March 26, 2024 • 28 mins
Dietician Meg McClintock on eating disorder prevention and the impact of poor body image on eating. Meg shares how parents can nurture positive relationship with food and body for your kids.
In this episode:
- Meg McClintock from Choose Nutrition
- Meg's Podcast Life's Too Short to Count Almonds
- Eating disorders or disordered eating?
- The dangers of diet culture and chronic dieting
- Natural eating/intuitive eating
- Being compassionate with yourself
- Red flags to watch for in children/teenagers
- Body trust and hunger/fullness cues
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's the Happy Families podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just answers.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Now Today, I'm a Happy Famili's podcast, a really important
conversation about our kids and what goes into their bodies,
or in all too many cases, what doesn't go into
their bodies. We're talking about eating disorders on the podcast today. Hello,
my name is doctor Justin Colson'm the parenting expert and
co host of channel linees hit TV show Paral Guidance
and dad to six daughters. Fortunately, haven't had to deal
(00:34):
with too much in the way of eating disorders in
my family, but the impact of eating disorders on children's lives, well,
they cast a long shadow. It's not just a short
term thing, it's a long term thing as well. I'm
joined today by a special guest. Meg McClintock is an
accredited practicing dietitian and a and z AD credentialed eating
disorder clinician and a positive body image advocate with twenty
(00:56):
years of experience across both public and private health care sectors.
She's founder and principal dietitian at Choose Nutrition and has
a special interest in disordered eating and eating disorders. Chronic dieting,
weight and body image concerns. Meg is also the co
host of the podcast Life's Too Short to Count Almonds
and online course The Non Diet Way. I like the
(01:19):
sound of that. It makes me feel like I can
eat connoisseur ice cream if I really want to. And
she does that those podcasts and that online course with
fellow non diet dietitian Susan Williams. Meg is passionate about
eating disorder prevention and doing no harm when providing nutritional
guidance and when addressing eating and weight concerns across the lifespan.
She works with individual skills and community groups to push
back against half for body ideals and build body positive
(01:40):
spaces where people have all shapes and sizes are empowered
to look after their bodies and thrive. It's a big introduction,
but it's a big topic and I think it's worthy
of you, Meg, So thank you so very much for
joining me on the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So there's a difference between not doing well with food
and having an eating disorder. Okay, I mean I've got
a bit of a sugar prop I'm working on it cream.
I really like the flowerless orange and poppy seed cake,
especially with that ice, the icing on it. You know
what I'm having and kind of beat ourselves up about food,
which surely has a negative effect overall on the way
(02:15):
we approach food. Absolutely, let's talk about this issue. Can
we talk in general terms? What are we getting wrong
as a society when it comes to the way we
approach food?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, so, unfortunately a lot like we're pretty messed up
when it comes to food and nutrition and bodies. But
in the big, big picture, I sort of put one
sort of umbrella, we're really normalized. So this culture of dieting.
So if I sort of think along as sort of
a spectrum from what might be sort of like natural eating,
intuitive eating, healthy eating, we listen to our body, we've
(02:46):
got flexibility, we're notding to nutrition and to you know,
all that sort of stuff, and down right down the
other end, we've got you know, there's really really harmful,
really risky eating disorders like diagnosable meet the criteria. It's
kind of a spectrum. So one step sort of up
from sort of the eating disorder would be that sort
of disordered eating. It's impacting some of your staff. It's
(03:08):
possibly most mostly impact relationships, but possibly not physically. But
it's pretty yark and taking a lot of your headspace.
But the next step between disordered eating and sort of
natural eating, intuitive eating is dieting. And so it's just
become really normal to be counting, controlling, restricting, earning. All
(03:28):
this sort of language that we have in our culture
is unfortunately a supper slope to sernificate eating disorder for
people who are vulnerable to that.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So what I'm hearing is like, essentially, I'm probably simplifying
this too much, but four levels. We've got healthy, natural,
intuitive eating, then we've got dieting, Then we've got disordered
eating where it's certainly impacting our lives in unhelpful and
unproductive ways, and then there's actually eating disorders.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, pretty gray in between those zones.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Not just free sess. It's something that I've been thinking
a lot about lately because I have unfortunately, I mean,
I'm not as healthy as I used to be, I
think is probably the easiest way to say it, and
I could do with some lifestyle changes that would improve
my health. This is what happens when you've got six
kids and you travel a lot for thoughts. And there
(04:20):
are my excuses. There are my excuses, but you know
what the reality is.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
All the reasons, all the reasons we can be more
compassionate than excuses.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Well, I've come up with I've come up with a
theory and it really works for me, and that is
this my brain lies to me. My brain tells me
so many lies about the calories that I'm putting in
my body and the nutritional quality, what I need to do,
what I want, what I don't want. And what I'm
finding is that my brain is telling me yes, when
my body, if I listen to it, would actually say no,
(04:48):
I don't really need I mean, this is an embarrassing story,
but a case in point. I was at a hotel
in Sydney just recently. They fed me a beautiful pasta dish,
which I just love. And one of the great things
about all the travel that I do is I do
it in a lot of restaurants. That's both good and bad, obviously.
But then they brought me the dessert menu and my
body said yeah. My body said you've had enough. And
(05:10):
then I looked at the prices and my wallet also
said you've had enough. The lemon and Rosemary Gatto looked
so good, and it was twenty three bucks for dessert,
and I just thought, that's obscene, that's excessive. I'm not
doing it. And then I thought, you know what, I'm
going to do it. I don't do this often. I'm
going to do.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
It scarcy mentality. There it is.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I know they brought it a piece of cake. I
kid you not, Meg. It was as big as a
cake under normal circumstances. I don't know how big the
cake must have been. This thing was massive, the biggest
piece of cake I've literally ever seen in my life.
And then my brain said, well, gee, that's big. Let's
see how much you can do. And I hate most
of it, and I felt so bad, and I remembered again,
my brain says yes, and it lies to me. It
(05:55):
says yes, yes, Yes, You're gonna enjoy this so much,
and my body says, don't do it. But my brain
seems to stronger than my body in that situation. There
is a question coming in this very long autobiographical story
up sugar addiction, and that is how do we listen
better to our bodies? And the follow up to that
is how do we teach our kids that when it's
(06:16):
so hard for us.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, so as I mean, that's a huge question. But
what we see, and this is really really really common
with this sort of in that stage down from sort
of intuitive on natural in tune eating whatever I want
to call it in dieting, is this really well defined cycle,
which is the more we put something on a pedestal,
the more we think something we shouldn't be having, the
(06:39):
more we think, I'll eat it now because diet starts
tomorrow and I'm not going to let myself have it tomorrow,
or I've opened the packet now, so I'll eat it
all so it's gone and then I won't have to
worry about eating it tomorrow. All this controlling that we
do to try to reduce how much of these foods
we eat actually drives us to those very foods and
disconnects us from you know, if you a sort of
(07:00):
sit down and go that looks great. I don't feel
like it right now, but I'm not going to be
able to have it again in the future because this
is rare. Just know, Oh, there's that scarcity mentality there
of oh I've got it here now, I've got these
like these experiences of getting in trouble for not eating
all the food on my plate, and so the idea
of not eating the whole thing now that it's in
front of me, Oh, that's really that's really uncomfortable, and
(07:22):
so the easiest way to get rid of that discomfort
is to just eat it. And so often it's actually
sort of zooming out a bit understanding what is driving
the behavior. So I get another I love my imagery,
but I sort of think of I thort of think
of it as like got a tree and the top
of the tree, the leaves a bit we see the
bits that often we might want to change is that
(07:43):
we think of that as behavior. So things we don't
like that we do, all the things we do like
that we do. That's sort of the top. That's a canopy.
Just telling someone, well, don't do it, or just giving
someone information. It's kind of like watering the leaves. You
want to shiny leaves for a while. You might be
able to will power white knuckle it hold on for
a while, but it's really not where trees get their nourishment.
We need to look down, and so they sort of
think about the trunk. That's often where I thoughts and
(08:05):
feelings high because there are things that kick our behaviors
off most instantly, those sorts of thoughts and feelings. But
then we've got to go, well, where have they been
informed from? And go under the ground. And that's why
we've got things like our values, So our values around
money and I've spent the money on it, I don't
want to waste it, or our values on our health
and nutrition, our beliefs about I'm addicted to this, and
so I'm not going to be able to stop, which
(08:27):
may be true or may not be true. And you know,
things like our experiences like that one I used before.
If I get in trouble, if I've grown up getting
in trouble when i don't eat everything on my plate,
or I've got really strong values around waste and sustainability tree,
I feel really uncomfortable at the idea of wasting this
food or of missing this opportunity or whatever, and so
(08:48):
the automatic behavior is, well, I'm going to deal with
that by eating it. We need to sort of zoom
out and try different things.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Two things Maing stand out to me as you're sharing this,
especially when we get down to the roots and the
values them is on this idea of waste. I had
my thinking completely revolutionized a little while ago when I
was listening to a podcast with the founder of the
founder of the US behemoth Whole Foods. Oh wow, Okay, Yeah,
this guy back in the seventies hippie sort of living
(09:17):
and put together the Whole Foods and now it's a
multi billion dollar goliath in terms of helping people to
eat food that's good for them and all about sustainability.
But the guy actually said he's not so worried about
food wasted because food is a renewable resource, like you
can always grow more food, especially when we're talking about
the kind of whole foods that he's describing and we're
not necessarily talking about killing animals and things, right, And
(09:40):
I thought that was a really fascinating reframe. And I've
loosened up heaps on the idea that all the food
on your plate now has to be eaten. There's the
financial aspect, but in terms of the renewability of you
can always cook more rice or whatever. That's really shifted,
and that value has changed the way I look at
the way my kids eat what's on their plate. The second,
(10:00):
the second value that I just wanted to highlight is
kind of the other extreme. My dad probably eats a
diet that is has more sometimes food, heat, sometimes food
all the time. If you know what I mean, and
his value is you know what, I'm nearly seventy years old.
I'll eat what I want. Yeah, I just want to
(10:21):
enjoy my food. I don't care and to the detriment
of your health. But when I think about these, just
the pervasive range of deeply entrenched values that drive the
thoughts and the emotions that drive the behaviors, that model
of the tree and the canopy and the roots. I
guess I shared those two to highlight how powerful that
can be.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah, And I think it helps. By having that sort
of framework, we can instead of sort of looking at
our behaviors and being like, oh, you're read it. You
did that again. Why don't I have any will power?
I'm so bad, really negative shame spiral.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
That's what I said.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Hang on a minute, right, Yeah, we can sort of
pause and have this sort of compassionate look of people
are often trying their best, and people are often doing
really automat behaviors without really having a time to even
think about doing something differently, and so if we can
sort of be curious and have a little look down
and sort of understand what's going underneath, that's really where
we're going to have an impact. I have a middlefol
(11:13):
client I worked with a while ago who she knew
that she wasn't hungry when she was driving home from
work and she was going home to dinner, and yet
she just kept sort of going through the drive through
and she didn't understand it, and so we did some digging,
did some digging and goes right back to some food
insecurity as a child, and the idea of being even
tiny bit hungry and not knowing where your next food
(11:34):
was coming from was so panic inducing that she would
just push it down, push it down, push it down.
And so we had to do so much beautiful, calm, slow,
compassionate work on Okay, let's acknowledge that, let's learn to
be comfortable with that. Let's remind you that you're not
food insecure, You've got an option, and how can we
work around that. So it's some tile and error and
(11:54):
a lot of compassionate looking. Unfortunately, our cultures just like
we'll just try harder, just have you will completely ignoring
like people's own experiences in life and how diverse that
they are, their capacity to you know, financially, their capacity
if they've got kids who are really struggling to diversify
their intake and they can't afford to be throwing food
out all the time, or they've got you know, possibly
(12:16):
some so ahither that's the trauma or just some just
some really rigid beliefs around food. All of that stuff
is just becomes this cycle of going around and around
around doing the same thing. Because our culture has the
sort of the belief that you're out of control with food,
you can't be trusted. This is like the general everybody,
you can't be trusted, you're out of control. You need
you need control, you need a diet. So people go
(12:38):
and they do their diet and the first stage is
great honeymoon phase. The first time you've got around this
cycle is pretty easy. People will you know, you they're
in a deathicerit. Their body takes a while to adapt
and so they have this honeymoon phase where sort of
the it's working and then sort of the next stage is, well,
there's a cheat because there's a special event. There's occasion
you get sick or whatever, and usually that's not the
(12:59):
end of the story. People like nap increase the zule
one back on the horse, and so they'll keep going
and they'll keep doing the same thing, but their body goes.
I don't like being deficit. So it increases their food preoccupation,
in increases their hunger. Hoomers, there's a plateau with their
weight change even though they're still doing all the same things.
That's very frustrating in a culture that says just do
it harder. And so someone who doesn't have a predecision
(13:21):
for eating disorders, usually that's just going to lead to
so much frustration, hunger, irritation over it that they'll be
the end of the diet with this over compensating of eating.
So perhaps binging or just really forget it, I don't care,
I'm eating everything whatever.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
But then they'd repeat the cycle when they and just
diet harder.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Just yes, and our culture, our culture is the only
has the only answer. It's ever sort of giveness is, well,
you found that you need a different diet, that one
wasn't right for you. You need to find the right diet.
And because people have swung between control, restrict, count limit,
all that sort of negativity or I don't care, I'm
eating everything whatever. They think they need the diet to
(14:00):
stop the binging, although overcompensating eating or whatever, not realizing
oh no, it's the restriction is the starter, that it's
what's kicking it off. And so what sort of non
diet dietitians are What I do with my clients, either
for the weight cycling or of course in eating disorders
as well, particularly of your binge eating disorders, is really
trying to offer a different world together that is outside
(14:21):
of that diet cycle, which is without paying attention to
hunger and forwardness signals to what are your values around
food and health and nutrition, because as you said, with
your dad, he has different values around health than you,
and that's not necessary better or worse. And so just
sort of people understanding their own stuff and then finding
a way to look after their bodies, to look after
(14:43):
their wellbeing, whole big picture well being. And you know,
obviously I'm a dietitian, so improving dietary quality is right
up there on my priority list and my radar as
part of that process. So we stop swinging and going
round and around around that diet cycle. And the more
times you go around it the shorter it gets, and
the less like it's effective it gets. So as far
(15:03):
as for weight loss, which I don't do weight loss,
but that's a whole discussion for another day around intentional
weight loss, but it does also become less effective as
your body goes Oh, I know how to do this.
I was going to down regulate. I'm going to make
you really hungry, and I'm going to get this cycle
finished as quick as possible because our body is actually
really like being in balance. So where this sort of
(15:25):
lead that gets into in disorders, So people who have
a genetic predisposition for in disorders, that guieting, that restriction,
that controlling can really kick off the development of a
really serious eat disorder.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
We need to talk about that serious stuff to eating disorders.
I promised that at the very start.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
We've got off track. No we did. That's okay, But.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I love what you're talking about and it's fascinating. I
want to ask you to just to sort of finish
off the question that I had asked previously. If you've
got a child who is not eating well, who is
clearly nutritionally deficient, and it's probably eating lots and lots
of white foods and yellow foods, but not getting the
rest of the rainbow and certainly missing out on the
nutritional quality. It would lead to a healthier childhood and
(16:09):
help them to be more active. How do we help
them to shift, like, how do we help them to
move in a healthy direction without increasing the risk of
well predisposing them towards and eating disorder.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, so obviously not having panics. I think often people
sort of panic and get really stressed about short term
eating behavior or what's happening for their kids in a
sort of a distrect period of time and put the
pressure on. And what happens when we put pressure on
kids is usually that sort of the push back and
that reaction.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, resistance, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Absolutely, And so trying to zooming out of a k
nutrition matters over a lifetime. And so we're going to
be moving towards you know where we would want as
a family to our kids to be eating. But the
best thing we can do for that is modeling, is
continuing to offer a wide range of foods and that predictability.
So there's an I sort of the phrase that can
(17:01):
be useful of that sort of really gentle rule of
threes that kids they need to eat around at every
three hours and try to have something for more three magnuchance.
Let's make sure there's some fats and proteins and carbohydrate
on offer at every time, and then we have these
foods between meals where we're not eating to work with
our natural appetites. Another issue with our diet culture is
that says, well, you read the paper and that tells
(17:22):
you what and when to eat, as opposed to when
you're actually hungry or when your body tells you to stop.
Our gods like, well, but there's still more on your
meal plan, or you haven't had your five vegies, you
better keep going. So really trying to work with their
inbuilt natural appetites and not destroy that connection but actually
help them have body trust. Continued exposure like low pressure
(17:44):
exposure and modeling are probably the strongest things in there.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
So two follow up questions on that number One, you
said ideally kidstributing every three hours. What age you are
around about? Yeah, give or take. But what age are
we talking about here? Oh?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So, so from sort of free school through it's just
it's generally how work our school days are going to
sit up anyway. But just if we look at sort
of the appetite hormones. There's a whole of different hormones
involved in appetite and once for hunger and for fullness,
and they kind of will sort of go in a
it's not exact science, but they'll go in a bit
of a three hour cycle. And if we if we
(18:21):
go too long. One thing is people can actually not
feel hunger because they can sort of turn off that
connection because they're like, this doesn't feel pleasant. The other
thing is that we can really disconnect from hunger of
fullness and just when the food comes really overdo it.
If there's predictability and kids know, oh, I'm going to
get another gult that later on, then they're less likely
(18:43):
to eat all the stuff now because they don't know
when they're going to get it again. And that's you know,
linking in particularly to sort of your more binge eating
disorders where the scarcity mentality thing back to COVID and
the toilet paper, like people are like, oh, no, I'm
not gonna have enough toilet paper, so they bought enough
toilet paper of three years. You know, a very human things.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
We're still working for hours right now and we've got.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Stuck and so we can apply it. So you know
how often people think about food if they think I'm
not gonna let myself have this again, or I only
get this at parties because our house has none of
this stuff in it. Often these are the kids actually
don't have their own off switch or don't have their
own connection because they override it because of that desire
because it's delicious and it's enjoyable, but they're taught that
(19:23):
it's really special and that they're not going to have
it regularly.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Okay, So that takes care of my second question because
you also mentioned the word predictability around food, But what
you're saying is they know they're going to get food
again in a couple of hours time. Three absolutely, Okay,
tell me in terms of eating disorders, how prevalent are
they in Australia. How much do we see this occurring
in our kids.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, so if we think about all eating sauce, so
off from when we say eating sours, people just think
about ANIREXI interface, So that really sort of stereotypical. And
I see everybody is teenage girl, which is just such
a tiny proportion. So around about four percent of the
total population will experience and eating disorder. Maybe three percent
of those is anarexi in nevosa, and so it's really
(20:04):
broad spectrum. Some research suggests in Australia adolescents expensing disordered
eatings up to around thirty percent. So that's the stuff
that hides in plain sight because in our culture that says, hey,
dieting is normal, dieting is goods is how you look.
This is how you quote unquote look after yourself, those
things which are quite disordered and causing possibly distress or
(20:25):
shame or worry or just a whole lot of headspace
being used up on food food thinking over the normalized
and a scene as you know, perhaps good if we
look at what is called atypical anorexin novosa, which is
all of the psychological distress and the physical risk of
our sort of typical arexia but without a low body weight.
And there's some really interesting Australian research that showed that
(20:48):
actually kids who started in a bigger body and lose
a significant amount of weight are at higher risk of
medical instability than kids who perhaps started in a small
body and lost weight to an underweight stage. But because
of their starting point, actually they are still at rithmetically,
and we want to help sort them out and you
get them out of deficit. But there's this whole cohort
(21:10):
of kids who are naturally larger or who've just been bigger,
who then do what society tells them to do and
lose weight, which actually kicks off this really significant, really
life harming in disorder that can hang around for years
and years and years. But instead of getting help, they
get congratulated or they get told, I'll keep doing what
you're doing. So weight loss in teenagers, even intentional weight
(21:31):
loss in teenagers, it's not normal. They should that's the
wrong direction. Even for a kid who's fat's in a
larger body. It actually is like warning, signed red flag,
but often missed. You know, sometimes often in boys in particular,
who suddenly get like a gym obsession. They really at
the gym and they're counting their macros and they're doing this,
that and the other, and it was like, oh, he's
so healthy. Is we looking out for his health? And
(21:52):
then you know, I've got plenty of clients who that
was them as a teen and it was years later
that they were like, oh, yeah, I was really unwell.
I was just dressed I was body checking, I was
weighing myself constantly, I was thinking about nothing of food.
I had really low hormone levels. I was tired, I
was insomniac, like life was awful, and yet on the
(22:13):
outside I was like, yeah, buddy, keep doing what you're doing.
That's amazing. So it's really it can be really hard.
I have a heap of compassion for parents who want
the best for their kids and have also grown up
in this culture that has sort of a hierarchy of
bodies and uses a body shape or size to decide
if someone's healthy or not.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
So I feel like I need to I don't know
if pushback is the right word, but I'm having a
reaction to some of the stuff that you're saying, particularly
around like there comes a point though, when your body
is simply unhealthy, and that may or may not have
to do with the size of it, but clearly there's
a correlation. The bigger body, the more likely it is
that you're going to suffer ill health people who are yes.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So there are definitely a risk factor. So no one
is sort of annoying that, you know, being in a
large body isn't associated with increased rates of different sort
of I guess more video mortality, different chronic diseases. But
when the research actually looks at behaviors, particularly on physical
activity behaviors and body side, the association between a higher
(23:13):
risk and the body size actually goes away. And if
we actually look at people's behaviors any plenty fruits and vegetables,
not smoking, and moving, those risks are really they really disappear.
There's some really good research around particularly the impact of
physical activity on risk. And the piece of the puzzle
(23:34):
that often gets missed is our culture makes it really
hard to just live your life happily and healthily if
you're in a larger body, and so that weight stigma
piece of the puzzle often gets missed. So we know
this around you know, different minorities have increased risk of
quantican complex disease due to stigma, but we kind of
miss that. We've got a real weight stigma problem in
(23:56):
our culture. So it's hard for kids to feel okay
in their bodies if they don't sort of if they're
sort of outside of those thin ideas or those sort
of normal body ideals.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
So this is a podcast for the time poor parent
who just wants answers. Now they listening to this conversation,
they're saying, okay, okay, I get the general overall gist
that this is a discussion about overall health rather than
the size of my child's body. Nevertheless, I know that
my child is not in a healthy body right now,
and I want them to be healthy. But every time
I talk to them about it, it backfires, They get defensive,
(24:27):
or they gone do something unhelpful, unhealthy. If I'm a
parent who just wants my kidd to make better decisions, here,
what would be your top couple of tips, top three
tips that can really be actively followed by a parent
who's struggling with this right now.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah. Absolutely so. The biggest thing is that your child
knows that no matter what their size is and what
happens with their body, they are one hundred percent loved, accepted.
Their value in your eyes doesn't change that because we
don't look after things we don't care about. And so
if kids are getting there idea that they're not cared for,
how they actually don't that their body isn't worth caring
(25:04):
for because of the way it looks, they're not going
to care for it.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
I remember reading some research a couple of years ago
that showed that kids, I think nine year old, nine
year old kids who received messages from their parents that
indicate that their parents are not satisfied with that child's body.
In other words, hey kiddo, you need to lose some weight.
At the age of like sixteen seventeen, they were I
don't remember how many times, but they were two or
three or four times more likely to still be overweight
or obese in their mid eighteens because of what they
(25:29):
heard when they were nine.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah, and if you're in a culture that says, oh,
actually you don't belong here, we don't have uniform that
fits you, or you don't look like the other kids
on the sporting team or whatever, well what are you
going to do. You're gonna withdraw, You're going to sit
in your room. You maybe you don't increase your online
presence being on you know, computer games, because well, you're safe,
you're accepted that no one's judging you on your body.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
So number one, unconditional love, right, unconditional love, and really
really focusing on no matter how you look, you've got
my love and my support absolutely.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
So from there you can then spring into that modeling
that regulation about what's good for all bodies, because it's
not like people who are actually in small bodies it's
good for them to sit around, not do any movement
and only donates to McDonald's and you know, so what's
good for all bodies? So rather than having a sort
of a this is good for you and this is
bad for you, we actually be like, you know, it's
(26:20):
good for everybody, movement, stress management, eating plenty fruits and vegetables,
eating regular meals, you know, having that sort of that ballance.
So that's the starting point is if I wasn't worried
about my child's body size, what would I be wanting
them to do anyway? And starting there with those sort
of conversations because there's every single chard is in a
(26:41):
larger body. They know it. You know, we've got kids
as young ast for you know, we can actually identify
that there's levels of weight steam where that young people
don't need to be told they need to be supported
to look after the body as it is. And again,
there's so much more we could talk about around and
how that might look, because it's going to be really
(27:01):
different for different families. But at the end of the day,
our bodies are worth respecting and looking after, no how
they look, and that we undermine people's ability to look
after their body by telling them it's something wrong with them.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Meg McClintock is an accredited practicing dietitian. You can find
out more at Choose Nutrition. She's also the co host
of the podcast Life's Too Short to Count almends. Love
that title. Hey Meg, thanks for joining me on the
Happy Family Podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
If you'd like more information, we'll link to everything Meg
related in our show notes. You can also check out
happy families dot com dot you. The Happy Families podcast
is produced by Justin ruland Craig Bruce is our executive producer,
and if you'd like more info about making your family
happier and healthier, check out Choose Nutrition online with Meg
McClintock her podcast Life's Too Short to Count almends. We'll
(27:52):
visit us at Happy families dot com dot a you
It's the Happy Families podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just answers.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Now Today, I'm a Happy Famili's podcast, a really important
conversation about our kids and what goes into their bodies,
or in all too many cases, what doesn't go into
their bodies. We're talking about eating disorders on the podcast today. Hello,
my name is doctor Justin Colson'm the parenting expert and
co host of channel linees hit TV show Paral Guidance
and dad to six daughters. Fortunately, haven't had to deal
(00:34):
with too much in the way of eating disorders in
my family, but the impact of eating disorders on children's lives, well,
they cast a long shadow. It's not just a short
term thing, it's a long term thing as well. I'm
joined today by a special guest. Meg McClintock is an
accredited practicing dietitian and a and z AD credentialed eating
disorder clinician and a positive body image advocate with twenty
(00:56):
years of experience across both public and private health care sectors.
She's founder and principal dietitian at Choose Nutrition and has
a special interest in disordered eating and eating disorders. Chronic dieting,
weight and body image concerns. Meg is also the co
host of the podcast Life's Too Short to Count Almonds
and online course The Non Diet Way. I like the
(01:19):
sound of that. It makes me feel like I can
eat connoisseur ice cream if I really want to. And
she does that those podcasts and that online course with
fellow non diet dietitian Susan Williams. Meg is passionate about
eating disorder prevention and doing no harm when providing nutritional
guidance and when addressing eating and weight concerns across the lifespan.
She works with individual skills and community groups to push
back against half for body ideals and build body positive
(01:40):
spaces where people have all shapes and sizes are empowered
to look after their bodies and thrive. It's a big introduction,
but it's a big topic and I think it's worthy
of you, Meg, So thank you so very much for
joining me on the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So there's a difference between not doing well with food
and having an eating disorder. Okay, I mean I've got
a bit of a sugar prop I'm working on it cream.
I really like the flowerless orange and poppy seed cake,
especially with that ice, the icing on it. You know
what I'm having and kind of beat ourselves up about food,
which surely has a negative effect overall on the way
(02:15):
we approach food. Absolutely, let's talk about this issue. Can
we talk in general terms? What are we getting wrong
as a society when it comes to the way we
approach food?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, so, unfortunately a lot like we're pretty messed up
when it comes to food and nutrition and bodies. But
in the big, big picture, I sort of put one
sort of umbrella, we're really normalized. So this culture of dieting.
So if I sort of think along as sort of
a spectrum from what might be sort of like natural eating,
intuitive eating, healthy eating, we listen to our body, we've
(02:46):
got flexibility, we're notding to nutrition and to you know,
all that sort of stuff, and down right down the
other end, we've got you know, there's really really harmful,
really risky eating disorders like diagnosable meet the criteria. It's
kind of a spectrum. So one step sort of up
from sort of the eating disorder would be that sort
of disordered eating. It's impacting some of your staff. It's
(03:08):
possibly most mostly impact relationships, but possibly not physically. But
it's pretty yark and taking a lot of your headspace.
But the next step between disordered eating and sort of
natural eating, intuitive eating is dieting. And so it's just
become really normal to be counting, controlling, restricting, earning. All
(03:28):
this sort of language that we have in our culture
is unfortunately a supper slope to sernificate eating disorder for
people who are vulnerable to that.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So what I'm hearing is like, essentially, I'm probably simplifying
this too much, but four levels. We've got healthy, natural,
intuitive eating, then we've got dieting, Then we've got disordered
eating where it's certainly impacting our lives in unhelpful and
unproductive ways, and then there's actually eating disorders.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, pretty gray in between those zones.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Not just free sess. It's something that I've been thinking
a lot about lately because I have unfortunately, I mean,
I'm not as healthy as I used to be, I
think is probably the easiest way to say it, and
I could do with some lifestyle changes that would improve
my health. This is what happens when you've got six
kids and you travel a lot for thoughts. And there
(04:20):
are my excuses. There are my excuses, but you know
what the reality is.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
All the reasons, all the reasons we can be more
compassionate than excuses.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Well, I've come up with I've come up with a
theory and it really works for me, and that is
this my brain lies to me. My brain tells me
so many lies about the calories that I'm putting in
my body and the nutritional quality, what I need to do,
what I want, what I don't want. And what I'm
finding is that my brain is telling me yes, when
my body, if I listen to it, would actually say no,
(04:48):
I don't really need I mean, this is an embarrassing story,
but a case in point. I was at a hotel
in Sydney just recently. They fed me a beautiful pasta dish,
which I just love. And one of the great things
about all the travel that I do is I do
it in a lot of restaurants. That's both good and bad, obviously.
But then they brought me the dessert menu and my
body said yeah. My body said you've had enough. And
(05:10):
then I looked at the prices and my wallet also
said you've had enough. The lemon and Rosemary Gatto looked
so good, and it was twenty three bucks for dessert,
and I just thought, that's obscene, that's excessive. I'm not
doing it. And then I thought, you know what, I'm
going to do it. I don't do this often. I'm
going to do.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
It scarcy mentality. There it is.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I know they brought it a piece of cake. I
kid you not, Meg. It was as big as a
cake under normal circumstances. I don't know how big the
cake must have been. This thing was massive, the biggest
piece of cake I've literally ever seen in my life.
And then my brain said, well, gee, that's big. Let's
see how much you can do. And I hate most
of it, and I felt so bad, and I remembered again,
my brain says yes, and it lies to me. It
(05:55):
says yes, yes, Yes, You're gonna enjoy this so much,
and my body says, don't do it. But my brain
seems to stronger than my body in that situation. There
is a question coming in this very long autobiographical story
up sugar addiction, and that is how do we listen
better to our bodies? And the follow up to that
is how do we teach our kids that when it's
(06:16):
so hard for us.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, so as I mean, that's a huge question. But
what we see, and this is really really really common
with this sort of in that stage down from sort
of intuitive on natural in tune eating whatever I want
to call it in dieting, is this really well defined cycle,
which is the more we put something on a pedestal,
the more we think something we shouldn't be having, the
(06:39):
more we think, I'll eat it now because diet starts
tomorrow and I'm not going to let myself have it tomorrow,
or I've opened the packet now, so I'll eat it
all so it's gone and then I won't have to
worry about eating it tomorrow. All this controlling that we
do to try to reduce how much of these foods
we eat actually drives us to those very foods and
disconnects us from you know, if you a sort of
(07:00):
sit down and go that looks great. I don't feel
like it right now, but I'm not going to be
able to have it again in the future because this
is rare. Just know, Oh, there's that scarcity mentality there
of oh I've got it here now, I've got these
like these experiences of getting in trouble for not eating
all the food on my plate, and so the idea
of not eating the whole thing now that it's in
front of me, Oh, that's really that's really uncomfortable, and
(07:22):
so the easiest way to get rid of that discomfort
is to just eat it. And so often it's actually
sort of zooming out a bit understanding what is driving
the behavior. So I get another I love my imagery,
but I sort of think of I thort of think
of it as like got a tree and the top
of the tree, the leaves a bit we see the
bits that often we might want to change is that
(07:43):
we think of that as behavior. So things we don't
like that we do, all the things we do like
that we do. That's sort of the top. That's a canopy.
Just telling someone, well, don't do it, or just giving
someone information. It's kind of like watering the leaves. You
want to shiny leaves for a while. You might be
able to will power white knuckle it hold on for
a while, but it's really not where trees get their nourishment.
We need to look down, and so they sort of
think about the trunk. That's often where I thoughts and
(08:05):
feelings high because there are things that kick our behaviors
off most instantly, those sorts of thoughts and feelings. But
then we've got to go, well, where have they been
informed from? And go under the ground. And that's why
we've got things like our values, So our values around
money and I've spent the money on it, I don't
want to waste it, or our values on our health
and nutrition, our beliefs about I'm addicted to this, and
so I'm not going to be able to stop, which
(08:27):
may be true or may not be true. And you know,
things like our experiences like that one I used before.
If I get in trouble, if I've grown up getting
in trouble when i don't eat everything on my plate,
or I've got really strong values around waste and sustainability tree,
I feel really uncomfortable at the idea of wasting this
food or of missing this opportunity or whatever, and so
(08:48):
the automatic behavior is, well, I'm going to deal with
that by eating it. We need to sort of zoom
out and try different things.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Two things Maing stand out to me as you're sharing this,
especially when we get down to the roots and the
values them is on this idea of waste. I had
my thinking completely revolutionized a little while ago when I
was listening to a podcast with the founder of the
founder of the US behemoth Whole Foods. Oh wow, Okay, Yeah,
this guy back in the seventies hippie sort of living
(09:17):
and put together the Whole Foods and now it's a
multi billion dollar goliath in terms of helping people to
eat food that's good for them and all about sustainability.
But the guy actually said he's not so worried about
food wasted because food is a renewable resource, like you
can always grow more food, especially when we're talking about
the kind of whole foods that he's describing and we're
not necessarily talking about killing animals and things, right, And
(09:40):
I thought that was a really fascinating reframe. And I've
loosened up heaps on the idea that all the food
on your plate now has to be eaten. There's the
financial aspect, but in terms of the renewability of you
can always cook more rice or whatever. That's really shifted,
and that value has changed the way I look at
the way my kids eat what's on their plate. The second,
(10:00):
the second value that I just wanted to highlight is
kind of the other extreme. My dad probably eats a
diet that is has more sometimes food, heat, sometimes food
all the time. If you know what I mean, and
his value is you know what, I'm nearly seventy years old.
I'll eat what I want. Yeah, I just want to
(10:21):
enjoy my food. I don't care and to the detriment
of your health. But when I think about these, just
the pervasive range of deeply entrenched values that drive the
thoughts and the emotions that drive the behaviors, that model
of the tree and the canopy and the roots. I
guess I shared those two to highlight how powerful that
can be.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah, And I think it helps. By having that sort
of framework, we can instead of sort of looking at
our behaviors and being like, oh, you're read it. You
did that again. Why don't I have any will power?
I'm so bad, really negative shame spiral.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
That's what I said.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Hang on a minute, right, Yeah, we can sort of
pause and have this sort of compassionate look of people
are often trying their best, and people are often doing
really automat behaviors without really having a time to even
think about doing something differently, and so if we can
sort of be curious and have a little look down
and sort of understand what's going underneath, that's really where
we're going to have an impact. I have a middlefol
(11:13):
client I worked with a while ago who she knew
that she wasn't hungry when she was driving home from
work and she was going home to dinner, and yet
she just kept sort of going through the drive through
and she didn't understand it, and so we did some digging,
did some digging and goes right back to some food
insecurity as a child, and the idea of being even
tiny bit hungry and not knowing where your next food
(11:34):
was coming from was so panic inducing that she would
just push it down, push it down, push it down.
And so we had to do so much beautiful, calm, slow,
compassionate work on Okay, let's acknowledge that, let's learn to
be comfortable with that. Let's remind you that you're not
food insecure, You've got an option, and how can we
work around that. So it's some tile and error and
(11:54):
a lot of compassionate looking. Unfortunately, our cultures just like
we'll just try harder, just have you will completely ignoring
like people's own experiences in life and how diverse that
they are, their capacity to you know, financially, their capacity
if they've got kids who are really struggling to diversify
their intake and they can't afford to be throwing food
out all the time, or they've got you know, possibly
(12:16):
some so ahither that's the trauma or just some just
some really rigid beliefs around food. All of that stuff
is just becomes this cycle of going around and around
around doing the same thing. Because our culture has the
sort of the belief that you're out of control with food,
you can't be trusted. This is like the general everybody,
you can't be trusted, you're out of control. You need
you need control, you need a diet. So people go
(12:38):
and they do their diet and the first stage is
great honeymoon phase. The first time you've got around this
cycle is pretty easy. People will you know, you they're
in a deathicerit. Their body takes a while to adapt
and so they have this honeymoon phase where sort of
the it's working and then sort of the next stage is, well,
there's a cheat because there's a special event. There's occasion
you get sick or whatever, and usually that's not the
(12:59):
end of the story. People like nap increase the zule
one back on the horse, and so they'll keep going
and they'll keep doing the same thing, but their body goes.
I don't like being deficit. So it increases their food preoccupation,
in increases their hunger. Hoomers, there's a plateau with their
weight change even though they're still doing all the same things.
That's very frustrating in a culture that says just do
it harder. And so someone who doesn't have a predecision
(13:21):
for eating disorders, usually that's just going to lead to
so much frustration, hunger, irritation over it that they'll be
the end of the diet with this over compensating of eating.
So perhaps binging or just really forget it, I don't care,
I'm eating everything whatever.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
But then they'd repeat the cycle when they and just
diet harder.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Just yes, and our culture, our culture is the only
has the only answer. It's ever sort of giveness is, well,
you found that you need a different diet, that one
wasn't right for you. You need to find the right diet.
And because people have swung between control, restrict, count limit,
all that sort of negativity or I don't care, I'm
eating everything whatever. They think they need the diet to
(14:00):
stop the binging, although overcompensating eating or whatever, not realizing
oh no, it's the restriction is the starter, that it's
what's kicking it off. And so what sort of non
diet dietitians are What I do with my clients, either
for the weight cycling or of course in eating disorders
as well, particularly of your binge eating disorders, is really
trying to offer a different world together that is outside
(14:21):
of that diet cycle, which is without paying attention to
hunger and forwardness signals to what are your values around
food and health and nutrition, because as you said, with
your dad, he has different values around health than you,
and that's not necessary better or worse. And so just
sort of people understanding their own stuff and then finding
a way to look after their bodies, to look after
(14:43):
their wellbeing, whole big picture well being. And you know,
obviously I'm a dietitian, so improving dietary quality is right
up there on my priority list and my radar as
part of that process. So we stop swinging and going
round and around around that diet cycle. And the more
times you go around it the shorter it gets, and
the less like it's effective it gets. So as far
(15:03):
as for weight loss, which I don't do weight loss,
but that's a whole discussion for another day around intentional
weight loss, but it does also become less effective as
your body goes Oh, I know how to do this.
I was going to down regulate. I'm going to make
you really hungry, and I'm going to get this cycle
finished as quick as possible because our body is actually
really like being in balance. So where this sort of
(15:25):
lead that gets into in disorders, So people who have
a genetic predisposition for in disorders, that guieting, that restriction,
that controlling can really kick off the development of a
really serious eat disorder.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
We need to talk about that serious stuff to eating disorders.
I promised that at the very start.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
We've got off track. No we did. That's okay, But.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I love what you're talking about and it's fascinating. I
want to ask you to just to sort of finish
off the question that I had asked previously. If you've
got a child who is not eating well, who is
clearly nutritionally deficient, and it's probably eating lots and lots
of white foods and yellow foods, but not getting the
rest of the rainbow and certainly missing out on the
nutritional quality. It would lead to a healthier childhood and
(16:09):
help them to be more active. How do we help
them to shift, like, how do we help them to
move in a healthy direction without increasing the risk of
well predisposing them towards and eating disorder.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, so obviously not having panics. I think often people
sort of panic and get really stressed about short term
eating behavior or what's happening for their kids in a
sort of a distrect period of time and put the
pressure on. And what happens when we put pressure on
kids is usually that sort of the push back and
that reaction.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, resistance, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Absolutely, And so trying to zooming out of a k
nutrition matters over a lifetime. And so we're going to
be moving towards you know where we would want as
a family to our kids to be eating. But the
best thing we can do for that is modeling, is
continuing to offer a wide range of foods and that predictability.
So there's an I sort of the phrase that can
(17:01):
be useful of that sort of really gentle rule of
threes that kids they need to eat around at every
three hours and try to have something for more three magnuchance.
Let's make sure there's some fats and proteins and carbohydrate
on offer at every time, and then we have these
foods between meals where we're not eating to work with
our natural appetites. Another issue with our diet culture is
that says, well, you read the paper and that tells
(17:22):
you what and when to eat, as opposed to when
you're actually hungry or when your body tells you to stop.
Our gods like, well, but there's still more on your
meal plan, or you haven't had your five vegies, you
better keep going. So really trying to work with their
inbuilt natural appetites and not destroy that connection but actually
help them have body trust. Continued exposure like low pressure
(17:44):
exposure and modeling are probably the strongest things in there.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
So two follow up questions on that number One, you
said ideally kidstributing every three hours. What age you are
around about? Yeah, give or take. But what age are
we talking about here? Oh?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So, so from sort of free school through it's just
it's generally how work our school days are going to
sit up anyway. But just if we look at sort
of the appetite hormones. There's a whole of different hormones
involved in appetite and once for hunger and for fullness,
and they kind of will sort of go in a
it's not exact science, but they'll go in a bit
of a three hour cycle. And if we if we
(18:21):
go too long. One thing is people can actually not
feel hunger because they can sort of turn off that
connection because they're like, this doesn't feel pleasant. The other
thing is that we can really disconnect from hunger of
fullness and just when the food comes really overdo it.
If there's predictability and kids know, oh, I'm going to
get another gult that later on, then they're less likely
(18:43):
to eat all the stuff now because they don't know
when they're going to get it again. And that's you know,
linking in particularly to sort of your more binge eating
disorders where the scarcity mentality thing back to COVID and
the toilet paper, like people are like, oh, no, I'm
not gonna have enough toilet paper, so they bought enough
toilet paper of three years. You know, a very human things.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
We're still working for hours right now and we've got.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Stuck and so we can apply it. So you know
how often people think about food if they think I'm
not gonna let myself have this again, or I only
get this at parties because our house has none of
this stuff in it. Often these are the kids actually
don't have their own off switch or don't have their
own connection because they override it because of that desire
because it's delicious and it's enjoyable, but they're taught that
(19:23):
it's really special and that they're not going to have
it regularly.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Okay, So that takes care of my second question because
you also mentioned the word predictability around food, But what
you're saying is they know they're going to get food
again in a couple of hours time. Three absolutely, Okay,
tell me in terms of eating disorders, how prevalent are
they in Australia. How much do we see this occurring
in our kids.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, so if we think about all eating sauce, so
off from when we say eating sours, people just think
about ANIREXI interface, So that really sort of stereotypical. And
I see everybody is teenage girl, which is just such
a tiny proportion. So around about four percent of the
total population will experience and eating disorder. Maybe three percent
of those is anarexi in nevosa, and so it's really
(20:04):
broad spectrum. Some research suggests in Australia adolescents expensing disordered
eatings up to around thirty percent. So that's the stuff
that hides in plain sight because in our culture that says, hey,
dieting is normal, dieting is goods is how you look.
This is how you quote unquote look after yourself, those
things which are quite disordered and causing possibly distress or
(20:25):
shame or worry or just a whole lot of headspace
being used up on food food thinking over the normalized
and a scene as you know, perhaps good if we
look at what is called atypical anorexin novosa, which is
all of the psychological distress and the physical risk of
our sort of typical arexia but without a low body weight.
And there's some really interesting Australian research that showed that
(20:48):
actually kids who started in a bigger body and lose
a significant amount of weight are at higher risk of
medical instability than kids who perhaps started in a small
body and lost weight to an underweight stage. But because
of their starting point, actually they are still at rithmetically,
and we want to help sort them out and you
get them out of deficit. But there's this whole cohort
(21:10):
of kids who are naturally larger or who've just been bigger,
who then do what society tells them to do and
lose weight, which actually kicks off this really significant, really
life harming in disorder that can hang around for years
and years and years. But instead of getting help, they
get congratulated or they get told, I'll keep doing what
you're doing. So weight loss in teenagers, even intentional weight
(21:31):
loss in teenagers, it's not normal. They should that's the
wrong direction. Even for a kid who's fat's in a
larger body. It actually is like warning, signed red flag,
but often missed. You know, sometimes often in boys in particular,
who suddenly get like a gym obsession. They really at
the gym and they're counting their macros and they're doing this,
that and the other, and it was like, oh, he's
so healthy. Is we looking out for his health? And
(21:52):
then you know, I've got plenty of clients who that
was them as a teen and it was years later
that they were like, oh, yeah, I was really unwell.
I was just dressed I was body checking, I was
weighing myself constantly, I was thinking about nothing of food.
I had really low hormone levels. I was tired, I
was insomniac, like life was awful, and yet on the
(22:13):
outside I was like, yeah, buddy, keep doing what you're doing.
That's amazing. So it's really it can be really hard.
I have a heap of compassion for parents who want
the best for their kids and have also grown up
in this culture that has sort of a hierarchy of
bodies and uses a body shape or size to decide
if someone's healthy or not.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
So I feel like I need to I don't know
if pushback is the right word, but I'm having a
reaction to some of the stuff that you're saying, particularly
around like there comes a point though, when your body
is simply unhealthy, and that may or may not have
to do with the size of it, but clearly there's
a correlation. The bigger body, the more likely it is
that you're going to suffer ill health people who are yes.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So there are definitely a risk factor. So no one
is sort of annoying that, you know, being in a
large body isn't associated with increased rates of different sort
of I guess more video mortality, different chronic diseases. But
when the research actually looks at behaviors, particularly on physical
activity behaviors and body side, the association between a higher
(23:13):
risk and the body size actually goes away. And if
we actually look at people's behaviors any plenty fruits and vegetables,
not smoking, and moving, those risks are really they really disappear.
There's some really good research around particularly the impact of
physical activity on risk. And the piece of the puzzle
(23:34):
that often gets missed is our culture makes it really
hard to just live your life happily and healthily if
you're in a larger body, and so that weight stigma
piece of the puzzle often gets missed. So we know
this around you know, different minorities have increased risk of
quantican complex disease due to stigma, but we kind of
miss that. We've got a real weight stigma problem in
(23:56):
our culture. So it's hard for kids to feel okay
in their bodies if they don't sort of if they're
sort of outside of those thin ideas or those sort
of normal body ideals.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
So this is a podcast for the time poor parent
who just wants answers. Now they listening to this conversation,
they're saying, okay, okay, I get the general overall gist
that this is a discussion about overall health rather than
the size of my child's body. Nevertheless, I know that
my child is not in a healthy body right now,
and I want them to be healthy. But every time
I talk to them about it, it backfires, They get defensive,
(24:27):
or they gone do something unhelpful, unhealthy. If I'm a
parent who just wants my kidd to make better decisions, here,
what would be your top couple of tips, top three
tips that can really be actively followed by a parent
who's struggling with this right now.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah. Absolutely so. The biggest thing is that your child
knows that no matter what their size is and what
happens with their body, they are one hundred percent loved, accepted.
Their value in your eyes doesn't change that because we
don't look after things we don't care about. And so
if kids are getting there idea that they're not cared for,
how they actually don't that their body isn't worth caring
(25:04):
for because of the way it looks, they're not going
to care for it.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
I remember reading some research a couple of years ago
that showed that kids, I think nine year old, nine
year old kids who received messages from their parents that
indicate that their parents are not satisfied with that child's body.
In other words, hey kiddo, you need to lose some weight.
At the age of like sixteen seventeen, they were I
don't remember how many times, but they were two or
three or four times more likely to still be overweight
or obese in their mid eighteens because of what they
(25:29):
heard when they were nine.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah, and if you're in a culture that says, oh,
actually you don't belong here, we don't have uniform that
fits you, or you don't look like the other kids
on the sporting team or whatever, well what are you
going to do. You're gonna withdraw, You're going to sit
in your room. You maybe you don't increase your online
presence being on you know, computer games, because well, you're safe,
you're accepted that no one's judging you on your body.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
So number one, unconditional love, right, unconditional love, and really
really focusing on no matter how you look, you've got
my love and my support absolutely.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
So from there you can then spring into that modeling
that regulation about what's good for all bodies, because it's
not like people who are actually in small bodies it's
good for them to sit around, not do any movement
and only donates to McDonald's and you know, so what's
good for all bodies? So rather than having a sort
of a this is good for you and this is
bad for you, we actually be like, you know, it's
(26:20):
good for everybody, movement, stress management, eating plenty fruits and vegetables,
eating regular meals, you know, having that sort of that ballance.
So that's the starting point is if I wasn't worried
about my child's body size, what would I be wanting
them to do anyway? And starting there with those sort
of conversations because there's every single chard is in a
(26:41):
larger body. They know it. You know, we've got kids
as young ast for you know, we can actually identify
that there's levels of weight steam where that young people
don't need to be told they need to be supported
to look after the body as it is. And again,
there's so much more we could talk about around and
how that might look, because it's going to be really
(27:01):
different for different families. But at the end of the day,
our bodies are worth respecting and looking after, no how
they look, and that we undermine people's ability to look
after their body by telling them it's something wrong with them.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Meg McClintock is an accredited practicing dietitian. You can find
out more at Choose Nutrition. She's also the co host
of the podcast Life's Too Short to Count almends. Love
that title. Hey Meg, thanks for joining me on the
Happy Family Podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
If you'd like more information, we'll link to everything Meg
related in our show notes. You can also check out
happy families dot com dot you. The Happy Families podcast
is produced by Justin ruland Craig Bruce is our executive producer,
and if you'd like more info about making your family
happier and healthier, check out Choose Nutrition online with Meg
McClintock her podcast Life's Too Short to Count almends. We'll
(27:52):
visit us at Happy families dot com dot a you
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