Witnessing Dieting is Toxic for Kids
An excerpt from my book, Nurture: How to Raise Kids Who Love Food, Their Bodies, and Themselves
One of my first recommendations to parents or caregivers who want to raise kids to be wise about food, body, and self is to, ideally, be someone who is not on a diet or restricting food unless medically necessary. If you are, try to keep it out of your child’s consciousness as much as possible. (Know that this is nearly impossible once they get to about age seven.)
Restrictive eating is not sustainable for most humans. It creates foods that are “charged” or “bad” and more attractive than they need to be. If you want your child to develop health-giving, balanced eating habits, you will ideally practice moderate eating yourself. If you are a chaotic eater who goes back and forth between restricting and eating frenetically or compulsively, your children will likely imitate this as they learn how to regulate their own eating and appetites.
Trust me, they are watching.
I have supported people with disordered eating for the past thirty years. Many adult clients I work with who struggle with compulsive eating have either imitated dieting parents or were put on a diet at a young age by a well-meaning caregiver or medical professional. Several studies have shown that dieting in childhood and adolescence is the most significant risk factor for struggling with one’s weight as an adult.
I have heard many clients in my nutrition therapy practice describe their parents caught up in the vicious cycle of restricting and compulsive eating, often with yo-yo weight loss and gain. This made it genuinely confusing for them to learn how to eat in a balanced, sustainable way based on their bodies’ cues versus the food plan of the day.
If you are starting to worry about your eating habits and their influence on the children around you, you are not alone. Sadly, research indicates that four out of five American women are dissatisfied with how they look, with half on a restrictive diet. One study by Kimberly Hempworth in 2010 determined that 80% of ten-year-old girls had dieted in their short life. This statistic is frankly shocking, and I hope things are shifting as our awareness of eating problems increases. We also know that eating disorders affect all genders and ages.
Going on a restrictive diet is a predictor of increased body weight, particularly if you dieted during your childhood or teen years. However, the risk of disordered eating and a long-term struggle with your body is more concerning than any weight change. Instead of developing self-esteem based on your unique strengths, dieting encourages an unhealthy preoccupation with the body and its shape during the formative growing years.
I tell my nutrition-therapy clients that I don’t do weight-loss counseling because I feel it’s unethical. There is no evidence-based food plan that leads to sustainable weight loss. Absolutely none. Furthermore, focusing on weight would reduce the person in front of me to a body and miss what I firmly believe are the true determinants of health and well-being:
social support
economic support
access to good preventative and acute healthcare
management of life stress
health-promoting behaviors (related to food, sleep, physical activity, etc.)
I strive to empower people of all ages to look beyond the size of their bodies and nourish the person within, with a focus on whole-self wellness versus health. That said, I know it’s hard to live in a culture that does not celebrate body diversity and equates health with morality, even though so many aspects of health are not within our control.
It can be challenging as a parent not to have anxiety about your children’s weight if they do not fall into the socially acceptable range. No one wants their kids to be persecuted and teased because of their bodies. Yet, the way to prevent this is not to prescribe dieting or encourage weight loss. This can confuse the child, as their parents seem to be rejecting their body, too.
Encouraging your child or teen to diet can set them up for a lifetime battle with their body and food. So many of my clients look back at old pictures and wish they could have the body they once thought was “too chubby” or “too big.” Often, the child or preteen weight gain that was once feared was a growth spurt that would have evened out if left well enough alone. Often, it’s a genetically natural body change that becomes problematic in terms of health or comfort only when the “management” of it starts by dieting or abusing exercise. I can’t stress this enough.
Instead of prescribing a diet or weight-loss strategy for your child, I encourage something that might be harder but gives the child some armor against this toxic diet- and weight-oriented culture. I encourage parents to teach their children body acceptance and that all people come in different shapes and sizes. There are so many factors that affect body size and weight. No matter what the media says is the favorite shape of the day (and it does change over the decades, history shows us), all bodies are beautiful and miraculous.
I encourage you to have developmentally appropriate conversations with your kids about how some bodies are mistreated in our culture while some are unnecessarily favored. This may not stop any experiences of bullying or mistreatment at school. Still, it might help prevent them from internalizing that mistreatment and feeling like their bodies are wrong. If your kids are thin, you can also talk to them about their privilege and not being part of this weight stigma and discrimination.
One study of kids who were bullied or teased because of their weight showed that kids would love more support from their parents. They need to feel that the adults who care about them think their bodies and selves are acceptable. This kind of support is tough to give if you yourself don’t believe that all bodies are good bodies. Our popular culture sure doesn’t promote this.
If you don’t feel good about your body or are constantly struggling with food and dieting, it can be hard to wrap yourself around this mentality. Even if you say that all bodies are beautiful or neutral, your child will see you at war with your own size, which will eventually be confusing. I hear this over and over again in the family stories of my clients. It’s a generational crisis. Parents have often been victims of some of the same messages and bullying, and we are trying to interrupt the cycle for our children.
They are watching.
Other Nourishing Nuggets:
Fun news to share: Nurture, was one of six books that won awards for excellence in independent publishing. Nurture received second place in nonfiction, beat only by the book that helps kids understand sensitively why Santa is not real. I guess they have priorities. (Let’s work on fatphobia after that trauma. 🎅🤣)
My colleagues at Reclaiming Beauty featured the Introduction of my latest book, Nurture in their blog. If you aren’t familiar with this practice in Asheville, North Carolina and their body-centered, trauma-informed work and resources, do check them out. Many years ago, I met Heidi Anderson, the founder of this group practice, at an eating disorders conference. I can vouch for everything she puts out into the world and have always appreciated this other Heidi’s authenticity and creativity.
If you are an EDRD looking for supervision, including those looking to add trauma-informed elements of Somatic Experiencing to your practice, please contact me. I have a couple of openings for individual supervision, and my clinician supervision groups start up again in the Fall.
I’ve launched a Friday Chat for “Empty” Nesters on Substack. Please join the conversation every Friday about how we care for ourselves during this transition. Here’s a page about how to participate in this Chat. You don’t have to be a paid subscriber to participate; all are welcome.
If you’ve read or listened to my new book, Nurture, please consider giving it an honest review on Amazon and Goodreads. Reviews help the book get into the hands and ears of families who might benefit. Thank you.
A big thank you to
for her Substack essay collaboration! I am honored that I get to nourish your inbox roughly twice per month and that I’m writing alongside others who are committed to doing the same for their readers.