Parents who struggle with food and self-image can inadvertently pass along unhealthy behaviors. Here’s how avoid it.
By Virginia Sole-Smith
Kelly Nichols’s twins were 6 the day she made an “off the cuff” comment about not wanting to eat too many grapes because of their sugar content. “It wasn’t anything disparaging about myself, but definitely with my tone, my daughter could tell I was being critical of food,” said Nichols, who lives in Highland Park, Ill. And when she offered the bowl of grapes to her kids, her daughter responded, “Will it be OK if I have them? You said it was a lot of sugar!”
Nichols stopped in her tracks, hit by the realization that she was passing her complicated relationship with food on to her kids. “I was like, oh man, I’ve been so good about not announcing the really crummy stuff I grew up with, but this snuck in,” she said. “I realized I needed to work harder.”
My own sugary grape moment came when my older daughter was about 18 months old. I was bemoaning the fact that none of my pre-baby jeans fit and said to my husband, “I just don’t like my body right now.” My toddler overheard and started patting herself with delight, announcing, “This is MY body!” I was relieved that she merely seemed pleased to discover that we both had bodies, and hadn’t absorbed my negativity, but I also knew I’d gotten lucky.
[How to teach children about healthy eating, without food shaming.]
Precious few of us show up to parenthood with a glowing relationship with our bodies intact. And for moms, especially, who have been through the physiological ringer of conception, pregnancy and childbirth, the question of how to work through our own body-image and food demons without passing them on to our children can feel especially fraught. One new study by British researchers found that 15.3 percent of women will have had an eating disorder by the time they get pregnant. In an earlier study of 739 moms-to-be, the same researchers found that while only 7.5 percent met criteria for a current eating disorder, nearly one in four reported high levels of concern about their weight and body shape. So how can you manage your own body-image struggles — and protect your kids from inheriting them?
Here’s a reassuring place to start: “The research tells us that what you say matters more than what you do,” said Kendrin Sonneville, Sc.D., R.D., an assistant professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, where she studies eating disorder prevention. In other words, even if you’re dieting or feeling bad about your body, you can insulate your children to a certain extent by making a concerted effort to have a different conversation with them. “Don’t talk about losing weight, don’t label foods as good or bad and do communicate to your children that their body weight is not their worth,” Dr. Sonneville advised. “The words you use really matter.”
This is especially true for how you talk about your child’s body and eating habits. Researchers surveyed 581 parents of children ages 9 to 15 about the different kinds of “fat talk” they used around their kids and then collected data about their children’s weight and relationship with food. They found that 76 percent of the parents denigrated their own bodies in front of their children and 51.5 percent talked more generally about the dangers of obesity, but that 43.6 percent talked about their children’s bodies, taking note of weight gain or commenting on “flabby arms,” for example. And this last group was the most likely to have kids who engaged in binge eating, secretive eating or other disordered behaviors, according to the results published in a 2018 issue of the International Journal of Eating Disorders. “At the very least, don’t comment on your child’s body in a disparaging way,” Dr. Sonneville said.
[Your baby doesn’t need to go Paleo.]
That might sound obvious — after all, who deliberately insults their child? But you might do it inadvertently if your child’s weight or appetite makes you anxious, or if watching his body grow brings up painful memories from your own childhood. “Parents often want to protect their kids from going through what they went through,” explained Rachel Millner, Psy.D., an eating disorder therapist in private practice in Doylestown, Pa. “But often that becomes, ‘If I can control what my kid is doing with food, then they won’t struggle with their body like I have.’”
The American Academy of Pediatrics released a 2016 report advising both parents and pediatricians to avoid discussing weight loss or body size with children. And as I’ve previously reported, putting children on diets may increase their risk for developing an eating disorder in the future. Instead of imparting your body and food anxieties to your children, think of this as an opportunity to teach resilience.
“We don’t want our kids to learn to change themselves anytime they’re teased or feel like they don’t fit in,” Dr. Millner said. “We want them to stand up to that kind of stigma.” You can make a point to show body diversity in the art, books and other media you bring into your home. Even toddlers can start learning that bodies come in different shapes and sizes, all of them equally valuable. And as kids get older, you can start to point out when you encounter body shaming in their books or TV shows and encourage them to rewrite such stories.
You’ll also have to reckon with the fact that even if you keep quiet about your own struggles, your children will notice if you’re swearing off gluten to lose weight while they scarf down cheesy crackers, or if you never wear shorts on the hottest of summer days because you don’t like your legs. “Kids are so perceptive,” Dr. Millner said. “We need to be honest with ourselves and recognize that if we’re dieting, our kids will pick up on that. They may not have the language for it yet, but they’ll know there’s something going on for you with food.”
Avoid statements like, “You’re so lucky you can eat cake, when I’m stuck with these carrot sticks!” It may feel as if you’re giving your kids permission to enjoy their treat, but you’re also reinforcing the message that treats need to be earned, or that eating carrots is a punishment. Instead, try your best to share meals and snacks with your children. And consider whether following a diet that makes it difficult for you to embrace family meals is healthy for you, as a parent and as a person.
[Is mealtime miserable? Try this.]
“If you’re feeling like, ‘I need to hide my diet from my kids,’ maybe what you’re really saying is, ‘I don’t want to do this but I don’t know what else to do,’” said Rebecca Scritchfield, M.A., R.D.N., a registered dietitian nutritionist who offers family counseling in Washington, D.C. “It’s OK to be in a hard place with your body. You don’t have to have all the answers. But if you want your kids to not have such a fraught relationship with pizza, then you need to work on your own relationship with it.”
Scritchfield suggests evaluating any potential diet or workout plan by asking two questions: “In the long run, will this plan allow me to have a flexible, positive and joyful connection to food and movement?” And, “Is this advice I’d happily teach my kids?” If the answers are no, it might be time to reframe your health goals in a kinder, more body-positive light. “Forget calories, and focus on enjoying your food — even the ones you think of as ‘bad,’” Scritchfield advised.
One recent study on intuitive eating found that giving ourselves permission to eat any food resulted in a healthier, more varied diet overall. Similarly, choosing physical activities because you find them genuinely fun tends to result in more regular exercise in the long-term than forcing yourself to do punitive workouts in the name of weight loss. Above all, be as patient with yourself as you are with your child when she’s mastering a new skill. “Most chronic dieters have years of body bashing to unlearn,” Scritchfield said. “Allow time to learn and grow.”
Virginia Sole-Smith is the author of “The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America,” and co-host of the Comfort Food Podcast.