How to Raise Kids Who Feel Good About Food and Their Bodies

We all want our kids to have a healthy relationship with food and their bodies. But in today's world, it can be increasingly difficult to know how to best support children's physical and mental health. As a parent, you have a powerful opportunity to shape the way your children think about and feel in their bodies — and in turn, you have a powerful opportunity to shape their current and future health.

You face a constant barrage of information from doctors, social media, public health initiatives, and other parents — all with tips and tricks for the very best ways to help your children achieve optimal health. Many times, these messages come with advice on how to help your kids maintain a healthy diet and optimal weight.

You’re encouraged to make sure that your kids fall within certain narrow margins of weight and height limits, that their snacks don’t have too much sugar, their meals are homemade and carefully chosen, and that they are getting the exact right amount of movement each day to maintain or achieve the “right” weight for them.

And you’re made to feel that if you don’t do these things, you’re failing as a parent.

Why Weight-Focused Messages Can Backfire for Kids

Along the way, many of us end up teaching our kids a number of black-and-white messages about what it means to be healthy. You might teach them that there are good foods and bad foods, or that physical activity is just something we do to help us lose or maintain weight.

Many parents find themselves emphasizing to their children the incredible importance of maintaining a low weight. But these ideas oversimplify the incredible complexities of how diet and weight actually impact our health.

When you talk about diet and weight in these oversimplified ways, your efforts can backfire. Research shows that engaging children in weight-focused conversations can set kids up to feel shame or guilt about the food they eat or the way they look.

Worse yet, overemphasizing the importance of weight and shape to the children in our lives can lead some children to experience depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges, something none of us would ever intend to do as parents.

How to Help Kids Build a Healthy Relationship with Food and Their Bodies

What if, instead, we shift the focus away from diet and weight and towards health and overall well-being?
Health and well-being are the result of many factors.

To thrive, kids (and adults, too!) need relationships that foster connections, hobbies that remind us who we are, physical activity that invigorates and refreshes our minds and bodies, opportunities to learn and succeed, time spent outside in nature, and food that we enjoy eating and that nourishes us.

As a parent, you can shift your focus towards teaching your children about the happiness that can come from cooking, eating, and joyful movement, all activities that can help children feel like their best selves.

Instead of counting calories or carefully monitoring the number on the scale, you can help kids develop a broad understanding of health and all of the things they need to grow into healthy, happy adults.

Practical Tips for Raising Kids Who Feel Good About Food

As a Registered Dietitian and mother, here are a few tips I often suggest to families:

• Create a healthful home environment that includes a wide variety of foods and opportunities for joyful movement.
• Model healthful food intake and regular physical activity, including eating meals with your child and finding ways to be active together.
• Ask your child to reflect on how certain foods or activities make them feel, and encourage them to do more of the things that give them energy and nourish their mind, body, and spirit.
• Talk to them about what vitamins and minerals specific foods provide to support their growing bodies, or share with them how their bodies work.

And remember, you’re not always going to get it right. Do your best to incorporate these new ideas into your life, listen to yourself, and adjust as you go. Be kind to yourself.

Trust that even making a few changes to the way you talk to and around the kids in your life can have a significant impact on helping them grow into healthy and happy adults.

Get WithAll’s free 3 Simple Shifts guide for three small changes that make a real difference in how kids have a healthy relationship with food and their bodies.