Towards the end of this past school year I got an email from our PTA asking everyone to take a survey about a new “healthy eating” initiative they were wanting to implement. And, of course, given that I’m a dietitian and I can already see the red flags all over this type of thing, I enthusiastically took the survey. 

 

And I understand that the heart and intention behind this is good. These people are wanting to help the kiddos be as healthy as they can be. But what people don’t understand is the risk and harm that these types of programs actually cause. 

 

Research tells us that negative body image often leads to dieting, and that dieting is the #1 risk factor for two things: 

1. Dieting is the #1 risk factor for a kid developing an eating disorder
2. Dieting the #1 predictor of a kid gaining weight above and beyond their growth curve (so basically gaining more weight than their body is meant to). 

 

So anything that we are saying or doing with kids that pushes them towards dieting thoughts and behaviors is extremely risky in terms of their physical and mental health. 

 

And I know this is confusing to people, because they’re like, “Well, Katy, the healthy eating program isn’t recommending dieting. It’s just recommending healthy eating, and we need to teach our kids about healthy eating.” (And usually the unspoken elephant in the room is that people feel they have to teach “healthy eating” so that kids don't get fat. And there’s the fat phobia and anti-fat bias that shows up in our kids’ lives at such a young age.)

 

I totally empathize with and understand why you wouldn’t want your kids to get fat. Especially if you’ve struggled with weight and body image yourself. It’s a really awful and traumatic experience to be a fat person in our society that hates fat people so much. There are so many ways that we openly criticize and shame fat people. And there are really subtle ways that people in larger bodies are shown that they aren’t acceptable. It’s really overt AND covert. And of course you wouldn’t want your kids to have to deal with that.

 

This is where I see well-intended parents sometimes getting tripped up and inadvertently passing on their own body image and food struggles to their kids – and ironically this often happens when the parents are actually trying NOT to pass these struggles on. They are trying to HELP their kids not deal with these issues. 

And this is the core topic of this episode today: how to avoid passing on your food and body stuff to your kids, and how to help your kids have a positive body image and a good relationship with food. I can't wait for you to listen!

 

Key Quotes

“Focus on your own internal work first and heal your own relationship with food in your body, because that's going to be the foundation and that's going to take time.” - Katy Harvey

“Don't be afraid to enlist the support and guidance of a professional either for yourself or for your kids.”  - Katy Harvey

 

JOIN the waitlist for Non-Diet Academy! Feel worthy at any size, and to live a life of total freedom!

https://www.nondietacademy.com 

 

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Website: https://katyharvey.net 

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