episode 129: are you passing on your disordered eating and negative body image to your kids?
On episode 129 of The Diet Diaries I’m talking about one of the most commonly asked questions/topics from clients, friends and even strangers.
How do I not pass along my issues with food and negative body image to my kids?
I LOVED recording this episode and will likely do another one in the future because there’s a lot to unpack here.
I share some really simple skills you can introduce to even the youngest of kids (ages 2-3) that can establish a healthy, easeful relationship with food.
The truth is that every mom is doing their best with the experience and resources they have—our intention is always to help and support our kids. And alongside that, the reality is that we all have an opportunity to become more aware of how we’re talking about and interacting with food both on our own and with our kids.
Very often we don’t know what we don’t know. This point of this episode is to change that—because when we know better, we can do better.
Here’s what I’m talking about today:
Why eating healthy food isn’t actually the goal
How to incorporate sweets and desserts
Why scarcity around certain foods is making things harder for you
How to educate your kids around nutrition without assigning moral value to food
Noticing how you talk about bodies—your own and other people’s
How to be aware of the way your body image insecurities impacts your kids
How to build body confidence in your kids
Check out episodes 124 and 125 of The Diet Diaries for more resources around nutrition and movement as it relates to your overall wellbeing.
Click here to sign up for Nourishing Notes: Summer Edition.
Watch The Diet Diaries on YouTube.
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[00:00:00] Hi everyone. It's episode 129. I think I messed this up last week, or I thought I messed it up, but I didn't. Of the Dye diaries. Whatever. Um, and I just wanted to just leave a little quick announcement here. I think pretty much everyone who listens to the podcast listens, but I did wanna let you know that I have been, uh, filming these and putting them on YouTube.
[00:00:27] So if for any reason that feels like a, a more useful or helpful format to have access. It's there for you. Um, it's exactly the same. It's just that you see me, um, instead of just listen to me. So I just wanted to let you know that's up there. Maybe I'll actually post the link in the show notes today so you know that it's there.
[00:00:47] And, um, yeah, just wanted to get that little quick sidebar. Also, today is Monday, May 22nd. Today is the first day of nourishing notes. Summer edition. If you miss the signup, it's not too late. This is a freebie, so it's like you can actually join at any point. You'll miss like the first, like you'll join in on whatever day you join in, right?
[00:01:04] So if you sign up today, you'll already have missed the first one, cuz they go out at 6:00 AM so you have them like super early for your day. Something to think about. But you can join in at any time. And again, that's 30 days of free, super short emails all centered around how to start feeling better. In your body and about how your body looks within the context of summer and all of the pressure that we feel to look a certain way.
[00:01:32] During the summer, um, like this whole, we have to get ready for summer. Like, do you have to get ready for fall? Do you have to get ready for winter? No. You just have to get, it's the only season we have to get ready for. Um, and that is a lot of marketing and that is, um, creates so much stress for us. So I created this resource.
[00:01:50] Nourishing notes over the winter, around the holidays, was super successful. Everyone loved it. So I'm like, great, let's bring it back and have it focused on this season and maybe it'll continue to be like a cool kind of seasonal thing. So wanted to let you know that's available. It's free. Um, and it's a really great resource.
[00:02:05] I love creating it. And, um, yeah. So let's get into today's episode. So this is definitely gonna be a little bit not different, but, um, I think a really helpful topic. I have to open. This is door. Um, I have the window open in here and it's making this door creak. So one of the biggest questions that, or kind of conversation topics that comes up with clients, with friends, with just anyone, is how do I not pass on my own issues around food to my kids?
[00:02:43] And this is such an important and valid question, and it's wonderful that people are aware of this and want to do something about it because that's the first step, right? Is knowing, is realizing that when you have a disordered relationship with food that your kids are very aware of, that you might think they're not.
[00:03:04] And I say this with love, if you have a disordered relationship with food and you think your kids aren't aware of it, you're fooling yourself. And I, I don't say that in a mean, harsh way. I say that and kids are picking up on everything that you're doing, on every non-verbal communication, on your actions.
[00:03:19] And you might think you're hiding things from them, but you're not. You might be hiding some things. You're not hiding everything and they are picking up on it. And this was something I had to come to terms with too, right? So Ben is almost 11, and so for. Half, more than half of half, half-ish, a little more than half of his life.
[00:03:39] Um, I was in a really bad place with food. I mean, I was doing isogenics when he was two, when he was four, like in front of him, like not eating meals and, and all of this. Um, and I have since done a lot of work and we have conversations around it, not about my kind of past with food, although he, I think is somewhat.
[00:03:57] He's aware of what I do for work. Um, but more about, we talk about food. Um, we have to educate our kids around this like, I think there's this huge just gap and lack of information where we don't really think about food and nutrition as something that we need to like educate our kids on. We think we're educating them by doing things like, oh, you have to eat your vegetables or no dessert until you have five more bites, or we only have desserts on special occasions.
[00:04:29] All three of those things are. Coming from a disordered background and will start to plant the seeds of disordered eating in your kids. Um, and they all come from a good place. I say that I, but when Ben was younger, I definitely did the bite thing. Oh, a few more bites. A few more bites. A few more bites, and I'll just go off on a bit of a, a sidetrack right now and say that the reason that is harmful is because it teaches your kid that you, as the parent, Know more about what they're feeling in their body than you do.
[00:04:59] So if they tell you that they are full, you have to let them trust that. And you have to trust them. Now, I know you're thinking, but I know they're not full. They're gonna ask me for a snack in an hour. I get it. I don't want this, I'm not gonna turn this episode into a podcast about, um, like. How to get your kids to eat the things you want to eat.
[00:05:19] Um, that's kind of a separate topic. Maybe I will do that. It's not my area of expertise for sure. Actually, Dr. Becky has a phenomenal workshop about that. She offers a lot of really great tools. Um, I can definitely link that for you guys, but when you tell your kid, oh, just have three more bites or four more bites, if they're telling you they don't want anymore.
[00:05:38] They're feeling that within their body, either they're full or they don't like it, or they're just done. And if you force them to eat that food, that's signaling to them that you know more about how they're feeling, that they can't trust what they're feeling, and that you don't trust what they're telling you and that you don't care.
[00:05:56] Now again, I know this comes from a well-meaning place. I totally get it. You wanna make sure that they're getting like eating healthy foods, which I'm gonna talk about, and getting enough nutrition and not just surviving on snacks. I get it. And also this isn't an either or, it's a both and, and also that's actually not the most efficient way to approach it.
[00:06:14] Um, and so think about, I actually learned a lot about this from Dr. Becky, and if you're not familiar with Dr. Becky, she's a child psychologist and she's amazing and brilliant and, um, yeah, you can check her out. But, um, if you, this, you might think this is a bit of a leap, but if. You're telling your kid whether they're two, they're six, they're 10.
[00:06:36] I mean, people do this at all ages. Oh, just have four more bites. Or if you don't finish that, you can't have dessert. Um, so you start to create food as a reward. Um, it starts to build up this lack of, oh, my mom must know about more about how I'm feeling in my body than me. So I guess I should just listen to her.
[00:06:54] Well then how does that translate when kids are out with their friends and they're older and their kids are, and, and they're doing things and, and your kid might sense like, this isn't right, but everyone else is doing and they're telling me it's okay. So I guess it's okay. Right? Like these, I'm gonna call them like they're not lessons.
[00:07:11] These, these ways that we communicate with our kids and how we interact with them around. Building up their self trust and their noticing their own signals coming from their own body translates into other things later in life that you're gonna care a lot more about than food. Um, so. I kind of went off on this early tangent here.
[00:07:35] This is stuff is super important. Not necessarily the crux of what I wanted to talk about, but is super important to just get you thinking. And again, I just wanna make sure this is not coming from a place of judgment. I have done these things too, but this is a, when you know better, you do better. And I'm not saying it's easy, but I am saying that these things do have outcomes and we ha we can't just pretend that they don't exist.
[00:07:57] Um, so one of my closest friends actually sent me a text. Like in the fall, I've been, I've been kind of sitting on this episode for a really long time. Um, and if you're listening, you'll know who you are. Um, and just kind of sharing like kind of a frustrating situation that she saw her son eating like this Oreo ice cream concoction.
[00:08:17] And it was hard for her not to say like, oh my God, like there's so much sugar, there's so many calories. Don't eat that. She didn't, she held back, but it was like really bubbling up with her. She's like, I, I don't know what to do. Like how do I deal with this? Like, What's, how, how do I approach this? I have a l.
[00:08:33] She has a lot of her own past, um, and eating disorder and disordered eating, and has come a long way from that and feels really comfortable around food now. But this stuff still, it can be very triggering and can bring up a lot for us. And so I wanted to offer today some skills which are skills that you're, you use for yourself, but that you can also start talking to your kids about really at any age.
[00:08:57] Some of these are appropriate for like really little kids, and by little I mean probably like. Two, three, um, when you're able to kind of like engage with them in some form of like a conversation. Um, and the first thing, and I, and I kind of started talking about this but then went off on this tangent around like what we say to our kids to try to get them to eat and it's well-meaning, but actually can be harmful, is again, we need to teach our kids about food we don't like.
[00:09:25] And, and teaching them again is not like eat three more bites and you don't get dessert unless you eat. Unless you finish your cleaning your plate or whatever. Again, that's another thing. I have so many clients who like grew up on the quote, clean plate club, right? You have to finish your plate again when you're being forced to do that.
[00:09:40] It's like, well, what if you're full and then you're being forced to eat that or forced to eat foods you don't like? Um, it's, there's so much that stems from this. Um, but just teaching kids the basics around nutrition. This food has protein. This food, food has carbs. This food has fat. This food has lots of nutrition in it.
[00:09:59] This food doesn't have a lot of nutrition in it. This is really basic and yes, you can talk about calories. We, if you have had a disordered relationship with food, you are somewhat traumatized by calories, and I totally get it. I've talked about this before. I have a whole podcast episode about this. I'll try to link it.
[00:10:18] Calories are a unit of energy. They are science and we have to accept that they exist. Our bodies, our human bodies evolved over. Millions of years to need calories to survive, right? We need to eat food to survive. It's obviously much more complex than that, but at a very kind of primitive, primal level, we have to eat calories.
[00:10:38] It's perfectly fine for your kids to understand what calories are. What we don't wanna do is start to place judgment on food because this food has more calories and this food has less calories, and the food that has less calories is better than the food that has more calories. That's. That's where we start to get into that kind of messy territory.
[00:10:55] You just want your kids to understand calories are a unit of energy. Our bodies need, need energy to grow and thrive and, and be happy and be strong. And it can be that simple. And we can get calories from really nutritious foods, and we can also get calorie calories from less nutritious foods. And they both have a place.
[00:11:12] And Right. There's no judgment here on good or bad. You are approaching this from a very objective, factual place, and you can just talk to your kids about this, like while you're cooking dinner or while you're getting takeout or while you're getting fast food, right? This isn't like a, oh, we have to have like a really healthy meal in order to talk about this.
[00:11:31] No, you can talk about this at any time. And that kinda leads me into two of the most useful, I think. I'm just gonna say useful skills around this. And again, these are skills for you too. Moms, aunts, grandmas mother, like figures. If you have a kid in your life, this is relevant to you. Um, foods have jobs.
[00:11:56] You've heard me talk about this before. This is, these are not skills specific to kids, but they are appropriate for kids. Some skills are just, it's beyond them. This is not foods have jobs, right? We gotta choose the right food to the right job. When you are hungry. That's the job. We gotta fill hunger. We need foods that are gonna fill hunger.
[00:12:12] What foods fill? Hunger, proteins, carbs with lots of fiber and nutritious fats. They're gonna fill hunger. What's not gonna fill Hunger? Less nutritious foods like cookies, chips, pretzels, snacky type foods are not gonna fill hunger. Those have a different role. Very simple. And if you want kind of a snacky type food, let's say you like really want something sweet like you're ha, you want desserts.
[00:12:38] And you try to have something that doesn't fit that job. Like a lot of times we will think, oh, have like a healthy dessert and have a piece of fruit. Well, if you really want like chocolate or a cookie, that fruit's not gonna do the job. And this will show up, right? So then you're not, you're not choosing, you're choosing a food that's meant for another job, right?
[00:12:56] An apple can sometimes, it definitely, you know, is sweet and crunchy, but if you really want dessert, you don't want an apple, right? You want a brownie or a cookie, or ice cream or cake, or whatever it is. Gotta choose the right food for the right job. It's not about foods being good or bad. It's not even about foods being healthy or unhealthy.
[00:13:13] It's about matching up the right food for the right job. Just like you wouldn't hire someone who didn't have the qualifications to do a job that you needed to at your company, you wouldn't pick a food that didn't have those qualifications to do that job. You're gonna end up in a shitty situation. Okay.
[00:13:28] I think I, I love this analogy is, I think so useful and I think it's such an easy thing to explain to kids. And you can be working on that too as you explain it to them. You couldn't even share like, you know what I'm, I'm learning how to think about food like in this new way and it's kind of fun and I thought I would share it with you.
[00:13:45] Like it can be really simple. You don't have to be like a pro at it. You're a parent just figuring it out. Right? This isn't in the parent handbook that they didn't give you at the hospital. Um, and the second skill around this is, and I kind of just mentioned this, is not using the words healthy and unhealthy around food.
[00:14:04] Because that is a very reductionist view, and it doesn't take into consideration that health is not just about the types of foods that we eat. Health is a 360 degree. Um, Experience of kind of being alive, and you can eat non-nutritious foods and be a healthy person. In fact, most people need to eat non-nutritious foods in order to be healthy, otherwise it's gonna impact their mental health.
[00:14:30] So just simply starting to use the words, this food is really nutritious or has a lot of nutrition, this food is less nutritious or doesn't have a lot of nutrition. Instead of healthy or unhealthy. It's very simple, and that will start to change the way that A, you think about food for sure. It will start to give your kids a different framework.
[00:14:49] Eating a candy bar isn't inherently unhealthy. It doesn't have nutrition in it if you're choosing that food for the right job. That's healthy, that's a healthy behavior. If you think that candy bars are bad or they are junk food, that's another, that's another term that has a lot of connotations associated with it.
[00:15:10] Um, then you think about it as being bad. There starts to be guilt. You know, kids don't, when, when kids like steal or sneak food, they're not sneaking like broccoli and fruit and, you know, carrots, they're sneaking. The less nutritious stuff, the stuff that you've labeled, that we've labeled as junk food or as bad, or only for special occasions, the stuff we have put scarcity around.
[00:15:36] So starting to just as we look at food, some foods are really nutritious, some foods are not. That's it. Start to talk about food in that way. Not, oh, this is really healthy and that's really unhealthy. Because you can eat foods that we traditionally think of as unhealthy, that are actually just not nutritious, and they can be healthy again.
[00:15:59] Like here's like a great example. It's your kid's birthday and you have kind of always treated desserts as like a special occasion, right? Or we only have desserts on the weekends, or we only have desserts on birthdays, right? So on that day, your, you let your kid have cake because it's their birthday. So I think I'm like losing my train of thought and explaining this.
[00:16:25] Sorry guys. Um, but you've labeled that food unhealthy on that day. You let them have this unhealthy food, but every other day, right? They're not allowed to have it. So it starts to bring up, well, is this food, is this a bad food that I'm only allowed to ate? It's this bad thing and mommy's letting me have this bad thing today just cuz it's my birthday.
[00:16:47] So that then if they, then they wanna have cake on any other time, they feel guilt around, this is a bad food. I'm only allowed to have this food on special occasions. This is an unhealthy food, right? Instead of, this is a less nutritious food and a more nutritious food. And I understand this goes, this goes, this is like the sister too.
[00:17:04] What are the jobs of foods? Nutritious foods do the job of filling hunger and being most of what I eat because I wanna be strong and I wanna grow and I wanna feel good in my body. And less nutritious foods are fun foods when I wanna have dessert or, um, you know, after a meal or, you know, sometimes I'm just in the mood for something like, Sweet or, or salty or crunchy or whatever it is.
[00:17:29] Right? And, and again, these skills, there's definitely a spectrum with, with different age groups. Um, as kids get older and they have more awareness around foods, some of these things you can definitely talk about the jobs of foods. And I think you can talk about nutritious, um, versus a non-nutritious, just start using that language around your littler kids as kids get older, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
[00:17:52] And then certainly once they're into like. You know, tweens, they're already exposed to all of this, right? Um, you could, these conversations can become more nuanced. So obviously use your judgment about like what your, where your kid's brain is at and what they can understand. Um, by, keep in mind that outside of your home, they are hearing all the things I'm talking about.
[00:18:15] And again, at school it's coming. Well meaning if they go to friend's houses, they're gonna hear things like I have had be, I've had friends of Bens come over who aren't allowed to have sweets on their house, and they have rated our pantry. It has happened many times. Many times. So if you are withholding sweetss from your kids at home, For well-intentioned reasons.
[00:18:35] Again, I'm not saying this with judgment, just know that they're gonna go somewhere else and they're gonna find it, and it starts to create this really all or nothing relationship. I'm not allowed to have this at home, so I have to eat as much of it as I can when my mom isn't around. So giving your kids access to these foods on a regular basis is super important.
[00:18:54] It is. I think one of the most important things that you can do doesn't have to be everything, doesn't have to be every variety of non-nutritious food under the sun, but some things, a couple of things I. Ha. Giving your kids access to those things so that they don't think it's only for special occasions that they don't think that I can only get this when I go to a friend's house, or I can only eat this when my mom isn't around, or where my mom doesn't know.
[00:19:18] Right. Think about the relationship that that starts to build, like the lack of trust there in themselves, and then how they feel. Essentially like lying to you as the mom, that's gonna feel really crappy for them too. Um, there's, there's, there's a lot. There's actually as I was like, oh, this is gonna be a short episode, and I'm like, oh my God, this could turn into like a two hour thing here.
[00:19:39] I don't, I don't want that to happen cause I really wanna stay focused on these specific skills. Um, but if anything, I hope this starts to just create some awareness around the language that they're using. And the way you're approaching this and again, knowing you are doing the best job that you can.
[00:19:58] Maybe you've never even like thought about this before. Maybe you never realized it. Fine. Now you've heard this. When you know better, you can do better bit by bit. Little small changes. Doesn't have to be overnight. Cause I know it's uncomfortable and I know there's thoughts. Well, if I have cookies in the house, my kid is just gonna eat them all.
[00:20:15] Well, we can apply structure around things. Same things I talk about for adults. You take out two cookies, you put them on the napkin, you sit at the table, you don't eat them while you're watching your iPad, right? Maybe you sit with your kid and you say, oh, those cookies look so good. Like, what's your favorite part about them?
[00:20:29] What does it taste like? Are they crunchy? Like, you know, just start to get them paying attention to their food. The very skills that we're trying to learn as adults. They're a lot easier to learn as kids. You know? And this kind of leads me into. Kind of my last two points I wanted to talk about, but start getting your kids to pay attention to how certain foods make them feel.
[00:20:51] This goes back to the foods have jobs, right, and to the nutritious versus less nutritious. If you make a really nutritious meal for dinner and you ask your kids to notice, How do they feel afterwards? Do they feel full? Do they feel satisfied? Do they enjoy it? Versus when they eat something that's maybe less nutritious, they might feel less full.
[00:21:12] They might feel hungry afterwards. You might notice that they're asking you for snacks more frequently. This is more, I think, appropriate for getting into older kids. I think you can definitely talk to your two and three year olds about like, do you feel photos of your belly feel full right now? Um, but getting some of the more nuanced stuff is definitely gonna be appropriate for older kids.
[00:21:32] I think older, you know, middle, older, elementary school, and then once you hit middle school, like this is all fair game because they're being exposed to it everywhere. Um, but just starting to teach them to check in and pay attention. And you can do that. You can lead by example. You can say, oh wow, like, There's still a lot of food left on my plate, but I feel really full right now.
[00:21:52] Right. So that they know they don't have to finish their plate or, you know what, I think I'm still a little bit hungry. I'll have a couple more bites and then, you know, maybe I'll see like how I feel or like, oh my gosh, we had so many vegetables tonight. They're really filling in my belly. Or, um, you know what?
[00:22:06] Like these chips are delicious. They're so crunchy, but they're not super filling. I might need to eat something else with it. There's so many ways that you can just start to. Um, inject this language. It doesn't have to be like a sit down lesson. It can just be like a lead by example model, the behavior that you want them to have.
[00:22:25] Um, and the, the upside is that this is all positive stuff for you too, right? So it's like the double benefit of your working on your own relationship with food, and then your kids are starting. To pick up on that. I will tell you it's very different. D very difficult to not pass on this stuff to your kids if you're not working on it yourself.
[00:22:47] And I have worked, I have wor done some one-on-one coaching work with clients specifically about this, um, whose kids, older kids, like, like tween teens, have started to have some really disordered eating behaviors and the moms have identified, known that it is in part because of certain things they did.
[00:23:07] Well-meaning, well-intentioned didn't know, but now it has to be addressed, right? And so part of that work was helping the mom to work on some skills and really modeling that, not so overtly teaching like a 13 year old, because they're smart and they're gonna know what you're doing. So it's, you know, what's the behavior that you are modeling?
[00:23:27] Um, so I'm not sitting here and telling you this is super easy. The younger your kids are, the easier it's going to be. Definitely. But is never too late. It's never too late. Cuz even with your older kids, you can say them look like. I realize now looking back that I probably talked about food in some ways that weren't really helpful.
[00:23:45] And I'm sorry I didn't know about her and I'm trying to work on it now. This is an older kid. This is like a, you know, teenager even maybe a little bit younger. Your own judgment. Not like a three year old. Um, but just, you know, It's never too late. Um, and the last thing I wanted to mention is this is more about the body image piece, right?
[00:24:07] So I really talked exclusively about food itself and the language we use around food. I'm just gonna recap it. Foods have jobs. How are you lining up the right food for the right job? You talking about food not as healthy or unhealthy, but as nutritious. More nutritious. Less nutritious. Nutritious, or has a lot of nutrition, has less nutrition that connects back to the jobs.
[00:24:29] Being aware of the good bad language around food, calling food, like junk food. That's a word that I would start to try and pull back from. Um, even using the word treats. I had a conversation with a client about this just recently starts to put that scarcity around it. Um, Using like words like dessert, sweets, they're pretty benign, right?
[00:24:50] This is a dessert, this is something sweet. A treat. Puts that exclusivity around it. And having scarcity around food or giving kids a feeling that they can only access foods at very specific certain times can start to then build up that well, now's my chance. Now's my chance. Now's my chance. Um, and so if you are a parent who has.
[00:25:11] Really been like, kind of against or pulled back from having sugar around. I just ask you to think about this and, and, and this is, I'm just gonna leave it at that. Um, and just be really honest with yourself. Again, this is not coming from judgment. I have been there, but if you're not allowing those foods in your home, your kids are getting them somewhere else and just thinking about.
[00:25:40] What does that mean? What type of relationship does that start to foster as kids get older? Um, and thinking about like, you know, how are they, how comfortable are they gonna feel coming to you talking about certain things when. They might feel like the only time they can get certain foods is outta the house and then they feel guilty cuz they know that you don't want them having it.
[00:26:03] And I know, I know it comes from a good place. I just wanna be super clear this, I'm not judging you, but we also have to be honest with ourselves, right? Like sometimes brutally honest. And we are all doing our best as parents and there is no fucking guidebook for this about how to raise a human being. We are all doing our best.
[00:26:21] I get it. And. I'm just sharing from my experience and experience I've seen with clients about ways we can maybe start to shift our thinking around some of this. And a lot of this is generational, right? We're doing what our parents did because they thought they were doing the best. I didn't really talk about that, but there's a lot of generational stuff around food, how we talk about food.
[00:26:43] And so everyone always thinks they're doing their best and they are, they are doing their best in that time, but it doesn't mean there's not opportunity to start to re-look at things and think about how, how can I think about this differently to help myself to help my kid? So yeah, I just wanted to kind of say that.
[00:27:01] And then again, let me just loop back to the last thing I wanted to mention more specifically on body image. How are you as the parent commenting or talking about other people's bodies? Are you doing that? If you are doing that a lot, start to notice it. Can you start to pull back from that? If you are looking at people and saying, oh my God, that woman's really thin, or, oh my God, that person's like really overweight, or, oh my God, like.
[00:27:28] She has no business wearing that or, um, and again, like these are, we, they've all been taught to think this way. I have to do work, right? Sometimes we think things that just come out of our mouth, I get it, you're a human. But when your kids hear you commenting on other people's bodies, whether it's positive or negative, they start to learn, okay, well that's okay.
[00:27:48] And then I seek my validation from what other people think of me. Right? So like, let's say you see a friend, mom, you see a friend, and you're like with, and you're with your kid. You're like, Oh my God, you look fantastic. You lost weight. Your kid hears that and then they think, oh, so it's cool to compliment people on how they look.
[00:28:06] And also losing weight is a good thing and inherently a good thing. Right. And we know it's much more nuanced than that can be. Also, can't be depending on the person in the context. And that we seek our validation from what, how other people see us and the comments they make about our body. I know. When you say that comment, it, it feels harmless and it feels well-meaning, and you're trying to maybe support your friend.
[00:28:31] But we live in a culture where that stuff is so ingrained in us and the our kids are hearing it over and over and over and over again. It starts to a hundred percent wire the way that you are thinking about all of this. And in addition to that, and this is something you probably are already aware of, is how are you talking about your own body in front of your kids?
[00:28:53] Um, That, that sets a huge example. Right? And I know it's so hard, um, working on body image is really challenging and needs a lot of skills. Um, I'm just asking you to start to notice and be aware, right? Um, and it just kind of comes back to one of the most helpful body image skills because this is universal for everyone.
[00:29:24] You would never want your kid to talk to themselves the way that you talk to yourself about your body. Right? That's universal. We all know that. And so that can become a really good check-in, right? I'm not saying you're not gonna have those thoughts. But be aware of how you are voicing them out loud.
[00:29:42] We're coming into summer right now. Be aware of how you're talking about your body in a bathing suit on a beach. Your cellulite, you are how your thighs move, what your belly looks like. Be aware of how you are talking about that. And this is not just about girls, this is about boys. Two A boys have body image issues and B, And boys then learn to see girls in that way.
[00:30:07] If they're hearing that from the parents, right, that they're, this is very complex. This is multi-layered, right? We, we are teaching our kids how to interact, how to see other people with the way that we see ourselves and talk about ourselves. So, If I'm constantly talking about like, oh my God, like I look disgusting.
[00:30:26] My thighs are covered in cellulite, my belly is gross. I can't wear a bathing suit, and Ben hears me say that, then that impacts the way that he sees other people's bodies and the judgment that he then puts on them, right? This isn't about just having a daughter and wanting her not to feel this way about herself.
[00:30:43] This is also about. Even though body image issues can be very different between men and women, this also then impacts how our kids see other people. And this is, I'm not talking about like boys liking girls and heterosexual relationships. This is just about like respect for other human beings, right? This doesn't have to be, um, about anything, like relationships are sexually rated related at all.
[00:31:08] Um, because women do this to each other as. As friends. It, it's, it doesn't, we don't have to, like, I'm probably over complicating it by even mentioning it, but sometimes I feel like I need to like cover all my bases with things. Anyway, this got a little longer than I anticipated because it turned out to be a much more complex topic as I started bringing it up.
[00:31:34] I hope this gives you some food for thought. I hope this gives you some specific skills. Especially around food to start slowly incorporating around your kids and gives you some awareness around the body image piece. Can you start to pull back from voicing some of these things? The thoughts are gonna be in your head, right?
[00:31:52] That's a whole other topic. How do we deal with that? But do they always do those thoughts always have to come out of your mouth in front of your kids, right? Because that is impacting them the way they see things, the way they're thinking about other people, the way they're thinking about their own bodies.
[00:32:07] And all of that. And again, I'm just gonna say one more time, I don't say any of this with judgment. I have been there, I have said things and done things in front of Ben countless times that were not the best that I wish I could, could take back. And I can't because I was doing the best that I could at the time for myself, for him, for not even knowing, realizing stuff about this.
[00:32:30] Um, like him seeing me like. Not eat for two days when I was doing isogenics like, like it blows my mind. And yet he was little, but he still sees it. Why mommy's not eating? Why isn't mommy eating? I can only imagine with the little thoughts in his sweet little brain, right? When we know better, we do better.
[00:32:51] I was just surviving. I was trying to like find my way and. So just know none of this is said with judgment. This is said with empathy. We are all on the same team as parents. We're trying to figure this out together. I'm here to offer resources and support so that you know, you are not alone in trying to figure this out.
[00:33:14] That, you know, I get how hard it is and if you need more support, if you need resources, I'm here. Um, I actually really have loved talking about this with clients. I've. Love doing this episode, even though I know my, sometimes my episodes are a little all over the place, but I really have been trying to kind of tie them back together so you guys have some really specific concrete skills.
[00:33:38] And that's it. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing. The podcast is growing right now, so if you are sharing it with people, I am so, so grateful. Um, I just want to get this resource and support out to as many people as we can. I will be back. Next Monday.