How to Cultivate Healthy Body Image AND Healthy Habits for the Whole Family

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Episode 7.

Hey everyone! Before we dive in to this great episode, did you hear yet about my Free 5-Day Body Respect Challenge?! It’s all about how to dig DEEP on your values and tie them directly to your health behaviors. It brings together everything we talk about on this podcast and goes over the HOW of bringing it all together.

Grab your spot today! Doors open Saturday Feb 27th!

Do You Worry about “Messing Up” your Kid’s Relationship with Food?

Do you worry that your comments or your struggles with your weight or body image are somehow going to get transferred to your kids?
Do you stress that you’ve already “messed up” your kid’s relationship with food and it’s beyond repair?
Are you stressing about accommodating your children’s picky eating and feel that you need to become a short-order cook to get everyone fed? Do you feel frustrated that you want or feel the need to make different meals for different family members due to different health concerns?

If so, you are in the right place. Today’s post is for you if you are a parent of any age kid, or have kids in your life you care about. Even if your kids are adults, I promise it isn’t too late. Stay tuned for what you can do to prevent difficulties or remedy the situation whether your “kid” is 2, or 62.

Body Image: Let’s Take a Look at the Numbers

Let’s check out a few stats about body image to see where we are at:

Males

25% of male children and adolescents were concerned about muscularity and leanness and expressed a desire for more toned and defined muscles (Calzo et al., 2015)
For adult men in the US, 9% reported frequent body checking and 5% reported body image avoidance (Striegel-Moore et al., 2009).

Females

Of 1000 adult women in Switzerland (ages 30-74), 70% expressed a desire to be thinner (Allaz et al., 1998).
50% of girls in the US are unhappy with their body; by 17 years, this number is nearly 80% (Kearney-Cooke et al., 2015).

This is clearly a major issue. This isn’t just on the individual families to change this. We need to change at a societal level in terms of how we think about and pursue health. However, as a family unit we have opportunities to improve how we communicate with our loved ones. If nothing else, this can set an example for the world at large.

Am I Going to Say Something to Negatively Impact My Kid?

Frankly the answer is probably. But don’t despair. Even if you make a harmful comment, it’s never to late to remedy. You are an imperfect human and you are never going to it get it right 100% of the time.

I’ve worked with many adults and have heard countless stories about how comments from their parents have negatively influenced their relationship with food.

I’ve heard stories from clients who are in their 60s and 70s tell of how their parents finally owned their mistakes from childhood or parenting them as an adult, and how incredibly helpful and meaningful that conversation was.

Your Anxiety about Your Kiddos is a Major Concern Here

Parental anxiety and worry is REAL. And it isn’t going away. But we have to be aware of it and keep it in check, in many areas but particularly when it comes to their health.

The absolute hardest thing do to as a parent is to watch your children be in pain and to struggle. And yet, we have to allow them space to do so so that they can learn and develop confidence.

I know you want your kids to eat well and be as healthy as possible. You want to help them avoid significant weight gain, as you are well aware that being in a larger body in our society is harder. You know that if they gain weight, not only it is harder to lose it (particularly when it’s more than 20-30 lbs or so), but that they are also much more likely to experience significant bias and may have a harder time in social relationships or finding a job due to their weight.

Your Suggestions about “Health” Are Probably Making Things Worse

You can have your anxiety, but your comments and suggestions about “healthy changes” your kid can make are probably making things worse.

Your suggestions to “join a sports team” or that they think about if they “really need that snack” is making things exponentially worse, not better.

Sometimes, parents are blatantly cruel when it comes to their child’s weight. Like stories I’ve heard where the entire family including the siblings will call a heavier child “piggie” as a nickname. This is clearly awful and inappropriate.

The Subtle Comments Can Be Just as Harmful

Many times, however, it can be more subtle. Like a mom who suggests the daughter come to a Weight Watchers meeting with her, to “get healthier.” Or the dad who tells his kid they need to join a sports team to “stay fit.”

Kids read between the lines easily and they know you. If you are worried about their weight, they probably know. They don’t hear your comment as worry or concern. Much of the time all they hear is “my parents think I’m ugly, fat, obese” or often “my parents don’t love and accept me as I am.”

The Sense of Acceptance and Belonging is the Absolute Best Thing You Can Do For Them

One of the key psychological needs for vitality and thriving is relatedness, which is defined as a sense of belonging and connectedness with those around you (Deci & Ryan, 2012). Your family is ideally the place you get their first, and can always return to when you are struggling to find this sense.

What If You ARE Still Struggling with Poor Body Image?

Sadly, this is likely to be the case. You saw the stats above.

So if kids are always watching and know us so well, how do we hide our own “stuff” from them as we are actively working on it (hopefully)?

First, make sure you in fact ARE working on your own issues. Many times, we can get complacent and accept that “I’m just going to hate my body, it’s the way it is” or we think that we have been self-critical our whole lives so we will always be this way.

This is not only a sad reality for you, but it certainly isn’t going to help your kiddos.

How a Growth Mindset Can Help the Whole Family Overcome Food and Body Image Issues

The great news is, the mindset of learning, growing and changing is one that can be applied to any struggle we have. It is also a mindset that will serve us regardless of what goals or dreams we hope to achieve.

You can acknowledge that you are working on your relationship with food and body image while still helping your kids work on theirs, regardless of where you are both at. Maybe your kiddo is actually farther ahead than you. That’s ok. Listen more than you talk, ask open ended questions, and find out their experience.

Remind them (and yourself) that you are human, you are a work in progress, and you want to support them but you don’t always know the best way. Tell them you want them to be happy and you are sorry if you ever made them feel less than ok or unaccepted in the past. Let them know that if there’s things they want you to do or say, or not do or say, to help them be the best version of themselves, you are more than happy to listen.

5 Tips to Promote a Great Body Image for the Whole Family

Avoid “diet talk”. Instead, talk about your habits and how you feel. Feeling uncomfortable in your jeans today and tempted to tell your spouse how fat you feel? Keep the thought to yourself. Instead of saying “I feel so fat,” or “I’ve gained weight I feel gross” change it to something like “I’ve been feeling low energy, I am going to make sure I get a walk in today as that usually helps” or “I would like to cook more home cooked meals this week.” Focus on how you want to feel instead, and the behaviors that will help you get there.
Shift the household towards a similar eating pattern. Here’s the thing. The eating pattern that works for most is similar across people. When we say each person needs their own food, because some people in the house are on a diet and some aren’t, not only it is exclusive of them and unhelpful, it also isn’t true. If you move towards mostly plant-based whole foods for most of the meals, you can stop stressing about the variation. Will it take time to move in that direction if you are eating the standard American diet right now, yep. It can be gradual. You know what works best for your family, but keep an open mind. You might be surprised what the family can learn to like.
Avoid restriction whenever you can. Avoid bringing tons of sweets or tempting foods into your home but don’t be overly rigid. If you have a ton of sweets there now, there isn’t a need to get rid of them all at once. Just gradually get out of the habit of buying them where you can. If you usually get a bag of candy from the grocery store and your kids know and ask about this, gradually just start buying less, or stop altogether. If they ask, just say, oh you know I decided not to get the bag of candy this time. If they want to know why, maybe say “I was focused on getting some of the other ingredients for dinner and I didn’t think of it” or “sometimes if it’s in the house I eat more than I want to and then my stomach feels upset, so I thought we could just start going out when we want to get something sweet instead.” Obviously, choose language that works for you and is age appropriate with your kiddos, but focus on function and how you feel versus weight or how they feel. Model a healthy relationship with your body even if you don’t always feel it.
Don’t catastrophize. Here is the thing. Overeating on sweets or processed foods here and there won’t cause your kids to be overweight overnight. With our kids, because we care a lot, we tend to catastrophize. If you find yourself thinking “omg, she’s going to get addicted to candy and become overweight”, reign yourself in. When tasty stuff is around, our brains are designed so that we overeat. It’s how candy is designed, not so we eat just one. Nothing is wrong with them, and they aren’t out of control. Giving that message to them inadvertently will only make things worse.
Focus on how you can feel good in your body. Even if sometimes the old mindset of exercising for weight loss comes up, notice it but challenge it by saying “I’m going to go out for a walk, I need a little fresh air, anyone want to join?” Notice how hungry you are before eating, and how foods make you feel over time. Comment on this, but only if asked.

Did you sign up for my Free 5-Day Body Respect Challenge yet? It opens Saturday Feb 27th! Grab you spot today!

Disclaimer: This blog and podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual professional advice or treatment, including medical or mental health advice. It does not constitute a provider patient relationship.

References

Allaz, A. F., Bernstein, M., Rouget, P., Archinard, M., & Morabia, A. (1998). Body weight preoccupation in middle‐age and ageing women: A general population survey. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 23(3), 287-294.

Calzo, J. P., Masyn, K. E., Corliss, H. L., Scherer, E.A., Field, A.E., & Austin, S. B. (2015). Patterns of body image concerns and disordered weight- and shape-related behaviors in heterosexual and sexual minority adolescent males. Dev Psychol, 51, 1216–25.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2012). Self-determination theory. In P. A. M. Van Lange, A. W. Kruglanski, & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of theories of social psychology (p. 416–436).

Kearney‐Cooke, A., & Tieger, D. (2015). Body image disturbance and the development of eating disorders. In L. Smolak & M. D. Levine (Eds.), The Wiley Handbook of Eating Disorders (pp. 283-296). West Sussex, UK: Wiley

Striegel-Moore R, Rosselli F, Perrin N, DeBar L, Wilson GT, May A, et al. (2009). Gender difference in the prevalence of eating disorder symptoms. Int J Eat Disord, 42, 471–474.