It's, I really, really appreciate your time and your expertise here. So everybody is listening, make sure you go and follow Jennifer. You probably are with her. Just amazing Instagram account.
But I really, really, oh and I'll put the link to your picky eater guide in the show notes. So has there fore you everybody who needs it. But I really, really appreciate the time that you took out of your day to talk about these topics with us.
Jennifer: Absolutely, and it's great to be here. Thank you so much.
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All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this