Can you put my child on a diet? Can you help my child lose weight?
These are two frequently asked questions that our team gets all of the time. As always, there is no shame allowed. If you are a parent and you have restricted your child in the past or have put them on a diet in hopes of weight loss, I want you to know that you are still welcome here. You are doing your best with the resources you have.
However, let’s break down the reasons why our answer to these questions is explicitly no.
What’s Your Story With Food?
We were all children at one point. Your own relationship with food stemmed from your childhood and how you interacted with your parents, coaches, mentors, and loved ones. One thing that I find is so common with many of our clients is that there is this connection to being restricted as a child. Or, maybe you weren’t restricted, but cannot remember a time when your mother wasn’t moving from diet to diet. These incidents can absolutely contribute to a negative relationship with food.
What Are Your Intentions?
We do not judge our clients who ask these questions; what we instead do is ask, “why?” Why do you want to put your child on a diet? Nine times out of ten, the intentions are coming from a good place. A lot of parents don’t want their children to endure the same things they did growing up. They don’t want their child to struggle. They don’t want them to struggle with their weight. They don’t want them to experience bullying or hating their body like they did.
When parents tell me these concerns, I redirect the following open-ended questions back to them:
- How did going on restrictive diets work out for you?
- How did dieting impact your own relationship with food?
- How did your parents’ policing your food intake change how you view food?
- Has dieting gotten you what you wanted?
- Has dieting given you perfect health?
- Has dieting improved your body image and granted you self-love?
Of course, the answer 99.99% of the time is no. It boils down to this: dieting doesn’t work. Not for you, nor for your children. A child is no different than an adult, they deserve unconditional permission to eat. I know this is scary as a parent. What about their boredom eating? What about their stress eating? What about their unhealthy food preferences?
These are valid concerns. However, acting as the “food police” is counterproductive, if anything. Creating that authoritative relationship with your child will only create rebellion. If you restrict your child from desserts or candy, they will become even more drawn to these “forbidden” foods. On top of this, food rules can cause a myriad of problems in the future as your child transitions into adulthood. Some of these problems include food obsession, overeating, chronic dieting, and the list goes on.
Risk Factors for Disordered Eating
The American Academy of Pediatrics identified five behaviors associated with children being at a larger weight as well as eating disorders. These five behaviors include:
- Dieting
- Defined as: “caloric restriction with a goal of weight loss.”
- Family Meals
- Structured family mealtimes are associated with improved dietary quality, aka a higher consumption of nutrient-dense foods
- Weight Talk
- Defined as: “comments made by family members about their own weight or comments made to the child by parents encouraging weight loss.”
- Being Teased
- Being made fun of by family members and friends can increase your child’s risk of weight gain and disordered eating.
- Body Image
- Body dissatisfaction and poor self-esteem can increase your child’s risk of unhealthy weight control and disordered eating behaviors.
What You Can Do:
This research is clear: if you don’t want your child’s body to get bigger, then you should not put them on a restrictive diet, tease them by making comments about their weight, or police their intake. Each of these approaches is counterproductive and increase their risk of developing an eating disorder.
Here are three Instagram accounts to follow if you want to nurture a positive relationship with food with your children:
- Check out our WTAF Podcast episode featuring Megan McNamee of Feeding Littles, The Things No One Tells You About Feeding Kids!
- Check out our WTAF Podcast episode featuring Jennifer Anderson of Kids Eat In Color, Back to School: How to Support Picky Eaters!
- Check out our WTAF Podcast episode featuring Dr. Taylor Arnold of Growing Intuitive Eaters, Intuitive Eating for Kids & Families!
If you want to stop making comments on your child’s food, stop policing and start to turn inward. The more you can turn inward and work on your own relationship with food, that is going to be the most influential. Children are sponges. They observe. They learn from watching, they learn from listening.
Empower them by healing your own relationship with food.
For more ways to support your child in developing a healthy relationship with food, click here to watch Sammy break down some helpful tips for parents!
HUGE thank you to Lindley Ashline for the beautiful cover image on this blog. Go check out her website for more inclusive, diverse, and body positive stock photos!
