Andrea is a Registered Dietician who is here to talk with me about our relationship to food and teaching our kids a healthy relationship with food

I also had a secret motive in asking her on because I had questions about how to handle food with my kids. I know I’m undoing a lot of cultured rules, how I was raised, my own biases, and I want to be mindful about how I teach my kids, especially my daughter, about the health of food without the food guilt or body shame.  

 

 

In this conversation we will cover:

Common struggles that women have when it comes to their relationship with food

Emotional eating can be a common situation that happens in motherhood

The ‘diet culture’ pressure that moms have to ‘drop the weight’ can lead to restrictive and unsustainable approaches to food

Using food to manage our emotions (my own experience with emotional eating in motherhood)

Using food as a way to control our bodies

 

Healing a heritage of food guilt and body shame

We know enough about attachment to know that our sense of worth and self is shaped by our caregivers

Unpacking the decades of guilt and shame we have adopted

Starting with some basic food plans and dropping all the food rules and restrictions

Seeing the cycle where the more restrictions we give ourselves, the bigger the struggle of cravings and willpower, the stronger the guilt we feel when we eat what we ‘shouldn’t’

Building up trust in your body again

 

The role of being a mom who is managing food for herself and for everyone else

The positive side of emotional eating vs the coping side of emotional eating

Being a role model for our kids when it comes to a healthy relationship with food

Feeding your family a variety of foods and letting go of all or nothing thinking

 

Taking the drama out of feeding our kids

Consider the role you want to have in feeding your kids and the role you want them to learn and become confident in

Anxiety and stress at the dinner table can become counterproductive to the whole dinner experience for the whole family

How we can let our kids branch out on their own when it comes to food preferences

The pitfalls of cooking different people different food items each dinner, becoming a short order cook 

Going through the discomfort of changing the culture of cooking each kid their own foods for each meal 

Using dessert as bribery (food as a reward) and what we might be teaching our kids about the ‘preferred’ foods

 

Getting kids involved in the food preparation and planning

Conversations around balancing meals

Letting each kid design a balanced meal 

 

Parents using food as a reward

Using food as a treat, reward, bond, make the day more ‘fun’

Phasing out the treats and bringing in alternate rewards and treats

Planning out the other things you can turn to that are fun for your family

 

Teaching our kids about a healthy relationship with food

How to have conversations with our kids about food without inducing food shame

Shifting the focus on the functionality of health and food

Using treat restrictions vs no restrictions 

Owning our own relationship with food to create a positive food culture in our family

 

Getting started with shifting your family’s food culture

Start small

Make a plan

Don’t overcomplicate meal prep (use the shortcuts!)

Offer healthy options and let your kids decide how much they eat

Phase-out using food as rewards

 

Find Andrea and Adventures in Feeding my Fam

Andrea’s blueberry and corn salad

Find Andrea on Instagram, listen to her podcast, join her Facebook group (it is a very fun and valuable one!)

 

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Mindful eating for moms