I think that this topic is really important for all families/kids. I also think that that much of this interview pertains to a very elite subset of families. Saying "They are probably getting enough protein, they are probably getting enough fiber, they are probably getting enough vitamins and micronutrients" just isn't true for many families. Providing kids with healthy food, and teaching them about keeping their bodies healthy and strong through the foods they eat isn't the same as telling them that they need to be thin or small.
I completely agree! According to the American Diabetes Association, 11.6% of the population has diabetes - and a much higher percentage is prediabetic! The author argues that the health implications of sugary/super processed food is overblown, as evidenced by the low rate of child diabetes. However, what people eat in their youth shapes their future health outcomes!
That's a very good point about unequal access to food/nutrition; we didn't get into that in this Q&A, but Virginia does address this in her book. And I totally agree that it's fine to emphasize to kids that it's good to eat a variety of foods to stay healthy. What I've always tried to avoid was categorizing foods as "good" versus "bad," for various reasons. There's research suggesting that this can backfire and cause a kind of "forbidden fruit" phenomenon... and I also worry about the combination of thinking of foods in these moralizing ways while also being exposed (as all kids are!) to moralized cultural expectations around body size.
Thanks for this great interview, I agree with so much of what Virginia Sol Smith said in terms of how we have to balance different risks; the risk of our children not getting enough of the nutrition we believe they need, and the risk of creating eating disorders that emerge from the nervous messages we give our kids. Above all i think the way diet cultures comes into children’s lives is incredibly harmful.
The one thing I’d love to hear is a more detailed discussion about two things that i feel are often collapsed into one.
First, encouraging children to love their bodies and see all bodies in positive ways and without judgment; and second, health/nutrition. Sometimes these are discussed as if they are the same — as if having strong opinions about healthy foods is somehow linked to judging people’s bodies. Or being truly embracing of every body is linked to being relaxed about nutrition.
But this kind of either/or is hard for me to accept. We can raise them to really see all bodies — including (especially) their own as beautiful no matter what size or shape. That part for me is easy, or has been in our family. But we simultaneously have all this information about the negative effects of sugary and processed and low nutrition food on children's bodies, minds, attention spans, sleep patterns, and future health. So we feel this deep responsibility to give them nutritious food and give them some literacy around nutrition, which I think a core subject missing from schools. I find it really hard to follow what I believe about nutrition when it is constantly challenged by a culture that is in great part driven by foods that are ultra-processed and highly sugary. So I struggle with the idea that in order to ensure our kids are mentally healthy we have to give into allowing them to possibly by physically less healthy.
Some of that information about food carries a lot of negative baggage and I know that sharing it with kids can do as much to mess them up as anything else, tying the joy of food to negative things and freaking them out. But leaving that nutrition stuff out of the equation also leads to things that are negative for their developing bodies and also their ability to have agency in choosing what kinds of foods they eat, understanding where food comes from, inequalities in how families have access to different foods etc.
I think this is such an important issue and really appreciate you raising it. Would love to hear more discussion around this.
I think that this topic is really important for all families/kids. I also think that that much of this interview pertains to a very elite subset of families. Saying "They are probably getting enough protein, they are probably getting enough fiber, they are probably getting enough vitamins and micronutrients" just isn't true for many families. Providing kids with healthy food, and teaching them about keeping their bodies healthy and strong through the foods they eat isn't the same as telling them that they need to be thin or small.
I completely agree! According to the American Diabetes Association, 11.6% of the population has diabetes - and a much higher percentage is prediabetic! The author argues that the health implications of sugary/super processed food is overblown, as evidenced by the low rate of child diabetes. However, what people eat in their youth shapes their future health outcomes!
That's a very good point about unequal access to food/nutrition; we didn't get into that in this Q&A, but Virginia does address this in her book. And I totally agree that it's fine to emphasize to kids that it's good to eat a variety of foods to stay healthy. What I've always tried to avoid was categorizing foods as "good" versus "bad," for various reasons. There's research suggesting that this can backfire and cause a kind of "forbidden fruit" phenomenon... and I also worry about the combination of thinking of foods in these moralizing ways while also being exposed (as all kids are!) to moralized cultural expectations around body size.
Thanks for this great interview, I agree with so much of what Virginia Sol Smith said in terms of how we have to balance different risks; the risk of our children not getting enough of the nutrition we believe they need, and the risk of creating eating disorders that emerge from the nervous messages we give our kids. Above all i think the way diet cultures comes into children’s lives is incredibly harmful.
The one thing I’d love to hear is a more detailed discussion about two things that i feel are often collapsed into one.
First, encouraging children to love their bodies and see all bodies in positive ways and without judgment; and second, health/nutrition. Sometimes these are discussed as if they are the same — as if having strong opinions about healthy foods is somehow linked to judging people’s bodies. Or being truly embracing of every body is linked to being relaxed about nutrition.
But this kind of either/or is hard for me to accept. We can raise them to really see all bodies — including (especially) their own as beautiful no matter what size or shape. That part for me is easy, or has been in our family. But we simultaneously have all this information about the negative effects of sugary and processed and low nutrition food on children's bodies, minds, attention spans, sleep patterns, and future health. So we feel this deep responsibility to give them nutritious food and give them some literacy around nutrition, which I think a core subject missing from schools. I find it really hard to follow what I believe about nutrition when it is constantly challenged by a culture that is in great part driven by foods that are ultra-processed and highly sugary. So I struggle with the idea that in order to ensure our kids are mentally healthy we have to give into allowing them to possibly by physically less healthy.
Some of that information about food carries a lot of negative baggage and I know that sharing it with kids can do as much to mess them up as anything else, tying the joy of food to negative things and freaking them out. But leaving that nutrition stuff out of the equation also leads to things that are negative for their developing bodies and also their ability to have agency in choosing what kinds of foods they eat, understanding where food comes from, inequalities in how families have access to different foods etc.
I think this is such an important issue and really appreciate you raising it. Would love to hear more discussion around this.