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How To Talk To Kids About Food And Body Image
6.6k Plays1 month ago
In this heartfelt and thought-provoking episode, hosts Scott and Jess explore the complex relationship between food, parenting, and childhood development. Inspired by a viral social media post about body image and food messaging, they explore how parents can foster healthy relationships with food by focusing on family rituals, mindful eating, and meaningful connection rather than restriction.
Jess and Scott share personal experiences, including their own family dinner traditions and weekend donut rituals. They reveal how food struggles often point to unmet relational needs and offer practical ways to approach these challenges with empathy and understanding.
Some important topics discussed in the episode include:
- Food as Connection: Discover how food issues often reflect underlying relationship dynamics.
- Positive Memories: Learn how to create meaningful rituals that build healthy associations with food.
- Mindful Eating: Equip your children with tools to develop a balanced and intuitive approach to eating.
This episode offers valuable insights for parents looking to nurture a happy, healthy attitude toward food in their families.
Get 10% OFF parenting courses and kids' printable activities at Nurtured First using the code ROBOTUNICORN.
We’d love to hear from you! Have questions you want us to answer on Robot Unicorn? Send us an email: podcast@robotunicorn.net.
Learn more about the Solving Bedtime Battles course here.
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Transcript
Introduction and Kindness Reflection
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Robot Unicorn. We are so glad that you are here.
00:00:14
Speaker
Are you ready to use your kind words with me this afternoon? I was a little grumpy with Scott this morning. You don't say. You don't talk about it? No. No, it's okay.
Stress and Anger Management
00:00:26
Speaker
I woke up in a bad mood this morning and I think we've mentioned to you that we're moving and I just woke up and I was looking around the house and just everything was everywhere. The boxes were all over the place and for some reason it just filled me with a rage that could only come out at my husband.
00:00:48
Speaker
and filled you with a rage that needed to be expressed because that's not how you described it to me before but annoyance I thought you said it was a moment of panic pi Well, yeah. Okay. But that panic came out as rage. The panic turned into rage. Oh, I see. Yes. Okay. Right. I was panicking because we had stuff everywhere and then it turned into anger towards Scott, which he did handle with grace. And then I realized later that it was just misdirected, maybe anxiety around moving. And then I apologized to Scott and said, I'm sorry for being a grump towards you this morning. And he forgave me in full. Actually hasn't he hasn't said that yet. I'm manifesting that.
00:01:25
Speaker
ah Is that what you're looking for? Forgiveness. Can you forgive me, please? Sure. I guess. What's in it for me? Is that toxic? Does that what you want to talk about? No, we did forgive each other. I forgive Scott. Forgive me for. I forgive Scott for doing nothing wrong and just simply existing as a man in my house. And you forgave me for being really rude to you for no reason. And that's sometimes marriage. And now we're recording a podcast together. Hopefully you can be kinder to me when you're speaking with me during this episode. And I just want to say, what I mean to you, it's not even that I was that mean. It's just that I had a certain attitude towards everything that was happening in the house. It's not like I would have said anything specifically rude to you. No, just treated me with rudeness. Yeah, yeah. So you didn't say anything rudest. Just the overall demeanor was giving rude. Yes, yes. Was giving rude. Exactly.
00:02:23
Speaker
Anyway, clearly we've surpassed it. That is honestly the one thing I do love about this show is I feel like we're so honest. if If we had a rough morning, then we're just going to share that. If we're in a jokey, happy mood, then we'll share that. But that's marriage. That's... How far can I push it today?
00:02:40
Speaker
ah We'll find out. Okay. We wanted to talk about a post today. It's a post that I wrote last weekend and is really heading home with a lot of people in different ways.
Body Image and Personal Reflection
00:02:52
Speaker
And I felt very passionate about the message in the post and I read it to Scott and he had said he had some thoughts. Did you read it to me? Yeah, I read it to you when we were talking about what podcast we wanted to talk about today.
00:03:03
Speaker
I think you only read the comments. I don't know that you read the actual. Oh, okay. So maybe I didn't read the full post. So I was kind of hoping that you could just read the post to me without too much prefacing. And then I could say what I think you meant to say and also possible ah ways people interpreted it. Okay.
00:03:21
Speaker
I'm really excited. Imagine being seven. Your clothes feel a bit tight. You tell your mom they don't fit. She tells you it's because you've been eating too many treats. Mom tells you that when you eat too many treats, you start getting fat. She noticed that your belly is getting bigger. She tells you to eat less sugar and that she'll make you eggs instead of cereal.
00:03:40
Speaker
For the first time in your life, you notice your body. Growing out of your clothes is no longer a sign of getting older, it's a sign of getting fat. At the young age of 7, you listen to your mom. Only you love sugary treats, so now you only eat them when you know she isn't looking. Now you're 14. You're out of sleepover looking through a magazine with your friend.
00:03:59
Speaker
You notice how a girl in the magazine doesn't have what mom calls chub on her body. You want to look like her. For the next 20 years, you focus on staying thin. You try to remind yourself that sugar is bad. And when you mess up and eat it, you feel so angry at yourself. You spend hours staring at your body. You want to make sure that it's perfect and it never is. Now you're 34. You've spent your whole life at war with your body. You have a daughter now. She's seven. She looks in the mirror. She tells you her clothes don't fit. What do you say?
00:04:29
Speaker
It's in these moments where we have a choice. We can choose to break the cycle, to say something different, and to save ourselves from years of hurt. Or we can repeat the same patterns that were given to us. What do you choose? You decide to look at your daughter and say, your clothes don't fit, let's get you some new ones. You don't comment on her body. You start to heal your own relationship with food. And as you do, you realize that food wasn't the issue after all.
00:04:55
Speaker
Your issues with food were about your own deep need to feel seen, loved, accepted, and worthy from your parents and society. It wasn't about the food. Your daughter won't have to go through the same pain because the cycle stops here. She is worthy as she is, just like you were at age seven, and you still are today. Can I say it? Profound.
00:05:15
Speaker
profound health There it is. I feel like you can hear the passion in my voice. like i yeah I loved that post. It hit close to home. It wasn't my story. oh It's not my story. I just want to clarify that. It actually was inspired because I was doing weekend polls on Nurtured First. And one of the polls was about, did you grow up being told you were fat? And so I had a whole bunch of women in my DMs just kind of talking about that. And of course, some of these pieces are my experience, like you know being 14, looking at magazines, that type of thing. but It was kind of based on the collective experience of women in the 80s and 90s growing up being told that having any kind of anything on your body is not good and you need to be as skinny as possible. So I think a lot of us have unhealthy relationships with food and that we don't want to pass that on to our kids and that was really the inspiration. But tell me what you think people took away from that post.
00:06:07
Speaker
Well, I feel like I know what you were trying to get at.
Debate on Sugar and Obesity
00:06:10
Speaker
So I can understand that you're trying to help people through their own issues with body image and food and whatever. So I get that part of it. I understand that to be honest, the way you read it, it's a little bit more challenging for me to to see how people took that the wrong way. That's why I wanted to read it in my voice. Yeah, but people are not reading it in your voice yeah necessarily or rarely if ever. So I could foresee how people would take certain things out of context, whether or not they read the whole thing too. That's another big thing on Instagram. People often will comment without having actually read the whole thing. They'll see like a single slide of your 10 image carousel or something like that in common. So I can foresee a lot of parents saying, but candy and sugary treats are unhealthy. Yeah. I think that is definitely missing the point of what you said there. So so my comment section became a place of saying that we have an obesity crisis and children are eating more treats than ever before. and children need to be better at not eating so many treats and that sugar is bad and that children need to learn that sugar is bad. And it became a place of anger in the comments on both sides. Some people resonating completely with the story and understanding it and a lot of people being like, yeah, but kids need to know that sugar is bad. So
00:07:28
Speaker
it became this bigger conversation about obesity, about overeating, about sugar, about the way we talk about food to our kids. And a lot of people still relating to the mom in the story who told her kid that they're getting fad and that they should stop eating treats. So it seems like even though I wrote that imagining parents in like the eighties and nineties saying that, cause that was more common than it seems like that is still very common and something that a lot of parents are still telling their kids and that was concerning to me and that's kind of why I wanted to talk about it today. Yeah, I mean this is how we always talk about things but there's a lot of area in between saying you can have whatever you want to eat and actually what you're eating is completely terrible for you and you're getting fat and you need to stop. There's a lot in between or maybe not even in between maybe it's completely different but the way I've talked about it with our oldest two daughters is, yeah, sugar is not the best for you. And I explained that a lot of our favorite foods and the things that we like the most, especially because they're my kids, are incredibly sugary. Scott loves treats. I do love treats. It's a problem. We should have had some Halloween candy out today. I know we should. We have so much at home right now.
00:08:34
Speaker
But what I've explained to them is food acts like a fuel source for your body. So I didn't use necessarily those terms, but the way I explain it to them is food is fuel for your body and for your brain. And while you're at school, let's say, or at home doing things, so eating healthier foods like fruits and vegetables.
00:08:54
Speaker
and meats and like the basic food will help you learn better at school. It'll help you be more energetic on the playground and be able to run around more and it'll be able to do all these things. And let's say the candies and treats, they might have similar properties to some of those foods. Like they'll give you that energy boost, but the way the energy is metabolized in your body causes you you to crash quickly and want more of that so that you can keep up that energy. So I tried to explain it in very simple terms to them that there's certain foods that help fuel your body and keep you energetic throughout the whole day, help you sleep better at night, like and overall are just better for you as a human growing up than some of these treats. But it doesn't mean you can't have any treats. I don't know. A lot of people that I know have been told that
00:09:48
Speaker
sugar, candy, whatever is so terrible for you and then they hate themselves after they eat it. Yeah. Which, is that really the point? Because the thing is, our brains, our bodies have developed or evolved or whatever into wanting as many calories as possible so that we can survive. So it makes sense that we're just going to want to have those things that are quote-unquote unhealthy. Yeah. So then, to me, it's more logical to have that healthy relationship with those unhealthy foods.
00:10:18
Speaker
I agree with you completely. I think we've really been mindful of the way that we approach the food conversations with our kids, just based on our own different experiences as children with food. Me as like yeah a woman who I'm sure so many people resonate with my experiences, right? Like just growing up in a society that, especially in the eighties and nineties, like anyone you saw that was like on a magazine cover was completely skin and bones and like that. Do you think it's that different now? I mean, maybe a little bit. It's progressing potentially on the right, I don't know.
00:10:47
Speaker
There might be a progression in the right direction, but we still have a long ways to go. I kind of wanted to read because I want to get your thoughts on this. So I wrote that post, right? And then I told you that a lot of people were mad because sugar is bad. And this mom's just doing the best she can. Like kids should have an egg instead of cereal. Cereal is not good. It became a whole debate on cereal, which I mean, we feed our kids cereal every day. So, um,
00:11:13
Speaker
Oh, really? and Now you're gonna get us... Don't cancel us, please. Kids love some Honey Nut Cheerios in the morning. A sugary cereal, really, Jess? So then I really sat, for two days, I sat on people's comments to that post. yeah And I thought about food is so much more than just food, right? It's it's so much more than just you're eating a ah candy bar. like Food can be profound. There can be...
00:11:37
Speaker
something deeper. So I really sat on this and I wanted to write out my thoughts, which I've never done before on Instagram, on the way we teach our kids about food. So I wrote another follow up post, but this post was about imagine being seven and your mom wants to help you create a healthy relationship with food. So I shared some of the things that mom could do, but I wanted to get your thoughts to see what you think. Have you posted this already? It's already posted. Yeah. Let me guess. It's probably not as popular as the other one. It's not as popular. Go figure. But it still did pretty well.
00:12:04
Speaker
Okay. But not not nearly as popular. People love
Building Healthy Food Relationships
00:12:08
Speaker
debating online. People like to debate. But I personally did not want this post to be missed because I felt like it is one of the more important ones I've done. But I wanted to get your thoughts as a dad and just see if this is how you would talk about food. Here's the post in response to the controversial post.
00:12:21
Speaker
Imagine being seven. Your mom wants you to create a healthy relationship with food in your body. She knows that having a healthy relationship with food in your body is about so much more than just avoiding sugar. Your mom prioritizes family dinners. Before dinner, you say something you're grateful for. She makes sure your body is calm before you eat. Most of the time, mom tries to make sure that dinner isn't eaten in front of a screen unless it's Friday night.
00:12:45
Speaker
This is movie night, a ritual your entire family looks forward to. Mom takes the lead on what is served for dinner. She always makes sure there's something you like on your plate, but she also offers you other options. She chooses the menu, you choose what you eat. Mom models her own healthy eating habits. She talks about food with respect and care. She talks to you about her favorite meals and you make them together. Every Saturday morning, you walk with mom, in our case this is actually with Scott, to the bakery down the road and get donuts.
00:13:14
Speaker
The smell of the cinnamon spice will remind you of your childhood for years to come. Donuts will remind you of your walk to the bakery and the time spent with your family. You sometimes see mom look at her body in the mirror and smile. When she's feeling fancy, she'll wear lipstick and perfume. You love the smell and how fancy she looks with lipstick on.
00:13:31
Speaker
Mom tells you the story of the food that you're eating. For example, when you eat apple pie at grandma's, she tells you how she loves her mom's recipe. She tells you how she looks forward to the taste and the smell. Eating apple pie is more than just eating food. It's eating a memory and a piece of who mom is. What your mom knows is that creating a healthy relationship with food and body has everything to do with the relationship she has with you. Food issues are often not about sugar, carbs, or picky eating. They are about closeness belonging and being seen.
00:14:00
Speaker
As you grow up, you still love grandma's apple pie, movie and pizza nights on Friday and donuts on Saturday. You also know your body feels good when you feed it veggies, fruit, and protein. You see your food as a gift. It's an honor to consume it. There's wisdom and slowing down to eat it and saying something you are grateful for first. Food is a blessing, not a curse, and there's room for all of it. Cute. That was my follow up post. Yeah, that's nice. Were people still pissed about it?
00:14:23
Speaker
No, they loved it. And I think a lot of people who read that post were like, I've never seen food that way before. And I feel like we're making the problem. This is where my rant comes in about sugar and kids eating too much. And like, that's not the problem. The problem is A, so many food issues are rooted in relationship issues.
00:14:42
Speaker
And I said in my caption to that post, like, I'm not a dietician. So I can't speak to like X amount of protein and X amount of this, right? But all the diet, there's so many dieticians who comment like, Jess, you don't need to be a dietician. What you said is exactly what we would say. You know, it's not about the sugar being the problem. It's about maybe there's a lack of ritual or routine or conversation around why we're eating a treat.
00:15:04
Speaker
Right? Maybe it's not the food, but it's like a lack of routine and like family dinner time and prioritizing like stillness before you eat. Right? We're so rushed and we're hurrying all the time and food has become something that we're just like, even you and I are bad at this. Like we're just racing to do and we're eating without thinking about it. I feel like we've been pretty good recently. We're really good at family dinner time. Yeah.
00:15:24
Speaker
That's one thing that we're really good at. Oh yeah, the other meals, like breakfast and lunch. The other meals we're bad at. Often I miss both and I'm only eating dinner when I'm busy. And even like, we can in general, not just you and I, be bad at like stopping to pause before eating. You know, we're just like, we're rushing. So we're not like, our bodies are not prepared to like consume the food or even, I mean, I think I've referenced this book, but Braiding Sweetgrass, which is like my new ultimate favorite book of all time.
00:15:52
Speaker
It's like we're not seeing a food as a gift. We're not wondering where it came from. Like it's just, it just appears and we just eat it. 100%. And I know this might throw some people off when I say this, but it's something that I've said to our oldest daughter that I think when she's older, she has to understand and potentially Like I'll get my hunting, like my gun license or when we go hunting or something, but she has to actually see where meat comes from because right now it's just like meat just comes from the store. Yeah. But the reality is it's a living animal that has to die in order for you to eat it. And I i just don't think it's fair. I feel like not even that long ago, it was still common to have animals on your property and then you would butcher them and eat them yourself. So you would understand where that came from. But I feel like that's definitely lost for
00:16:39
Speaker
for us and our kids. Like I grew up on a farm. Yeah. So then I would see that. But did you ever see that? Maybe partly. Like I spent a lot of time around farms, but it makes you rethink how much meat then you eat too, because you realize, Hey, this is a living thing. You can't just constantly eat it necessarily. And I, well you could, but you have to actually know where it comes from.
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah, we've lost this like respect, I think, for the food that's in front of us. And food is just like a thing. And it should be so much more than that. And if you look in history, like it has been. like We've been a lot more hands-on in the creation and like the getting ready of food, where it comes from. And now it's just like we can buy it pre-packaged. And that's fine. I'm not saying like we get takeout. Scott and I enjoy takeout quite a bit. yeah So it's not a judgment, but there's been this real calling inside of myself lately to like slow down around meals and be like hey if I want my children to develop a healthy relationship with food it's actually not on them and that was an issue I had with a lot of the comments it's like well kids shouldn't eat sugar kids should know better and kids are making themselves obese it's like actually that's my role as their parent to decide what kind of food is in the house. It's not on the children.
00:17:53
Speaker
It's not on the children. We shouldn't be telling children, you're going to get fat if you eat this. We should be mindful of what we're presenting and the opportunities and how they learn about food through their relationship with us. Right. Maybe you don't want to go here, but how do you think the way you were raised around food has impacted the way that you want to talk about it with our kids? Well, I mean, it's obviously had a significant impact and you know that and because there were in my family some very addictive behaviors with food and obesity and all that. Like it was a mental health issue level. And I probably dealt with a bit of that in like high school, yeah but I think since then, I feel like I've developed a pretty good relationship with food. And I think we've talked about this in another podcast episode, right? Yeah, we can link one of our earliest podcast episodes. We talked about Scott's history with food. Yeah, my relationship specifically with food. And I think, like I said, I feel like it's pretty healthy for the most part, except for the fact that let's say when I'm getting the kids ready for school and I'm busy at work, it'll be sometimes three in the afternoon. I'll realize, hey, I haven't had anything to eat. And I've only had like three or four cups of coffee.
00:18:58
Speaker
Some bottles of water and like that's pretty much it. Yeah, and I realized that I should probably have something to eat now But that's more just I don't know I'm in such a flow of things that it's hard to get out of that sometimes, but I don't know I feel like when we're eating I'll often sit there and try and actually eat and like understand what's inside. I don't know. There's some There's a bit of pride that I have in my ability to pick out different spices and textures and tastes in foods. So maybe I just spend more time trying to do that too, and being mindful of all those different things. I was reflecting on our relationship and one of the first things, so Scott and I started dating, we we were pretty young. And so I was still living at my parents' house at the time and something I have come to be so grateful for about my childhood now that I'm older.
00:19:47
Speaker
is the fact that we had family dinner every night.
Impact of Family Rituals
00:19:50
Speaker
yeah Like without question, family dinner happened every night. It was always a similar routine, right? Like my mom would cook. We'd watch TV while my mom cooked. It was our one hour of screen time a day. My dad would get home. We'd all sit down together at the table and eat.
00:20:05
Speaker
And I think I just took that for granted as a child, that that was such a routine and rhythm of our day. Until I started dating you and I remember that you would often bring that up. Like, oh, I love how your family has meals together. And in hindsight, I'm like, dinnertime was about so much more than we're just sitting here and eating meat and potatoes together, right? I would have that at my grandparents. Like we would sit together and have meal together, but not necessarily at home often.
00:20:29
Speaker
Right, but when dinner time's like a ritual and it's like every night we do this, every night we check in with each other, it becomes so much more about whatever food it is that you're consuming. And it becomes about pausing to take that time to nourish your body and to have conversation. And now, so the wisdom and the family dinner that I grew up with, now we're trying to recreate that. Maybe it looks a little different with our kids, but I feel like maybe six, seven months ago, we both felt really called to like, okay, let's prioritize family dinner. Cause it was a bit crazy.
00:20:58
Speaker
in our house for a time. Yeah. Just with like having baby and stuff like that. It was hard to like all sit together, but we've been trying to do that. And it's been incredible. I think to build on getting easier now that they're a little bit older to actually yeah accomplish that too. It's really hard when you have like a baby and a tiny, tiny toddler, but it's been cool because every night at dinner we're eating. So we eat a meal together, but we're also checking in and it's become more than just the food. Like our four year old likes to dictate the check-in.
00:21:27
Speaker
And it's always like, what's your bestest part of the day? What was your worst part of the day? Or baddest, as she'll say. Yeah, she'll go around almost like playing a day a game of Duck Duck Goose and like tap you on the head if it's your turn.
00:21:41
Speaker
Like daddy, what's your baddest part of the day? And we're eating together, but we're also creating this association that like food is a positive thing. And like when you Scott or his dad will go and get donuts with the kids every single Saturday morning. And I never worry about like the sugar in the donuts. Like there's this routine around getting the donuts. You go, you come back, we make coffee, we eat the donuts together. Yeah. We actually sit around the table too. So we've had breakfast already. Yeah.
00:22:09
Speaker
And then we're sitting around the table again and having donuts together and we're having coffee and you get to watch us eat donuts. Yeah, I have celiac, so I can't eat donuts, but there's something beautiful to that too, right? And it's about so much more than just eating sugar. It's about this relationship that you're forming around this food. And I think for years to come, the kids will always have this positive association with donuts.
00:22:29
Speaker
yeah So I think it's it's less about the sugar and more about creating these these patterns or these rituals and understanding the story of the food that you're eating. Honestly, to this day, I have that connection in my brain still of when I was a kid, like any time I smell butter in a frying pan, I can visualize the kitchen at my grandparents farmhouse and like being there and having breakfast in the morning and potentially coming in from the barn after having milked cows and whatever, helping out with that. and It's still to this day that smell brings me back to that. What were you going to eat with the butter? Often it was eggs. My grandma would make like fry eggs for us in the morning and it's just, I don't know, it's the weirdest thing. yeah There are a few different smells that I have or as soon as I smell it, it brings me to a certain place like
00:23:17
Speaker
Uh, my uncle and I, when I was a kid, he would bring me to a place like 45 minutes away to get Caribbean roti or wraps with curry. And I still now smelling it, have to watch like Harry Potter or what other movie? He had like a certain, of the rings or something certain movies that we would watch together and we would go bring it back home with us. And then we'd like watch a movie together on a Saturday afternoon. Yeah. And still to this day, like I will go there or we'll go there, bring Roti back. And it's like this the weird need. We haven't done it cause the girls find those kinds of movies too scary, but yeah I still have to watch. And I smell that too, because I went, I did that with you a bunch of times too. So now when I, I will go out of my way to pick up this Roti for Scott. And when I smell it, I'm like, we need to just cuddle up on a couch and watch like a movie like Harry Potter or something like that. And that's where food is so much more than food. And I think, I mean, this is a whole other podcast, but we're blaming so many things on, let's say sugar and like a sugar addiction. And maybe it is that, but it's so much more than that. To me, it seems similar to, I don't know, people complaining about kids being on screens too much. The screen time issue is the same thing, right? Yeah. It sort of boils down to the same underlying issue with a lot of these issues that kids face.
00:24:37
Speaker
Yeah, like we blame screens, we blame food, we blame all this stuff. And it's not that it's to blame, but there is an underlying issue of this closeness, this relationship that we have with our kids. So they might be eating more sugar, but maybe we just need to bring back like a ritual around the type of sugar that they're eating, right? Like donuts or even Halloween candy. Of course you don't give them free reign because they're children. They're going to do what their brains are telling them to do, which is, get as many calories as you possibly can because that's how you survive in the wild. Yeah, exactly. Like that's just what our brains are designed to do. And that's not our children's fault. No. So we take the lead on that. I kind of think, because I'm also thinking about how there's like, what is it? The child mental health, what are they calling it? Epidemic or whatever they're calling it. Yeah. screen time, like kids are on screens too much, they're using social media too much, like all these different things. I think they all boil down to the same underlying issue, but it definitely seems like there's more complexity for parents to face now than ever before, right? Because you have any food you could ever want. You could consume any type of content you could
Modern Parenting Challenges
00:25:44
Speaker
ever want. There's an unlimited number of apps and ways to connect with random people all over the world now. There's a lot there's a lot of shit going on. There's a lot of competition for parents for the parent child relationship. Yeah. And like a lot of the big companies, like the social media companies, the whole goal is to get you to see their ads and to collect data. And like, that's the whole point of them. So yeah, they don't want you to have an unhealthy relationship with. their product, but also in the same sense, I don't think they're going to put all the measures in place necessarily that should be in place so that realistically, maybe kids shouldn't even be on social media at all. Or like you maybe need to have a developed adult brain. I'd say all the leading experts in child mental health are saying that right now. Prolong the amount of time
00:26:32
Speaker
It's kind of like alcohol. Yeah. Like your kids can't control their impulses around it. Right. So we're going to put protections in place. I think the problem is as parents, like we also now often have to both work, like both parents are working. There's a lot of stress on parents. So what happens, I think with the screen issue, not that this is the topic, but it kind of is, is.
00:26:53
Speaker
They put their kids on a screen on the iPad because it's easy. It keeps kids entertained and I totally understand that. yeah But then what happens is now kids are forming these patterns in their brain. The iPad is kind of taking over everything that they want to do yeah because their brains are too immature to know how to set that limit for themselves.
00:27:09
Speaker
Well, and then if you think about that with respect to food, we're busy. Yeah. So then we're going to choose the most convenient food to eat for the family, which may not be the healthiest for them either. Yeah. Which in turn, yeah, maybe does not help with the, and again, quote unquote, obesity epidemic. Like, I don't know. I don't actually know if that's a thing or not, but that's what some people were, I guess, saying in the comments. So yes, we have to slow down, but how realistic is that also? And then how do you, I don't know, it's so tricky because there's all these different things competing for our time and attention. We want our kids to do the best in life that they possibly can. So let's put them in five days a week of different
00:27:48
Speaker
extracurriculars, activities and guys, parents. And I was already saying this, but I'll reiterate my point. Like there's so many things competing for the parent child relationship right now. Right. So screens, maybe extracurriculars, maybe our own work. It's just easy to throw on a movie and we just eat dinner in front of the TV instead of prioritizing the relief, like sitting down at the table and eating food.
00:28:10
Speaker
And all of these things compete and take time away from the relationship that they have with us. And I think if you really pare back all of these different issues, yes, screens are an issue, but is that the greater issue? Yes, sugar can be an issue, but is that the greater issue? I think we have more of like a crisis of things competing for the parent-child relationship and the parents taking the lead of that relationship.
00:28:33
Speaker
And we're focusing on the wrong things being the problem. And if we take it back and we focus on how can we nurture that parent-child relationship so that, sure, there's still sugar in the home. Like, I don't care if it's like a Pop-Tart or, you know, cereal. Like we, like I said, we feed our kids cereal every morning. Yeah, but they also- Oh, not every morning. Well, not every morning. I mean, sometimes they have pancakes. No, I'm just kidding. So much better. Well, that is true. They also have pancakes.
00:29:00
Speaker
But there's a ritual around it, right? yeah We're sitting down, even like on a busy school morning, the girls sit and they eat breakfast at the same time while I get their lunch ready. And Scott will try and eat breakfast with them too. I get their lunch ready. There's a routine around it. There's a rhythm around it. It's not like there's like as much access as they want to the sugar, right? And I think if we can simplify it down a little bit and bring back some of those rhythms and routines and even like stillness, like calming their bodies before they're eating, our daughter's in an extracurricular of karate and sometimes those nights can be really rushed, right? And we're like,
00:29:37
Speaker
Like, hey, let's get out the door. We got to go to Karate, quick, eat something. But like we're trying to prioritize, let's maybe start dinner earlier on those nights so that we still have time to pause and we saw sit together and eat. Yep. And that's where like all the issues are connected. And if you're eating in front of a screen, you're also being not as mindful. Like, so if you're always eating in front of the screen, whether that's you or your kids, right? Like if I'm scrolling TikTok and eating, I'm not thinking about what I'm eating. I'm going to consume more.
00:30:04
Speaker
I feel like our daughters are pretty good. Like now that we've really focused on it for the past yeah six months, I think they're quite good at finding tastes and things. I remember like on Canadian Thanksgiving, which is in October, we purchased a couple of pumpkin pies. And I tasted it and I was like, oh, this doesn't taste very good because whatever, they use too much of a certain seasoning in it. And immediately both of our oldest two daughters said, name the exact same thing. it Like it wasn't terrible, but they just named all the certain things. It's a little bit too bitter and it tastes like this. And both in that moment, I was proud and realizing what kind of monsters. of ah
00:30:44
Speaker
I've created being able to pick that out already, but I feel like they can be quite mindful of what they eat already. It's just like an inherent capability that they have if you help them unlock that capability.
00:30:56
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking about that, what you're saying about that pumpkin pie. I was thinking back to the the conversation that we originally were having about the post and people commenting like sugar is bad and kids should know to stay away from sugar. And I was thinking about how one of my favorite memories of all time is being a kid and every single Sunday we'd go to my grandma's house and every single Sunday she'd make the same cake. And you probably remember eating it. Yeah, the chocolate cake. Chocolate cake from a box with icing. from the little container, yeah on the icing container with little chocolate sprinkles on it. yeah I can still taste it. Oh yeah. I can in my mind too. I've had celiac for like a long time. So I haven't eaten that in a long time, but I can still taste what that chocolate cake tastes like. I can still.
00:31:40
Speaker
feel how it felt to like eat that cake and have all my uncles and aunts and other little cousins around and be eating that together. And that is such a positive memory for me and such a positive association. And when I think about saying sugar is bad and wrong and kids shouldn't have it, like I just, I can't agree with that because I think if you create these rhythms and these routines around things like chocolate cake, That cake, if I looked at it today, I'd probably just cry because it represented so much more. So I just want to give parents that encouragement too. It's not like an all or nothing thing when it comes to teaching your kids how to eat healthy. Like I think I learned how to eat healthy in terms of like these rhythms around having family dinner together, talking about the food that you're eating, having cake every Sunday.
00:32:23
Speaker
Hey, if you could tell me that I'm gonna live to 175 because I only ate fruits and vegetables, sure. Maybe I could get on board with that, but if like a small amount of treats like this aren't gonna change your life outcomes, it just seems so unenjoyable to not enjoy food that is delicious. Yeah, it may not be the the best fuel for your body, but and it's yeah about like the donuts doing that every weekend with us moving. I know our girls are gonna miss that a lot.
00:32:52
Speaker
Yeah, we're probably gonna have to make special trips out now We're gonna have to find a new place to get donuts or we'll have to just drive down to the old place And that's like it's in moderation. And then of course, you're not only eating donuts Yeah, like that's not that's not logical either, right? That's what I'm saying Like the rhythms and routines like have Friday night pizza night make that your pizza night have a rhythm around it and then other days have food that you've created or that you got for takeout that nourishes your body and then talk about how you feel after you eat it, right? Like there's a story
Encouraging Positive Food Associations
00:33:22
Speaker
for all of it. And I think if we can make food less about like, oh, I need this many carbs and this many sugar and this much protein, like we can really help our kids develop a beautiful relationship where they respect the food that they're eating. And they will inevitably enjoy the foods that are best for them because they'll notice that they're feeling the best when they have those.
00:33:44
Speaker
Yeah. We'll start to help them notice that in their bodies. And in doing that, in taking the lead on those things, you're forming the relationship with your child too. And yeah I talked about it in the post, like a lot of people turn to sugar for like a sense of maybe the dopamine hit or the... Is that what it does? Oh, Scott's going to look it up now. Yeah. I don't know why you keep talking. Yeah. But people turn to sugar or unhealthy foods as a way to cope.
00:34:08
Speaker
and feel comfort. And a lot of unhealthy eating patterns are around control and are around seeking comfort through food. And so we want to show our children different ways that they can receive comfort and control. You've been fact checked. And? You're correct. Eating sugar releases opioids and dopamine in our bodies.
00:34:26
Speaker
This is the link between added sugar and addictive behavior. So like there is the possibility to become addicted to it because it's providing that dopamine hit that you're looking for. Yeah. But that's like a lot of things. You have the same thing when you watch screens or play too many video games or you go on social media and you get lots of likes. They're doing similar things to your brain. But that's where it can take over the parent-child relationship, right? So don't let that be the place where your kid gets all their dopamine from, you know? Let your love be their dopamine hit.
00:34:56
Speaker
That is quotable right there. Wow. Did I just come up with that on the spot? I don't know. yeah But i I think you hate that, don't you? i hesitate But maybe some people will like it. But I think that that is the moral of the story, right? Like don't let the treats and the sugar be the thing that gives your kid comfort. Create the comfort as they're eating the food, create the comfort within your relationship. And then they won't have that toxic relationship with sugar. where they need to have it to feel some sort of joy and peace. They already have that in their relationship with you. So food issues, our relationship issues, not always, but let's look at the relationship and let's look at maybe all these crises a different way and just be like, there's so many things competing for relationship right now and how can we prioritize that? Cool. Well, I think that's a good place to end. I mean, we could probably talk for a lot longer on this, but
00:35:48
Speaker
We could talk for longer. Like most things. so But it is, I think this is incredibly important and just some food for thought, if you will. Okay. That is worse than my coat. That was way worse than... I was waiting to drop that. I knew I was going to drop it at the end. Okay, let's just, I don't know what else to say. I think that was a good episode. We had a good conversation and hopefully it's helpful to know that sometimes food issues are actually relationship issues. i Hope you have a good rest of your day and we'll talk to you again next week. Talk to you soon.
00:36:25
Speaker
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode. We are glad that you are here. If you enjoyed today's episode and found it interesting, we'd really appreciate it if you'd leave a rating and a review. Scott and I actually sit down together and read them all. A five star rating helps us share our podcast and get these important messages out there. Thank you so much for listening and we can't wait to talk to you again next time.