How Does Diet Culture Show Up In Your Food Parenting?

Agessss ago I asked this question on Instagram and was flooded with responses. We've also talked about it here on CIHAS, but that thread go lost in the Substack shuffle, so I figured it was worth starting a new thread here.

Here's what I wrote in that original post:

Honestly, I was not prepared for the ways that diet culture would show up in my parenting. My career has been built around helping people externalise diet culture’s rules and find a more peaceful relationship with food and their body. ⁣
So it was surprising to me how much ‘stuff’ came up for me around feeding my own kid. ⁣
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A big one for me was around sugar and specifically rules about not introducing it until after 2, and the idea that giving A sweet foods would somehow make him destined for a lifetime as a sugar fiend. Which, not true.⁣
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I had to actively and deliberately break these rules to help challenge deeply ingrained ideas, and to build trust in my kid. And guess what, turns out he likes sugar (no shit), but he’s not obsessed with it. ⁣
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I see diet culture everywhere in my work with parents too - messages of healthism, nutritionism and ableism that show up in the feeding relationship that can be traced back to diet and wellness culture and the momfluencers and chef-come-nutrition-saviours who are promoting a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way for kids to eat and waging war over the size of kids bodies 😞 ⁣
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Things like:⁣
👉 restricting access to sweet foods⁣
👉 pushing ‘healthy’ foods like green vegetables⁣
👉 healthifying foods (i.e. putting lentils in muffins)⁣
👉 hiding veggies in food⁣
👉 banning or strictly controlling screen time ⁣
👉 calling foods ‘junk’ or ‘good/bad’ ‘naughty’⁣
👉 making negative comments about your, your kids or other people’s weight/body
👉 calling kids 'lazy' or 'greedy⁣'
👉 putting kids/teens on diets ⁣
👉 dieting around kids (or not letting them see you eat and enjoy certain foods like sweets/cake/crisps etc)

But it also shows up in how we feel about feeding our kids ⁣
👉 anxiety that they’re eating too many of the ‘wrong’ foods and not enough of the ‘right’ foods⁣
👉 worries about nutritional deficiencies ⁣
👉 fears around your child’s body shape/size changing, tapping on internalised anti-fatness⁣
👉 stress to feed them ‘perfectly’ and disappointment or even resentment when they don’t eat what you give them (or gravitate towards beige⁣ foods)⁣
👉 guilt when their meals aren’t perfectly balanced or cooked from scratch ⁣
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I get this stuff is hard to look at. Especially if food and body esteem has been hard for us. But I invite you to get curious about where diet culture shows up in your parenting and what that brings up for you? Does it serve your relationship with your child? Does it help them build a secure relationship with food and their body? Does it help you have a positive experience with feeding and mealtimes? How would it feel to gently break some of these rules?⁣'
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As always I’d love to hear from you 👇

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