Our resident family food expert, Ginger Bakos of Dinosaurs are NOT Food, discusses how our behaviors (and hang ups) around food and “dieting” can affect our children.
80% of all 10 year old girls in the US have been on a diet. If you are wondering why? It’s because by age 6 girls are already worrying about how much they weigh, and the numbers are even less encouraging as they move into adolescence. Our culture of dieting and destructive body image messages is having a massive and long term effect on our children. And while you may not classify yourself as having an eating disorder, if you are one of the 45 million people in the US (that’s 17% of the population) on a diet right now and your children are watching it unfold, you might be sending a very strong unintended message.
People are often surprised that I don’t know my weight, and I think, even more surprised that I don’t count calories, carbs or fat grams. I eschew low fat and no fat, and I refuse to buy anything marked with “100 calories” printed on it. But I wasn’t always this way. It’s been a long hard traveled road to get me here. I came by my previously unhealthy relationship with food by way of my mother. My mom was constantly dieting, and as soon as I was old enough for her to worry about my weight, she put me on a diet. To say that I used to struggle is probably a gross understatement.
About 2 years ago, I read an article about how not eating enough actually makes you gain weight and sets an unhealthy cycle in motion. And the more I read about this, the more it was supported by research (several times over). The 2000 calorie diet isn’t just a random number it’s a pretty good marker for the basic level of caloric intake that an adult human needs to function. Yet, you will see recommendation after recommendation to restrict calories as far down as 1200 calories per day. And it got me thinking. Did you know that regularly having less than 1800 calories a day is the marker for being food insecure? Why are we suggesting that people eat at hunger and starvation levels? Just how far down the wrong path have we gone?
And through my small group of initial clients, I learned just how widespread our obsessions with scales, “health food” and calories has become. We have been trained to eat foods that are altered to be “healthy” instead of eating real food. And real food, my friends, is everything. Real food is all that I eat, now, and when I first started with my clients, this was the thing they resisted the most. Butter? Whole milk? Was I crazy? Are you sure? Yes, I’m sure. And while I don’t know how much I weigh, I can tell you that I’ve lost 3 dress sizes eating real food, and not counting a single calorie or fat gram. I am also the healthiest I have ever been. No longer pre-diabetic, no more high blood pressure, my triglycerides have finally leveled and my cholesterol is all good. About the only thing I am super conscious about is added sugar, but since most the food I eat doesn’t have ingredients (produce, meat, eggs and dairy) it’s sort of irrelevant.
I am also in a Facebook group where we encourage each other through the tough waters of weight loss and body image. It is a hard group for me to be in, sometimes, because I watch some really unhealthy habits happening, and I often feel powerless to call it out. I do try to counter unhealthy information, but it is so ubiquitous it can sometimes feel futile. But the thing that concerns me the most is the plates of hardly any food that often get proudly displayed, and followed by comments like “Good for you!” It’s hard to explain that this is not only a detriment to their health, but to their weight loss goals. It’s hard to explain because the message that calorie restriction is the only way to lose weight continues to proliferate despite mounting evidence that quality of calories is way more important.
But what concerns me even more than this pervading calories-in/calories-out message is that lots of these folks are eating like this in front of their children. And it has probably never occurred to them what message they are sending. And more importantly, that this message is damaging.
Kids need to understand about healthy food not how to be thin or get thin. I’m going to repeat that in a more forceful way. Kids do not need to know how to be thin or how to get thin. They just don’t.
Kids need to understand what eating healthy and being healthy means, and it should never be framed based on their weight. And if your own regular self talk is bound to your weight and your weight impacts your self-worth, you are sending a message that you value weight as a marker for a person’s worth. Children interpret all messages as messages about themselves. Even the most innocent of remarks can have long and lasting effects. Just last week, I was feeling uncharacteristically down, and I verbalized my frustration. My eldest immediately started giving me examples of how helpful he was. I hadn’t even remotely indicated him in my frustration-in fact, I hadn’t indicated anyone, at all. It was a reminder to me that even big kids still work on the assumption that the world is spinning on the axis of them. And it’s no different when you verbalize concerns about your weight or your looks. You can bet, your children are internalizing that.
That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t eat healthier-less and higher quality meats, more fish, more fresh produce, LOTS more veg. Passing on lessons about eating well and fueling our bodies with the most nutrition possible is very different than the message that dieting sends. The other unintended message sent by dieting is that LESS food is healthier for you. Not only is that flat out wrong, but it is the crux of practically every eating disorder. From not eating enough to eating far too much. And it has sucked the very joy out of eating in the US.
Think of the last time you went out to eat. Did you enjoy it? If you did, did the guilt set in when you got home? Wouldn’t it be great to know that you freed your kids from this web? The only way to do it is to free yourself, first. And believe me when I say that I know how hard that can be.
Here’s where to start.
Eat real food.
Make peace with real food. Fruits, Veg, Beans, Whole Grains, Eggs, Meat and Dairy. Quality of calories is far more important than quantity of calories. We have been force fed the opposite, but I will tell you that real food is the key not only to healthy weight (notice I didn’t say being thin), but overall health. And real food is what your kids should be eating, as well. (Hint: fish crackers are not real food.) Fat is real food, by the way. And while the quality of fat is definitely important, the fact that fat is essential in maintaining a healthy body and truthfully a healthy weight is even more important. Fat and protein actually help us eat better quality calories and feel satiated for longer.
Rather than eliminating, try adding.
More green veg. Wherever you can, and at every meal. That way you are working toward positive changes, and celebrating what you ARE eating rather than beating yourself up for stuff you “shouldn’t” be eating. Once you’ve done that successfully, add whole grains. Brown rice instead of white. Whole wheat instead of white. (And while I do eat a mostly paleo diet (not to be confused with dieting), why I don’t eat grains is not about losing weight, or even maintaining weight, and we’ll talk more about that another day.) Then more fruits, then better quality meats, healthier fats (not seed oils) and so on and so on. Eventually, simply by adding, you will change the face of what you are eating without an air of deprivation. It’s a way to make peace with your plate a bit at a time. And it also changes your tastes. Soon you will find that you no longer crave refined and processed foods. Soon you will find your children don’t either.
This approach takes time. It focuses on your health before your weight, which is what we should be focused on in the first place, and it’s what we want our children to focus on. If weight loss is something you are working toward, just know that it will come off, but it takes a different course with this approach. It takes longer, but the advantage is that it is often a lasting change that frees you from the never ending dieting cycle for good.
If you think you or someone you love has an eating disorder, there is help: NEDA 1-800-931-2237 or find treatment.
Ginger Bakos is a Meal Planning and Food Budget Wizard who writes the blog Dinosaurs Are NOT Food. She is committed to helping moms feed their families well and within their budget, believing that everyone can, and deserves, to eat well! Her greatest passion is freeing moms and kiddos from the “kid food” cycle and guiding them to a healthful and positive relationship with real food. She converted her very own 3 year old Master of All Things Bread and Cheese to a beet and broccoli lover, and she knows you can make it happen in your house, too. You can contact her at ginger@dinosaursarenotfood.com.