How to Raise Kids With a Healthy Relationship With Food
Most of my patients care deeply about their health.
They track. They lift. They know their ApoB level.
And then they ask me something I don't have a simple answer to: how do I talk to my kids about food?
I only see adults. So I asked someone who works with families every day.
Oona Hanson is a parent coach, writer and educator, and the author of the upcoming book Parenting Without Diet Culture. Here's what actually matters, based on our conversation.
The foundation: kids think more concretely than adults
This is the idea everything else rests on.
When an adult hears "I'm not eating cake, I'm trying to eat clean," they understand the nuance.
A child often doesn't have that nuance yet. "Unhealthy" can become "dangerous."
"Sometimes food" can become "never food." Or the forbidden food becomes the only thing they want.
So the words that work for us can land very differently on them.
Why "good food, bad food" labels can backfire
We moved from good and bad, to healthy and unhealthy, to "sometimes foods" and "anytime foods."
The intention is always good. The problem is the same: a category asks a concrete brain to manage an abstract rule.
Oona's alternative is simple: call food by its name. An apple is an apple. A cookie is a cookie.
This lines up with the research on restriction. In a small experimental study in young children, restricting access to a palatable food increased children's focus on that food, and their selection and intake of it once it was available (Fisher and Birch, 1999).
Pressure and praise at the table
The clean plate club has mostly gone out of style. But pressure has a lot of forms:
"Two more bites."
"Look how your brother is eating his broccoli."
Praise for finishing a plate.
When it seems to work, it can be because a child is complying with the adult, not building their own relationship with the food. In one experiment, children ate less of a soup when they were pressured to finish it than when they weren't (Galloway et al., 2006).
What a healthy family dinner actually looks like
Lower the pressure on yourself first. It trickles down to your kids.
Focus on connection: are they heard, seen, relaxed?
Check physical comfort. Feet dangling off a big adult chair can make sitting still harder for small kids.
Frozen, takeout, simple: it all counts. Eating together, connecting, listening to each other matters more than everything being made from scratch.
Kids who share 3 or more family meals a week are more likely to have healthier eating patterns and less likely to have disordered eating (Hammons and Fiese, 2011).
Commenting on bodies, including compliments
Is there ever a reason to comment on someone's body?
We struggled to come up with one.
Kids hear the comments we make about celebrities, relatives and ourselves.
They also hear weight loss being praised.
A well-intentioned "you look great" to someone who has lost weight implies that thinner = better, or more lovable, and kids can carry that with them their whole lives.
And for a child who is supposed to be growing, the message "thinner is better" can be risky.
Research on parent conversations backs this up: weight-focused talk from parents was linked with more dieting and unhealthy weight-control behaviors in teens, while conversations focused on healthy eating were not, and in teens with overweight were linked with less of both (Berge et al., 2013).
Myths busted
Myth: "If I just teach my kid which foods are healthy, they'll eat better."
For many kids, labels create rules, and rules create either fear or fixation.
Myth: "Weight loss in a child is a good sign they're eating healthier."
In kids, unexpected weight loss, or not gaining as expected during growth, is a reason to check in with the pediatrician, not to celebrate.
Myth: "Wanting to eat healthy is always a good thing."
Oona says "I just want to eat healthier" is now the most common way she hears eating disorders start in the families she works with. It's often harmless. It's worth paying attention to when eating actually changes.
Warning signs parents can miss
Exercise that becomes rigid, secret or can't be skipped, even when sick or injured
A lost period in a girl who had started menstruating
Weight loss, or a child falling off their expected growth curve
Skipping meals, especially alongside body worries
If you see these, Oona's advice is to act early: talk to your pediatrician, and consider an eating disorder dietitian or therapist.
You don't need a diagnosis to get support.
Back to the foundation
You don't need perfect language. You need awareness, and the willingness to repair.
Call food by its name.
Take pressure off the table.
Don't praise weight loss.
Pay attention when eating changes.
And if you've already said all the "wrong" things? It's never too late. Kids notice when we change.
Want to work with Dr. Mary? We offer a complimentary 30-minute consult for patients living in California, Arizona, or Colorado. Book at https://modrnmed.com
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References
Fisher JO, Birch LL. Restricting access to palatable foods affects children's behavioral response, food selection, and intake. Am J Clin Nutr. 1999;69(6):1264-1272. PMID: 10357749
Galloway AT, Fiorito LM, Francis LA, Birch LL. 'Finish your soup': counterproductive effects of pressuring children to eat on intake and affect. Appetite. 2006;46(3):318-323. PMID: 16626838
Hammons AJ, Fiese BH. Is frequency of shared family meals related to the nutritional health of children and adolescents? Pediatrics. 2011;127(6):e1565-e1574. PMID: 21536618
Berge JM, MacLehose R, Loth KA, Eisenberg M, Bucchianeri MM, Neumark-Sztainer D. Parent conversations about healthful eating and weight: associations with adolescent disordered eating behaviors. JAMA Pediatr. 2013;167(8):746-753. PMID: 23797808
Educational, not medical advice. Individual risks and results vary.
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