Podcast Themes: For Parents
Episode 127: Please Don’t Screw Up Our Kids! Part 2: A Conversation About Food, Weight and Body Image with Virginia Sole-Smith of Comfort Food Podcast
In this two-part episode, fellow anti-diet mom Virginia Sole-Smith and I discuss the ways in which culture sabotages parents, especially moms, by upholding unhelpful beliefs about food and weight.
Tune in where we discuss how to handle unwelcome comments about our kids’ bodies or food choices, what to do when they say “fat,” and how to model body positivity. Plus I share some of my best tips for parents in setting boundaries with love and kindness. You’ll also hear me talk about the “back off” Lunch Box card by The Feeding Doctor, Katja Rowell, MD and I share my experiences with my kids eating at school.
Episode 126: Concerned about your child’s weight? Here’s how you can help them without harming
In the wake of Episode 125 reacting to WW’s Kurbo app, people are asking, “So what do I do then?”. That’s what I want to help with today. Whether or not you’re a parent, we can all to advocate for kids’ well-being and use our voices to stop the harm and speak out against making weight loss a goal for growing kids. I share practical steps for approaching kids’ health, plus an excerpt from my 2017 interview with my friend and Born To Eat author Leslie Schilling.
Episode 125: Kurbo Weight Watchers App for Kids is Upsetting Parents and Professionals
In this episode, parents speak out about why they would not use Kurbo Weight Watchers App to help their kids lose weight or or build “healthy lifestyles”. Tune in to hear their heart wrenching stories of their own struggles with body shame and diets. Plus you’ll hear me share what I found deeply concerning about the Kurbo when I used it for just a few days— and perhaps most important, I’ll share inspiring insights for what you can do if you are a parent concerned about your kids health and weight.
Episode 115: Please Don’t Screw Up Our Kids! Part 1: A Conversation About Food, Weight and Body Image with Virginia Sole-Smith of Comfort Food Podcast
In this two-part episode, fellow anti-diet mom Virginia Sole-Smith and I discuss the ways in which culture sabotages parents, especially moms, by upholding unhelpful beliefs about food and weight. Virginia shares her rock bottom moment of what it took to finally give her daughter chocolate milk and why she had to unlearn much of what she learned from culture, her childhood, and her work as a writer and editor within the health and beauty industry.
Episode 109: Under Pressure – How Anxiety Shows Up for Today’s Teen Girls and How Parents Can Help with Lisa Damour, PhD
I’m talking about anxiety and girls with Dr. Lisa Damour, author of the new book: Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls. We discuss what’s normal and actually beneficial for teen girls when it comes to stress and anxiety, when you should worry, as well as the options available for talking with girls and young women to reduce their stress and anxiety on everything from embracing their bodies, dating to setting boundaries.
Read the show notes.
Episode 92: Talking About Food and Bodies in the Home with Anna Lutz, RDN
I discuss Body Kindness in the family with a fellow HAES dietitian and mom, Anna Lutz. You’ll hear us chat about topics like how to approach food at home that supports HAES and why it is never a good idea to label foods as good or bad, how to support kids of all sizes, how to talk about yourself and others’ bodies with kids, how to talk to children about nutrition at a developmentally appropriate level.
Anna is a Nutrition Therapist based in Raleigh, NC and she specializes in eating disorders and pediatric/family nutrition. She studied Psychology at Duke University and she has a .Master of Public Health degree in Nutrition from The University of North Carolina.
Episode 91: Raising HAES – Body Kindness for families with Kristy Fassio
Three parents with five kids between them (age ranges 2-12) gather to discuss what it’s like to parent with body kindness, endure a child’s body shame at the doctors office, re-educate your child after the school’s health class taught diet tricks, what to say when your kid first says “fat” — as early as age three! And other things you need to know about raising kids with body kindness.
Episode 70: Enough As She Is – Helping Girls Move Beyond Impossible Standards with bestselling author Rachel Simmons
Attention anyone who wants to see girls succeed: tune in to this conversation with bestselling author Rachel Simmons.
Her latest, “Enough As She Is: How to Help Girls Move Beyond Impossible Standards of Success to Live Healthy, Happy and Fulfilling Lives” serves as the backdrop for our chat.
Rachel’s research shows girl’s competence does not equal confidence. Girls have never been more anxious and overwhelmed, feeling that no matter how hard they try, they will never be good enough.
Episode 37: Bringing Body Kindness in the Family with Leslie Schilling
I sat down with my long time friend, fellow dietitian, mama, and co-author of the new book Born to Eat, Leslie Schilling. We share our experience as kids with family members who dieted and how we began to notice the inter-generational impact of dieting as adults with kids of our own. But that’s just the warm up.
In one of my favorite conversations to-date, you’ll learn about why Leslie had to drop her “achievement idol” in order to find true happiness in life, recover from the traumatic high risk pregnancy that left her hospitalized for nearly two months, and find a way to make meaning of her good friend’s untimely death that left her devastated. Leslie is an amazing mom and friend because of her challenges in life, not despite them.
We eventually get to chatting about her amazing book, Born to Eat, which we joke is like “body kindness for babies”. You’ll learn all about how Leslie came to embrace baby led weaning as a feeding approach for her family and then show me and her co-author, our friend and chef/dietitian Wendy Jo Peterson how to do this approach without freaking out.
Episode 31: Intimate Justice with Bestselling Author Peggy Orenstein, Girls and Sex
How do we teach our daughters to respect their bodies, while still being curious about their sexuality? What do you say to a 2 or 3 year old in the bath? Would you tell a 10-year-old what the clitoris is for?
If you’re squirming in your chair, so am I, but this is important issue if we really want our kids to normalize sex. Body liberation and sexual liberation go hand in hand. Find out why Peggy Orenstein, bestselling author of Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape and Cinderella Ate My Daughter, thinks we all gotta start doing a whole lot more talking to our kids and teens about what’s normal with our bodies and in sex for everyone’s health and well-being.
