I Don’t Want to Pass My Food Issues on to My Kids

Can you relate to Sandra's story?

For as long as she can remember, Sandra's mom has meticulously counted calories and carefully weighed almost everything she eats. 

When her aunts visit her parent's house, the conversation is often centered on who is doing what diet and how it’s going, together celebrating their wins and commiserating over their struggles. 

Their own mother, Sandra's grandma, is a very restrictive eater who frequently comments on family members’ weight and polices everyone's eating.

Sandra's dad also has a fraught relationship with food. Over the years, he’s swung numerous times from eating everything to restricting something, whether it’s fat, carbs or the hours he’s allowed to eat.

In Sandra’s childhood home, food was feared, moralized and demonized. Almost every eating decision was based on how it would impact one's weight.   

At the pubescent age of 11, when it's normal for kids to gain a lot of weight, Sandra's mom took her to her first weight-loss meeting.

Although she felt a little weird being the only kid in the room, she also felt inspired by the success stories the women in the circle shared, especially when everyone cheered and clapped. 

It felt good to be a part of their club and to be doing something to fix her apparently problematic body.

Ending the Legacy
Stepping into that weight-loss clinic as a young girl launched Sandra on the dieting rollercoaster. Since then, she’s tried every diet under the sun. After more than 20 years of yo-yo dieting, she’s hit rock bottom. 

Even though she doesn’t like her body, she can’t stand the thought of going on one more diet. More than anything, she can’t stand the thought of passing her family’s legacy of body shame and dieting on to her kids.

She doesn’t want them to view food as good or bad, feel guilty about their eating, hate their bodies or obsess over their weight.

Many of my clients who are thinking about starting a family or already have kids express their desire to protect their children from our harmful diet culture. 

They don’t want them to suffer the way they and their family members have and thus are deeply motivated by the idea of not handing down their food and body challenges.

This is also true for many of my clients who don’t have children but have kids in their life, whether it’s their nieces, nephews, friends’ kids, students or team players.

I get really excited when my clients share this desire with me because I know the positive ripple effect that can occur when just one person heals their relationship with food and their body and how doing so can help put an end to a family history of disordered eating and anti-fat bias.

What Kind of Role Model?
For my clients with this goal, we spend time exploring what type of role model they want to be when it comes to food and bodies.

We talk about how they can reclaim their ability to eat intuitively while helping the kids in their life maintain their ability to do so.

Then we do the challenging yet rewarding work that’s required to divest from diet culture and build a peaceful relationship with food and their body, one that they’re excited to pass along.