How to Help Your Daughter Have a Healthy Relationship with Food
I recently hosted some amazing girls and their mothers at my Empower your Daughter: a Body Positive Nutrition and Cooking class. Being able to provide a space for these girls to have fun with their moms, create positive memories around food, and discuss that their worth goes far beyond what they weight or what they look like is possibly my favorite part of my job.
Not only did we make some amazing pineapple and avocado salsa AND homemade pasta we also were able to connect over an activity inspired by the #iweigh movement. I asked each of the girls to create a collage of images and words of who they are (mine is below) that illustrates of what makes them special. Every day women subliminally or directly receive messages that pretty and thin is the ideal and not reaching those ideals is less than. In my opinion that message is crap. We can still care about our appearance of course and want to be pretty but I think we should also raise our girls to be pretty kind, pretty strong, pretty fierce, pretty resilient, and pretty smart. Hopefully, the activity the girls did will be just one of many opportunities they have to think about how they are valuable, strong, amazing people and are much more that just their appearance or the flesh on their bones.
In light of this class I want to share some other tips on how to empower your daughter and change the way we approach food and our bodies because we all have that memory. You know, the one that you can think back to and remember, ‘oh, that’s the moment I learned that I wasn’t supposed to like my body.’ The memory is different for everyone; it may be a comment from a relative or friend or something you saw in an ad or TV. The moment is different for all but the common thread is the same. It made us feel like the way we had been living in our bodies was wrong and we should do something to change or control that. Let’s do something now to change the way we think about ourselves and to help our daughters build up a natural immunity to our body obsessed society so even if they do have that ‘moment’ they can realize that it’s bullshit and they are wonderful they way they are.
1. Spoken and unspoken communication
There is power in what we say. There is power in what we do. You may not directly tell your daughter that she shouldn’t eat something or comment on her weight but comments about your own appearance and body or the way you treat your body can be just as impactful. This can be difficult to move away from because it is almost hardwired into our brains. Think of how many times you’ve said ‘ugh I feel so gross today’ or ‘I’m going to need to run off this cupcake’ or ‘You look great, have you lost weight?’.
Studies have shown that the more frequently someone participated in ‘fat talk’ (conversations about what their eating and exercise habits should be, their concerns of becoming overweight, how they perceived their own weight and shape) the lower their body satisfaction became and the higher their level of depression became after three weeks. Studies have also found that ‘fat talk’ by mothers is significantly correlated with ‘fat talk’ by their daughters and associated with daughter’s negative body image.
Body positive talk does not mean you have to all of a sudden start talking about your body in a positive light all the time around your kids but it can be simple enough to acknowledge that you feel good in your body and you are okay with it.
Indirect communication can also be very powerful. Model healthy habits like being physically active, enjoying a wide variety of foods, and appreciating what your body can do for you. This can be as simple as participating is regular family meals and modeling what it would look like to allow yourself to enjoy food and nourish your body well.
2. How to approach junk food
Diet culture tells us that there are good foods and there are bad foods and that we shouldn’t be eating the bad foods. This approach sets everyone up for failure. It teaches that we need to choose foods based on their category or morality not based on what our bodies are telling us. Eating can become stressful and lead to guilt and shame. As Brene Brown puts it the difference between shame and guilt is that guilt means ‘I did something bad’ and shame means ‘I am bad’- neither of those things should be associated with what you choose to eat!!
By forbidding ‘bad’ food from your home it increases your daughters preference for them and the likely hood to binge on them when they have the opportunity. Create a home environment that has a variety of foods from broccoli to tater tots to ice cream.
Now, obviously as a dietitian I am not saying that nutrient dense foods don’t matter. It is still important to have plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables in your home. In fact studies have show that the level of availability and accessibility of fruits and vegetables in the home is positively correlated with children’s preferences for these foods and level of consumption.
So stock your pantry well with a wide variety of foods, teach your daughter how to make meals from a wide variety of foods, and approach food as neutral with no good or bad qualifiers.
3. Disband the clean plate club
We are all born intuitive eaters, through external stimuli we often unlearn how to trust our bodies. Intuitive eaters fully trust their body’s wisdom and eat according to its hunger, fullness, and satisfaction cues, without guilt, rules, or restriction. Intuitive eating approaches have been found to positively impact eating habits, body image, self esteem, psychological health, and quality of life.
The clean plate club is pretty much the opposite of intuitive eating. It’s saying ignore all your bodily senses and eat everything that is in front of you. Obviously parents are doing this because they love their children and want to make sure they are getting all the nutrition they need but in the long run it may be doing more harm than good. This study found child feeding practices that are not responsive to children’s internal cues of hunger and fullness can override a child’s innate ability to self-regulate energy intake. Non-responsive or controlling feeding practices (CFP) include pressuring children to eat healthy foods, restricting unhealthy foods, praising children for finishing their food (clean plate), and offering energy-dense foods as a reward for consuming nutrient-dense foods.
Feeding methods like the clean plate club have been associated with negative child outcomes such as increased consumption of sugar sweetened beverages, palatable snack foods, and calorie-dense food items; lowered self-regulation of caloric intake.
Using Ellyn Satter’s division of responsibility is a great place to start moving away from the clean plate club and towards a feeding style that fosters intuitive eating. For more info on what that means check out a previous blog post.
4. What about social media
Social media is a double edge sword. On one hand you can establish connections globally, it’s available 24/7, it can be used to promote awareness like National Eating Disorder Week, and it allows people to tell their stories. On the other hand, it my be isolating, sources shared are not always reliable, it creates a comparison mentality, and the mis-information (especially about nutrition) is rampant.
I don’t think I really need to share the statistics that social media use in teens has a strong correlation with decreased body image issues and lower confidence as many of you probably already know this. What is important to note is that parameters and conversations to be had on this topic. Some suggestions are to schedule times throughout the week that your daughter is able to get on social media sites, making a no bedroom or dinner table rule, and encouraging open communication.
Also stressing the fact that you have power over your own feed and your can curate it so you are seeing images that are helpful and promote body love or are reliable sources. For some ideas on who/what account are great follows check out who I am currently following @tastybalancedietitian.
For more information on topic discussed in this post check out the following:
