January 9, 2021 • 27 mins
Jennifer Anderson is the Registered Dietitian behind Kids Eat in Color - the online resource that helps parents feed their children MORE FOODS with LESS STRESS. We learn what to do with picky eaters, how to encourage veggies without force, and her approach to repeated exposure.
Follow Jennifer at @kids.eat.in.color or visit her website kidseatingcolor.com
Check out Jennifer’s online program, Better Bites: For parents who want to teach their kids to eat more foods with less stress https://jenniferanderson.kartra.com/page/enm50
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Maybe that's Lisa, and we're just two girls that want
to have a conversation with you. Dear sixteen year old Andrea,
Hey gorgeous, Dear younger Lauren. Each episode is stories from people.
I would deprive myself by myself obsessively because I was
eating healthy. I couldn't understand that I had a problem
with food. Losing my period scared me the most. My
story starts when I was around seven. That's when I
(00:24):
started to hate my body. Body image is like our
inner picture of our outer self. Healthy behaviors play a
much bigger role at all health than the actual number
on the scales. Internal dialogue could be so powerful and
often it's super negative and critical in a way that
we wouldn't talk to other people that we care about.
When you start to share your story, that gives other
(00:44):
people the courage to share theirs. I know you would
be proud now of how far you have come in
your relationship to food, exercise, and to yourself. I felt freedom,
I've gained relationships. I've found my true sense of self worth.
There's one thing I need you to take away. You're
going to be okay, okay. We are so excited to
(01:06):
have Jennifer Anderson on Today. Now, Jennifer, I've been following
you on Instagram for a while now, probably for sure
since I became a mom, and I'm a new mom
in the last three years. But I have older children,
so I adopted from Haiti. I have a thirteen year
old and a ten year old, So I didn't, you know,
(01:27):
do the whole breastfeeding or milk phase. I went straight
into like, how can we nourish these kids bodies and
and plus you were coming from a different culture, a
different country. I didn't know how to introduce them to
certain foods that they had never had before. And I
just love, love, loved the way you present it on Instagram,
(01:48):
which is how I found you. Now, I know you
have a website, Kids Eating color dot com and your
registered dietitian, your wife, your mom, so you get it.
Not only is this your career, but you have children
and you just simplify everything. For those of us that
have picky eaters, we don't get it, or maybe they're
not even picky, but it's like, how do you not
(02:08):
create unhealthy food habits with your children? Because that's a
layer of parenting too. Not only do we want to
get nutritious food in their body, but also we want
them to have a healthy relationship with them. So thank
you for being here with us today because I consider
you an expert in this well, thank you so much
for having me. If moms are listening or you're a
(02:29):
mom to be like Lisa she doesn't have kids yet,
but she plans to in the future. When it comes
to feeding your kids, it can just be really stressful.
So how can we alleviate some of that stress? Like
when you wake up in the morning and you're trying
to put something together? I mean, is that top of
mind to you? Like, how can I make this a
less stressful event for people? Yeah? As a mom, I
(02:51):
think that's my top of mind thing every day. How
do I make this day less stressful for myself? Because
we didn't get them s tricky, It's it's hard. It
happens like anywhere from three to six times a day.
I mean, they have to eat so much, and the
little ones, you know more so. So the recommendation I
have for making feeding kids less stressful is to tell
(03:13):
kids they don't have to eat it, and to just
be really firm. You know, I'm not gonna make something
else but also you definitely don't have to eat it.
And when you develop a culture around your table that
gives kids the ability to choose whether to eat and
how much they're going to eat, that really changes the
game for you as the parent, because you stop trying
(03:33):
to get yourself involved in their job, which is to
open their mouth and put food in it and swallow
it and that sort of thing, like that's that's really
not your job. What your job is to make those
balanced meals and to include foods that you know your
kids are familiar with and that sort of thing so
that they can learn to eat foods. But as soon
as you start getting involved in their job where you're like, oh,
(03:53):
eat three bites, or uh, you have to eat this,
or you have to try this now, some families do
create a culture of trying foods that is positive and
and very low pressure, but many families it's like breadless
food and and everybody's blood pressure is just going up
and up and up, and meal times can be so
stressful when you're having those battles. But when you tell
kids that's okay, you don't have to eat it, it
(04:15):
totally changes the game. So, yeah, and I heard you
say in there that you just stay firm. And I
think as parents, anytime you're delivering anything to your kids,
I'm doing a lot of learning myself, whether it's food
or anything. They do enjoy choices, but not too many.
We can't overwhelm them more like you get this or this,
and when you're presenting something to them, so that you
(04:38):
don't end up like a short order chef, like trying
to cook a bunch of different things for people, you
just in a calm, firm way. This is what we're having, right.
That's just a side note, and that could be in
anything that you're doing and parenting for good communication skills,
especially about something as important as food. So how comparents
help their kids eat more veggies? Obviously what you just
(04:59):
said is that hip two. But is there ways that
we can like encourage it and sneak it in there
more so, the number one way to get kid see
veggies is to serve them a lot. You can serve
veggies with every single meal in snack like you don't
have to just wait for dinner time to serve vegetables.
And the more kids see vegetables and the more they
(05:22):
effect them to be there, the more comfortable, they begin
to feel, they're more likely to try them, they're more
likely to chaste them. The more they chaste them, the
more they're they are likely to learn to like them.
And ideally you would also be eating a lot of
vegetables in front of your child. So that's the other thing.
If your child never sees a vegetable and never sees
(05:42):
you eat a vegetable, guess what. They're never gonna eat
a vegetable. It's just not possible. But if you have
found a way to incorporate fruits and veggies into your
meal routine throughout the day, it's just gonna be a
normal food to them. And they're going to go through
phases where they may eat a lot, and you may
have a pig eater, and picky eaters notoriously do not
(06:03):
like vegetables. That has been observed. So with those kids,
we often need more advanced techniques like what I cover
my Better Bites program, where we're learning to do specific
food play and we're learning to get kids closer to
the food, kind of pushing their edge of comfort while
still maintaining that respect of no pressure. So there are
situations for about the kids, but they're going to need
(06:25):
more healthy eat vegetables. But for the other the kids,
they are able to learn to like things over time
the more they see them. Do you think that there's
a psychological component regarding the language that parents use around
the vegetable, like kind of making it, you know, eat
these three bites of healthy broccoli so that you can
(06:46):
have the dessert later. Like, do you think that if
we didn't put the healthy food on this pedestal or
tell them that it's healthy or that it's the harder
thing to eat, but we should eat it. Obviously there
are some kids that really don't find the taste palatable.
But do you think there's a psychological component to it
that us parents are parents to be or maybe we
(07:07):
just have kids around us can bring to the table
to change that. Yeah. Absolutely. The more you draw attention
to vegetables as good for you and all that sort
of thing, the less your child. Well, you know, I
don't like to stereotype because kids are also different, but
for a big chunk of kids, if you say this
broccoli is good for you, then be like, well, I'm
(07:30):
not gonna eat it. This is healthy, Well, then I'm
not gonna eat it, right, And then and then they
hear candy is bad for you, like, well, I'm definitely
gonna eat that because it's delicious. So the more we
add on these labels to food, healthy, unhealthy, good, bad,
you know, the labels that go with sugar, poisonous, addictive,
like all these things. I mean, the more we label foods,
(07:53):
the harder it becomes for children to just eat vegetables
without any strings attached. I once talked on my Instagram
stories about intentionally eating more vegetables for a specific health
condition at the recommendation of this dietesition that I was
working with, and someone sent me a d M and said,
how much weight are you losing? And I said, well,
(08:14):
I'm not I'm not doing this to lose weight, Like
this is not even kind of related to weight. This
is related to a specific health thing. And she said, oh,
I don't even know how to think about that, Like
in her mind, vegetables are a diet food, and often
we pass it on to their kids, like moms will say, oh,
I'm trying to lose my baby weight and so I'm
(08:36):
only going to have salad at dinner time, and they'll
say something like that at the dinner table and next thing,
you know, you'll see kids missing his three who's saying, oh,
I need to go on a diet and lose some
weight because they're they're really just mimicking their parents. And
then they may say, I need deep vegetables, right, we
don't want to attach to vegetables. I mean, vegetables are
this wonderful, life giving food that is wonderful for everyone.
(08:59):
I don't want my boy is growing up thinking this
is some sort of girl diet food to eat a salad.
I want them to know that this is something that
helps their body fight off disease, It helps their body
heal cut it helps feed their the bugs in their
gut which helped them fight off, you know, illnesses. I
want them to know all those things so that they
can grow up and justify to their friends why they
(09:22):
eat salads. In fact, one of my messages for carrots
is carrots help you see in the dark. That's because
they're rich in vitamin A. Vitamin A is necessary for
night vision. And one time we were at this at
a pool and I had some carrots out there and
my kids were eating carrots, and another kid came up
and said, you carrot, I can't believe you're eating carrots.
(09:43):
And my son was about four at the time, and
he looked at him, He's like, they helped me see
in the dark. And and then he offered the kids
some carrots, and the other kid was like, oh really,
and he started eating carrots. So, I mean, obviously that
was like a once in a lifetime situation. But that's
kind of what we want to do with our is
we want to give them information that they can use later.
What's a good age that we can start incorporating that
(10:05):
information that goes with the vegetable to the child. So
not talking about weight in any means, but by talking
about vision or bone strength or I've heard people say
run fast, you know when talking about eating enough, Like,
what's a good age to start incorporating that language. I
think as soon as they're verbal, I think even pre verbal,
you know, because where you talk, the better it is
(10:26):
for the kids. Right, So as soon as they're able
to put things together, you can just kind of say, oh,
so I for preschoolers, they really like to simplify things,
and I the way that I do that is by
just attaching a color of vegetable and fruit to a
function in the body. It's highly simplified, because obviously every
(10:47):
vegetable this red doesn't do exactly the same thing. But
it's great to make those connections with two and three
year olds where you're saying, oh, red things help your heart,
blue and purple things help your brain, orange things help
you stay in the dark. You know, those sorts of
messages really basic. I think you can start right away
because three year olds think that stuff is cool, and
two year olds, I mean, they're still figuring this stuff out.
(11:07):
But but you're never too young. I will just say that, Yeah, sure,
it's great for preschoolers and kids if you're working with them.
But I think you posted that chart on Instagram. I'm
sure you have multiple times. But I saw it one
day and grabbed it and I shared it on my
podcast for adults to hear. So yeah, it can be
for two or three year olds, but it also can
be for thirty or forty or fifty year olds that
(11:29):
never learned to properly think about food in that manner.
So I think while you're teaching parents and speak in
a language they can understand for their kids. I feel
like as an adult, even if I didn't have kids,
I benefit from following your account because there's so much wisdom.
And obviously I wasn't raised by parents that approached food
(11:52):
the way you did, and I was surrounded by other
things that caused me to develop all sorts of unhealthy habits.
So what are some common mistakes that parents are You
see some parents make who mean well, but they actually
end up causing harm, kind of like what happened to
me just getting introduced to diet culture too young. Sure,
(12:12):
I think this is really common because many of us
were raised in a feeding environment that kind of come
out of the depression years and the war years and
those sorts of things, and so things like you have
to clean your plate and you have to pick a
bite of everything. There's a lot of control, and it
did serve a purpose for parents during a rough time
(12:36):
in our culture. But now the food system has changed.
The food itself has changed, the food processing has changed,
so much has changed, and now we have access to
like really large amounts of low costs, low nutrient dense foods,
and so as the food system has changed, now as parents,
we actually have to help our kids be more protective
(13:00):
of their hunger and fullness cues then previous generations of parents,
because our kids may be exposed to tons and tons
and tons of birthday parties in school, whereas hundred years
ago that just was not happening. So what I recommend
to parents, especially if they find themselves in these cycles
(13:21):
of clean your plate, take three bites to get dessert.
You earn dessert, you have to be forced to eat
your vegetables. There's a lot of pressure, a lot of force.
And every time we force a kid to clean their plate,
we tell them, you know what, you don't know how
hungry you are. I know how hungry you are. And
they are trained then to say, okay, well whatever is
(13:42):
on my plate, that person knows what I need and
I'm gonna eat it. And then they go to a
restaurant and then there's you know, a double sized portion
of food and there's like actual emotional angst for them
to either leave anything on the plate, and then there's
physical angst if they eat it all, and then they've
eaten twice as much as they would actually want to
or feel comfortable with, but they feel there's guilt that
they then need to feed the plate and next thing
(14:04):
you know, they're eating more than their body needs. And
so when we're really pushing our kids, although in the
moment it often seems helpful, especially if you have a
kid who's struggling to gain weight, or maybe you have
a kid who the doctors said something about wayne too
much and you feel like you need to pressure them
to eat less. Whenever we pressure the kids, we take
away some of their ability to listen to whether they
(14:27):
are hungry and full. Now I know how hard this is.
I have a son who you know, didn't gain weight well,
and the pediatrician was concerned for years. I mean, this
has been a long term issue. Is he gain enough weight?
Is he not easy? You know? And so I had
to go through a lot of this angst where I
would I mean, one time, my husband's like, can't we
just tell him he needs to eat more? And I said,
(14:48):
I don't think the evidence supports that. I think I
think we shouldn't. I think we should just continue to
let him make that choice. And that's really hard. That's
really hard as parents, and sometimes we may make changes
to the food itself, but we still have to help
our kids learn to listen to their bodies. That is
one of the most helpful gifts and health that they
(15:09):
can have. Long term is to listen to whether they
are hungry and full and not the learning process, by
the way, you know, kids take years to develop that
skill often and then that can help them be healthy
long term. I've been around my niece who is now
six years old, and I've watched her eat two bites
of dinner and you know, just get totally distracted. And
(15:33):
my sister in law is kind of in this place
where you know, she doesn't want her to go to
bed hungry, and she doesn't want her to find out
that she's hungry and be uncomfortable two hours later, you know,
when she's in better wake up in the middle of
the night hungry. And I see how how hard it
is to be apparent when you quote unquote no better
and you want to help your child. I can see
(15:53):
much more easily secondhand, how the desire to want to
help your child learn how much they need is very
difficult when the child doesn't know that they're going to
be going to sleep and they're gonna need a little
extra food for that. So is there like a gentle
approach that parents can take when their child just is
refusing dinner. But you know, I think dinner is kind
(16:14):
of this critical one because it's not an opportunity to
eat an hour later when the kids go to bed, Like,
is there a gentle assistance that a parent can give
a child or absolutely not let them find out that
they need food and the next day they'll you know,
make up for it. Yeah, So there's there's a couple
of things here. Dinner is tricky. One reason is I
think a lot of people were raised with going to
(16:36):
bed hungry as a punishment, and they were told, I'm
not going to give you dinner, you have to go
to bed hungry. So there's this really deep visceral like
discussed that and fear that we would be hurting a
child if they quote went to bed hungry. The other
thing is a lot of kids are actually too tired
to eat quote eat well at the end of the day,
(16:57):
and dinner is almost always, for odds, like their worst
meal of the day. They're going to eat the least
amount because they're tired and they just need to go
to bed and then wake up in the morning having
a big breakfast. So breakfast is often the place where
they're going to really bulk up. You can feed them
veggies in that time of day, they'll be really hungry
all that stuff. So we're a family in this situation.
(17:18):
Another thing that I see is the family says, Okay,
here's dinner, the kid doesn't eat dinner, and then right
before bed, the kid says, I want to snack, and
then they get a granola bar or some pretzels or
something that's processed pasty and they're like, oh, I don't
have to eat dinner, and then I can get a snack.
And it's just their way of getting a snack. I mean, yeah,
(17:42):
fun like mommy family pretzels before bed. Um. Now, I
don't have anything against pretzels, but we want kids eating dinner,
not pretzels. Ideally, I think a lot of parents would
agree with that. And my kids have a bedtime snack
just based on how our schedule works and my kids
needs and that sort of thing. So your child may
need a bedtime snack, and this is especially true if
(18:03):
they are often waking up in the middle of the
night hungry, but often, I mean several times a week
for a couple of weeks. If that's the situation, then
after dinner, you can give a bedtime snack. It should
not be exciting, it should be nutrient dunce, and it
should be be something that's like, you know, quote healthy,
and it's something that wouldn't motivate them to not eat
dinner so that they could get their snack. But the
(18:25):
thing is like, if you're always making them that thing
after the meal, then they just know they don't have
to eat dinner. They can wait for the thing that
they want. More So, you have to decide is a
bed time snack right for your child? If it is fine,
served the bedtime snack regardless of what happens at dinner,
But if it's not, then is your time to teach
your child that dinner is the last time for the day.
(18:46):
And if they don't eat, that is totally their choice.
And if they have a sensation of hunger, that's okay.
That's not going to be damaging to the child in
any way, shape or form. And then maybe they'll wake
up a little early because they're hungrier. You feed them
a bit breakfast, and then you move on with your day.
Most kids figure this out super quickly, and they just
need the firm leadership of a parent to say this
(19:09):
is what's happening, and this is when foods available, Calm
and firm. Uh, So, let's talk about strategic exposure, because again,
I love that this is for kids, but adults could
use this too. And I've seen you post it multiple
times and like just dropping cute little eminem's in the trade.
I mean, just share with people what that means and
(19:29):
how it can create a healthier relationship with candy or
dessert and not making it such a deserved thing or
oh my gosh, I can't believe you ate that kind
of a thing, because that's what happens as we're adults,
and I've done it to my kids, Like I'm a
different mom than I was three years ago around food
because I'm a different person of your food. I am
now in recovery. When I first got my kids, I
(19:51):
was knee deep and disordered eating and eating disorder. So
it was all kinds of things that now sometimes I
hear them say and I shoot, I know, and I
tried to undo, undo, undo, and so now I don't
freak out as much or really as all all about things.
But I freaked out about candy when they first got here,
like you would not believe. So I was the worst
example of strategic exposure. I just didn't allow it right,
(20:14):
And that's that's actually super common. It's not just you.
So I think there is a lot of fearmongering around
sugar and candy and it, you know, partially for good reason,
because a lot of kids are to mean, way too
much sugar for them to be healthy. Right, But a
little sugar here and there, you know, eating birthday cakes
and celebrating things and having some ice cream with dinner,
(20:34):
and you know, these sorts of things. They can be
included in a healthy diet. And we can still enjoy
these things but in moderation. But we have to show
kids what that looks like. So with really little kids,
it just kind of like go with the minimum portion
that they feel okay about. So with a two year old, now,
ideally like little kids were not giving them any sugar.
(20:55):
But as I get a little older than, they noticed
that you're having it and they want them to. So
with like a two or old, maybe I'll put like
two eminem's on the plate, or with a three year old,
maybe three M and m's. Now, of course three M
and ms isn't gonna work for my seven year old now,
but he is going to needle a little bigger pile. Right,
But as I grow, you can have know the amount
that they feel good with it. I like, just serve
dessert alongside a meal with a kid, especially if there's
(21:17):
some sort of obsession or interest developing. If my kids
are like, oh my gosh, oreos. I heard about oreos.
I want oreos, oreos, oreos, and I'm like, okay, I
gotta some oreos, and then we serve them, you know,
maybe three days to three days in a row, oreo
with the meal with lunch, and then next thing, you know,
they're not asking about oreos. They've had their oreos. And
we haven't had oreos in two years since because I
(21:39):
haven't come up again. But we have ice cream for
dessert a couple of times a week. You know. I
love to how you simply put it on your Instagram.
That open restriction leads to obsession of the food. I
want that food, I need that food. Anytime there is
that food, they have that scarcity mindset they're going to
eat it all. And strategic exposure leads to that food
being no big deal that you put it perfect. You
(22:00):
don't have to serve it all the time, like we
just don't. We can serve it a few times a
week and kids can get this like, oh yeah, I
have cookies, but also it was right alongside my peanut
butter and jelly sandwich on my carrots, on my apples,
and food is food. We're not using it as a
bribe as a reward, like not even as an adult,
Like if you go work out, don't reward yourself with cookies,
(22:23):
reward yourself with the full meal. You know, you're welcome
to include a cookie with that if you want. But
we don't earn our food. We are people. We need food.
We need to nourish ourselves, and in our societies we
have foods that contain that are sweet and we can
enjoy those foods as part of our diet in moderation.
I love that you're part of helping us change the conversation,
(22:43):
and you're doing it on the most important level at
the beginning where it starts with kids, because we have
to raise the future generations differently, and I appreciate you
so much. Quickly, before we wrap, I want to make
sure we say your Instagram because the website as kids
eat in color dot com, but in Instagram there's a
period between each thing, so it's kids dot eat dot
(23:06):
and dot color, So I want to make sure people
know how to find you. I want to talk about
vegetables one more time because I know you said exposure
is the best thing we can do. Just vegetables showing
up in morning, lunch, night. The more they see it
to the more they're likely to eat it. So how
(23:28):
do you feel about sneaking stuff in without them knowing?
I'm thinking it might defeat the purpose of them knowing
like what's going on in their body. But if some
parents try to be sneaky with it, what are your
thoughts on that. Here's the thing about sneaking, So if
they can't see it, they can't smell it, they can't
taste it. It's not an exposure. Now, they do get
some of the nutrients from it, but it doesn't really
(23:49):
count as an exposure. That's not going to help them
learn to eat it because they don't even know they
were eating it. Um. The other thing is, if you
have a picky eater and you're sneaking food, you risk
a loss of trust with your child and an absolute
flat out losing that food entirely if they find out
that you've adulterated it. So I actually don't use sneaking
at all. I've done it accidentally a couple of times.
(24:10):
It's really backfired. But there are so many other things
that you can do rather than sneak. I love getting
kids in the kitchen. Hey how about you help me
make this smoothie. They put it all in there, and
then they can't see it, they can't smell it, they
can't taste it, but they know they put that in there,
and that the knowing part and the putting it in
that was a great exposure. And then, you know, help
me make this. And then the more we can get
(24:31):
kids involved in tasting, smelling, touching foods, the more they
are likely to learn to like them, and the more
that they show up. So like my real easy weekday's
meal plan that's a rotation menu, Like the things show
up all the time, and his kids see them over
and over and over there like oh my gosh, purple cabbage.
I've seen that a whole bunch of times in the
past month, and maybe I'll just taste it this time,
(24:53):
you know. Interesting. I remember when we had Caitlin Denayan
who's in Washington, d C. Actually she's a trainer, and
she talked about trainers that motivate their clients by saying,
you know, do this push up to earn your food
or whatever it was. So she called it lazy training.
And again I'm not a parent, so no judgment to
any parent, but just given how you just framed using
(25:15):
that technique, it's almost like lazy feeding because you are
going to get the child to eat a nutrient. Yes,
you know you are going to get somebody to do
a push up, but have you taught them anything about
what that means for their own body or let them
experience this deep wisdom and connection to either you know,
their strength and her example or the food in your example.
(25:36):
And so yes, um it is. It is so hard,
and you go for the short gains and you can
pressure your kid and you can't get them to eat
healthier in the short run if you're kind of craminate
down your throat is for sure, But there's also this
opportunity for the long winds of how can I teach
my kid to really trust themselves and learn to eat
foods for themselves and learn to like healthy foods on
(25:58):
their own timeline. And that's where you see these really
long term gains of health and and confidence and learning
to like healthy food and that's where I have my money,
And that's the connection. You're forming a deep connection to
the food, which you know, I personally didn't have growing
up because as born in the late eighties and nineties,
it was a lot of like TV dinners, and I
(26:20):
didn't grow up in a diet household by any means,
but I was just so disconnected to food, the process,
the growing, seeing it regularly, and I think when it's
part of your normalcy, there's like a beautiful familiarity to
it and peacefulness that comes with it. And again I
think that that's true for kids, or if you're listening
right now and you don't have kids in your thirty
(26:40):
four years old and you're like, I don't have a
connection to food, Really, it's never too late. So I
guess I'll just piggyback off of what Jennifer was saying
and get in the kitchen, touch some foods, go to
the grocery store, feel things out, get grabbed some color.
So Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us today.
You're a very much needed important guests, So we just
(27:02):
thank you so much for taking the time. Well, thank
you so much. It was so wonderful to be here MH.
Maybe that's Lisa, and we're just two girls that want
to have a conversation with you. Dear sixteen year old Andrea,
Hey gorgeous, Dear younger Lauren. Each episode is stories from people.
I would deprive myself by myself obsessively because I was
eating healthy. I couldn't understand that I had a problem
with food. Losing my period scared me the most. My
story starts when I was around seven. That's when I
(00:24):
started to hate my body. Body image is like our
inner picture of our outer self. Healthy behaviors play a
much bigger role at all health than the actual number
on the scales. Internal dialogue could be so powerful and
often it's super negative and critical in a way that
we wouldn't talk to other people that we care about.
When you start to share your story, that gives other
(00:44):
people the courage to share theirs. I know you would
be proud now of how far you have come in
your relationship to food, exercise, and to yourself. I felt freedom,
I've gained relationships. I've found my true sense of self worth.
There's one thing I need you to take away. You're
going to be okay, okay. We are so excited to
(01:06):
have Jennifer Anderson on Today. Now, Jennifer, I've been following
you on Instagram for a while now, probably for sure
since I became a mom, and I'm a new mom
in the last three years. But I have older children,
so I adopted from Haiti. I have a thirteen year
old and a ten year old, So I didn't, you know,
(01:27):
do the whole breastfeeding or milk phase. I went straight
into like, how can we nourish these kids bodies and
and plus you were coming from a different culture, a
different country. I didn't know how to introduce them to
certain foods that they had never had before. And I
just love, love, loved the way you present it on Instagram,
(01:48):
which is how I found you. Now, I know you
have a website, Kids Eating color dot com and your
registered dietitian, your wife, your mom, so you get it.
Not only is this your career, but you have children
and you just simplify everything. For those of us that
have picky eaters, we don't get it, or maybe they're
not even picky, but it's like, how do you not
(02:08):
create unhealthy food habits with your children? Because that's a
layer of parenting too. Not only do we want to
get nutritious food in their body, but also we want
them to have a healthy relationship with them. So thank
you for being here with us today because I consider
you an expert in this well, thank you so much
for having me. If moms are listening or you're a
(02:29):
mom to be like Lisa she doesn't have kids yet,
but she plans to in the future. When it comes
to feeding your kids, it can just be really stressful.
So how can we alleviate some of that stress? Like
when you wake up in the morning and you're trying
to put something together? I mean, is that top of
mind to you? Like, how can I make this a
less stressful event for people? Yeah? As a mom, I
(02:51):
think that's my top of mind thing every day. How
do I make this day less stressful for myself? Because
we didn't get them s tricky, It's it's hard. It
happens like anywhere from three to six times a day.
I mean, they have to eat so much, and the
little ones, you know more so. So the recommendation I
have for making feeding kids less stressful is to tell
(03:13):
kids they don't have to eat it, and to just
be really firm. You know, I'm not gonna make something
else but also you definitely don't have to eat it.
And when you develop a culture around your table that
gives kids the ability to choose whether to eat and
how much they're going to eat, that really changes the
game for you as the parent, because you stop trying
(03:33):
to get yourself involved in their job, which is to
open their mouth and put food in it and swallow
it and that sort of thing, like that's that's really
not your job. What your job is to make those
balanced meals and to include foods that you know your
kids are familiar with and that sort of thing so
that they can learn to eat foods. But as soon
as you start getting involved in their job where you're like, oh,
(03:53):
eat three bites, or uh, you have to eat this,
or you have to try this now, some families do
create a culture of trying foods that is positive and
and very low pressure, but many families it's like breadless
food and and everybody's blood pressure is just going up
and up and up, and meal times can be so
stressful when you're having those battles. But when you tell
kids that's okay, you don't have to eat it, it
(04:15):
totally changes the game. So, yeah, and I heard you
say in there that you just stay firm. And I
think as parents, anytime you're delivering anything to your kids,
I'm doing a lot of learning myself, whether it's food
or anything. They do enjoy choices, but not too many.
We can't overwhelm them more like you get this or this,
and when you're presenting something to them, so that you
(04:38):
don't end up like a short order chef, like trying
to cook a bunch of different things for people, you
just in a calm, firm way. This is what we're having, right.
That's just a side note, and that could be in
anything that you're doing and parenting for good communication skills,
especially about something as important as food. So how comparents
help their kids eat more veggies? Obviously what you just
(04:59):
said is that hip two. But is there ways that
we can like encourage it and sneak it in there
more so, the number one way to get kid see
veggies is to serve them a lot. You can serve
veggies with every single meal in snack like you don't
have to just wait for dinner time to serve vegetables.
And the more kids see vegetables and the more they
(05:22):
effect them to be there, the more comfortable, they begin
to feel, they're more likely to try them, they're more
likely to chaste them. The more they chaste them, the
more they're they are likely to learn to like them.
And ideally you would also be eating a lot of
vegetables in front of your child. So that's the other thing.
If your child never sees a vegetable and never sees
(05:42):
you eat a vegetable, guess what. They're never gonna eat
a vegetable. It's just not possible. But if you have
found a way to incorporate fruits and veggies into your
meal routine throughout the day, it's just gonna be a
normal food to them. And they're going to go through
phases where they may eat a lot, and you may
have a pig eater, and picky eaters notoriously do not
(06:03):
like vegetables. That has been observed. So with those kids,
we often need more advanced techniques like what I cover
my Better Bites program, where we're learning to do specific
food play and we're learning to get kids closer to
the food, kind of pushing their edge of comfort while
still maintaining that respect of no pressure. So there are
situations for about the kids, but they're going to need
(06:25):
more healthy eat vegetables. But for the other the kids,
they are able to learn to like things over time
the more they see them. Do you think that there's
a psychological component regarding the language that parents use around
the vegetable, like kind of making it, you know, eat
these three bites of healthy broccoli so that you can
(06:46):
have the dessert later. Like, do you think that if
we didn't put the healthy food on this pedestal or
tell them that it's healthy or that it's the harder
thing to eat, but we should eat it. Obviously there
are some kids that really don't find the taste palatable.
But do you think there's a psychological component to it
that us parents are parents to be or maybe we
(07:07):
just have kids around us can bring to the table
to change that. Yeah. Absolutely. The more you draw attention
to vegetables as good for you and all that sort
of thing, the less your child. Well, you know, I
don't like to stereotype because kids are also different, but
for a big chunk of kids, if you say this
broccoli is good for you, then be like, well, I'm
(07:30):
not gonna eat it. This is healthy, Well, then I'm
not gonna eat it, right, And then and then they
hear candy is bad for you, like, well, I'm definitely
gonna eat that because it's delicious. So the more we
add on these labels to food, healthy, unhealthy, good, bad,
you know, the labels that go with sugar, poisonous, addictive,
like all these things. I mean, the more we label foods,
(07:53):
the harder it becomes for children to just eat vegetables
without any strings attached. I once talked on my Instagram
stories about intentionally eating more vegetables for a specific health
condition at the recommendation of this dietesition that I was
working with, and someone sent me a d M and said,
how much weight are you losing? And I said, well,
(08:14):
I'm not I'm not doing this to lose weight, Like
this is not even kind of related to weight. This
is related to a specific health thing. And she said, oh,
I don't even know how to think about that, Like
in her mind, vegetables are a diet food, and often
we pass it on to their kids, like moms will say, oh,
I'm trying to lose my baby weight and so I'm
(08:36):
only going to have salad at dinner time, and they'll
say something like that at the dinner table and next thing,
you know, you'll see kids missing his three who's saying, oh,
I need to go on a diet and lose some
weight because they're they're really just mimicking their parents. And
then they may say, I need deep vegetables, right, we
don't want to attach to vegetables. I mean, vegetables are
this wonderful, life giving food that is wonderful for everyone.
(08:59):
I don't want my boy is growing up thinking this
is some sort of girl diet food to eat a salad.
I want them to know that this is something that
helps their body fight off disease, It helps their body
heal cut it helps feed their the bugs in their
gut which helped them fight off, you know, illnesses. I
want them to know all those things so that they
can grow up and justify to their friends why they
(09:22):
eat salads. In fact, one of my messages for carrots
is carrots help you see in the dark. That's because
they're rich in vitamin A. Vitamin A is necessary for
night vision. And one time we were at this at
a pool and I had some carrots out there and
my kids were eating carrots, and another kid came up
and said, you carrot, I can't believe you're eating carrots.
(09:43):
And my son was about four at the time, and
he looked at him, He's like, they helped me see
in the dark. And and then he offered the kids
some carrots, and the other kid was like, oh really,
and he started eating carrots. So, I mean, obviously that
was like a once in a lifetime situation. But that's
kind of what we want to do with our is
we want to give them information that they can use later.
What's a good age that we can start incorporating that
(10:05):
information that goes with the vegetable to the child. So
not talking about weight in any means, but by talking
about vision or bone strength or I've heard people say
run fast, you know when talking about eating enough, Like,
what's a good age to start incorporating that language. I
think as soon as they're verbal, I think even pre verbal,
you know, because where you talk, the better it is
(10:26):
for the kids. Right, So as soon as they're able
to put things together, you can just kind of say, oh,
so I for preschoolers, they really like to simplify things,
and I the way that I do that is by
just attaching a color of vegetable and fruit to a
function in the body. It's highly simplified, because obviously every
(10:47):
vegetable this red doesn't do exactly the same thing. But
it's great to make those connections with two and three
year olds where you're saying, oh, red things help your heart,
blue and purple things help your brain, orange things help
you stay in the dark. You know, those sorts of
messages really basic. I think you can start right away
because three year olds think that stuff is cool, and
two year olds, I mean, they're still figuring this stuff out.
(11:07):
But but you're never too young. I will just say that, Yeah, sure,
it's great for preschoolers and kids if you're working with them.
But I think you posted that chart on Instagram. I'm
sure you have multiple times. But I saw it one
day and grabbed it and I shared it on my
podcast for adults to hear. So yeah, it can be
for two or three year olds, but it also can
be for thirty or forty or fifty year olds that
(11:29):
never learned to properly think about food in that manner.
So I think while you're teaching parents and speak in
a language they can understand for their kids. I feel
like as an adult, even if I didn't have kids,
I benefit from following your account because there's so much wisdom.
And obviously I wasn't raised by parents that approached food
(11:52):
the way you did, and I was surrounded by other
things that caused me to develop all sorts of unhealthy habits.
So what are some common mistakes that parents are You
see some parents make who mean well, but they actually
end up causing harm, kind of like what happened to
me just getting introduced to diet culture too young. Sure,
(12:12):
I think this is really common because many of us
were raised in a feeding environment that kind of come
out of the depression years and the war years and
those sorts of things, and so things like you have
to clean your plate and you have to pick a
bite of everything. There's a lot of control, and it
did serve a purpose for parents during a rough time
(12:36):
in our culture. But now the food system has changed.
The food itself has changed, the food processing has changed,
so much has changed, and now we have access to
like really large amounts of low costs, low nutrient dense foods,
and so as the food system has changed, now as parents,
we actually have to help our kids be more protective
(13:00):
of their hunger and fullness cues then previous generations of parents,
because our kids may be exposed to tons and tons
and tons of birthday parties in school, whereas hundred years
ago that just was not happening. So what I recommend
to parents, especially if they find themselves in these cycles
(13:21):
of clean your plate, take three bites to get dessert.
You earn dessert, you have to be forced to eat
your vegetables. There's a lot of pressure, a lot of force.
And every time we force a kid to clean their plate,
we tell them, you know what, you don't know how
hungry you are. I know how hungry you are. And
they are trained then to say, okay, well whatever is
(13:42):
on my plate, that person knows what I need and
I'm gonna eat it. And then they go to a
restaurant and then there's you know, a double sized portion
of food and there's like actual emotional angst for them
to either leave anything on the plate, and then there's
physical angst if they eat it all, and then they've
eaten twice as much as they would actually want to
or feel comfortable with, but they feel there's guilt that
they then need to feed the plate and next thing
(14:04):
you know, they're eating more than their body needs. And
so when we're really pushing our kids, although in the
moment it often seems helpful, especially if you have a
kid who's struggling to gain weight, or maybe you have
a kid who the doctors said something about wayne too
much and you feel like you need to pressure them
to eat less. Whenever we pressure the kids, we take
away some of their ability to listen to whether they
(14:27):
are hungry and full. Now I know how hard this is.
I have a son who you know, didn't gain weight well,
and the pediatrician was concerned for years. I mean, this
has been a long term issue. Is he gain enough weight?
Is he not easy? You know? And so I had
to go through a lot of this angst where I
would I mean, one time, my husband's like, can't we
just tell him he needs to eat more? And I said,
(14:48):
I don't think the evidence supports that. I think I
think we shouldn't. I think we should just continue to
let him make that choice. And that's really hard. That's
really hard as parents, and sometimes we may make changes
to the food itself, but we still have to help
our kids learn to listen to their bodies. That is
one of the most helpful gifts and health that they
(15:09):
can have. Long term is to listen to whether they
are hungry and full and not the learning process, by
the way, you know, kids take years to develop that
skill often and then that can help them be healthy
long term. I've been around my niece who is now
six years old, and I've watched her eat two bites
of dinner and you know, just get totally distracted. And
(15:33):
my sister in law is kind of in this place
where you know, she doesn't want her to go to
bed hungry, and she doesn't want her to find out
that she's hungry and be uncomfortable two hours later, you know,
when she's in better wake up in the middle of
the night hungry. And I see how how hard it
is to be apparent when you quote unquote no better
and you want to help your child. I can see
(15:53):
much more easily secondhand, how the desire to want to
help your child learn how much they need is very
difficult when the child doesn't know that they're going to
be going to sleep and they're gonna need a little
extra food for that. So is there like a gentle
approach that parents can take when their child just is
refusing dinner. But you know, I think dinner is kind
(16:14):
of this critical one because it's not an opportunity to
eat an hour later when the kids go to bed, Like,
is there a gentle assistance that a parent can give
a child or absolutely not let them find out that
they need food and the next day they'll you know,
make up for it. Yeah, So there's there's a couple
of things here. Dinner is tricky. One reason is I
think a lot of people were raised with going to
(16:36):
bed hungry as a punishment, and they were told, I'm
not going to give you dinner, you have to go
to bed hungry. So there's this really deep visceral like
discussed that and fear that we would be hurting a
child if they quote went to bed hungry. The other
thing is a lot of kids are actually too tired
to eat quote eat well at the end of the day,
(16:57):
and dinner is almost always, for odds, like their worst
meal of the day. They're going to eat the least
amount because they're tired and they just need to go
to bed and then wake up in the morning having
a big breakfast. So breakfast is often the place where
they're going to really bulk up. You can feed them
veggies in that time of day, they'll be really hungry
all that stuff. So we're a family in this situation.
(17:18):
Another thing that I see is the family says, Okay,
here's dinner, the kid doesn't eat dinner, and then right
before bed, the kid says, I want to snack, and
then they get a granola bar or some pretzels or
something that's processed pasty and they're like, oh, I don't
have to eat dinner, and then I can get a snack.
And it's just their way of getting a snack. I mean, yeah,
(17:42):
fun like mommy family pretzels before bed. Um. Now, I
don't have anything against pretzels, but we want kids eating dinner,
not pretzels. Ideally, I think a lot of parents would
agree with that. And my kids have a bedtime snack
just based on how our schedule works and my kids
needs and that sort of thing. So your child may
need a bedtime snack, and this is especially true if
(18:03):
they are often waking up in the middle of the
night hungry, but often, I mean several times a week
for a couple of weeks. If that's the situation, then
after dinner, you can give a bedtime snack. It should
not be exciting, it should be nutrient dunce, and it
should be be something that's like, you know, quote healthy,
and it's something that wouldn't motivate them to not eat
dinner so that they could get their snack. But the
(18:25):
thing is like, if you're always making them that thing
after the meal, then they just know they don't have
to eat dinner. They can wait for the thing that
they want. More So, you have to decide is a
bed time snack right for your child? If it is fine,
served the bedtime snack regardless of what happens at dinner,
But if it's not, then is your time to teach
your child that dinner is the last time for the day.
(18:46):
And if they don't eat, that is totally their choice.
And if they have a sensation of hunger, that's okay.
That's not going to be damaging to the child in
any way, shape or form. And then maybe they'll wake
up a little early because they're hungrier. You feed them
a bit breakfast, and then you move on with your day.
Most kids figure this out super quickly, and they just
need the firm leadership of a parent to say this
(19:09):
is what's happening, and this is when foods available, Calm
and firm. Uh, So, let's talk about strategic exposure, because again,
I love that this is for kids, but adults could
use this too. And I've seen you post it multiple
times and like just dropping cute little eminem's in the trade.
I mean, just share with people what that means and
(19:29):
how it can create a healthier relationship with candy or
dessert and not making it such a deserved thing or
oh my gosh, I can't believe you ate that kind
of a thing, because that's what happens as we're adults,
and I've done it to my kids, Like I'm a
different mom than I was three years ago around food
because I'm a different person of your food. I am
now in recovery. When I first got my kids, I
(19:51):
was knee deep and disordered eating and eating disorder. So
it was all kinds of things that now sometimes I
hear them say and I shoot, I know, and I
tried to undo, undo, undo, and so now I don't
freak out as much or really as all all about things.
But I freaked out about candy when they first got here,
like you would not believe. So I was the worst
example of strategic exposure. I just didn't allow it right,
(20:14):
And that's that's actually super common. It's not just you.
So I think there is a lot of fearmongering around
sugar and candy and it, you know, partially for good reason,
because a lot of kids are to mean, way too
much sugar for them to be healthy. Right, But a
little sugar here and there, you know, eating birthday cakes
and celebrating things and having some ice cream with dinner,
(20:34):
and you know, these sorts of things. They can be
included in a healthy diet. And we can still enjoy
these things but in moderation. But we have to show
kids what that looks like. So with really little kids,
it just kind of like go with the minimum portion
that they feel okay about. So with a two year old, now,
ideally like little kids were not giving them any sugar.
(20:55):
But as I get a little older than, they noticed
that you're having it and they want them to. So
with like a two or old, maybe I'll put like
two eminem's on the plate, or with a three year old,
maybe three M and m's. Now, of course three M
and ms isn't gonna work for my seven year old now,
but he is going to needle a little bigger pile. Right,
But as I grow, you can have know the amount
that they feel good with it. I like, just serve
dessert alongside a meal with a kid, especially if there's
(21:17):
some sort of obsession or interest developing. If my kids
are like, oh my gosh, oreos. I heard about oreos.
I want oreos, oreos, oreos, and I'm like, okay, I
gotta some oreos, and then we serve them, you know,
maybe three days to three days in a row, oreo
with the meal with lunch, and then next thing, you know,
they're not asking about oreos. They've had their oreos. And
we haven't had oreos in two years since because I
(21:39):
haven't come up again. But we have ice cream for
dessert a couple of times a week. You know. I
love to how you simply put it on your Instagram.
That open restriction leads to obsession of the food. I
want that food, I need that food. Anytime there is
that food, they have that scarcity mindset they're going to
eat it all. And strategic exposure leads to that food
being no big deal that you put it perfect. You
(22:00):
don't have to serve it all the time, like we
just don't. We can serve it a few times a
week and kids can get this like, oh yeah, I
have cookies, but also it was right alongside my peanut
butter and jelly sandwich on my carrots, on my apples,
and food is food. We're not using it as a
bribe as a reward, like not even as an adult,
Like if you go work out, don't reward yourself with cookies,
(22:23):
reward yourself with the full meal. You know, you're welcome
to include a cookie with that if you want. But
we don't earn our food. We are people. We need food.
We need to nourish ourselves, and in our societies we
have foods that contain that are sweet and we can
enjoy those foods as part of our diet in moderation.
I love that you're part of helping us change the conversation,
(22:43):
and you're doing it on the most important level at
the beginning where it starts with kids, because we have
to raise the future generations differently, and I appreciate you
so much. Quickly, before we wrap, I want to make
sure we say your Instagram because the website as kids
eat in color dot com, but in Instagram there's a
period between each thing, so it's kids dot eat dot
(23:06):
and dot color, So I want to make sure people
know how to find you. I want to talk about
vegetables one more time because I know you said exposure
is the best thing we can do. Just vegetables showing
up in morning, lunch, night. The more they see it
to the more they're likely to eat it. So how
(23:28):
do you feel about sneaking stuff in without them knowing?
I'm thinking it might defeat the purpose of them knowing
like what's going on in their body. But if some
parents try to be sneaky with it, what are your
thoughts on that. Here's the thing about sneaking, So if
they can't see it, they can't smell it, they can't
taste it. It's not an exposure. Now, they do get
some of the nutrients from it, but it doesn't really
(23:49):
count as an exposure. That's not going to help them
learn to eat it because they don't even know they
were eating it. Um. The other thing is, if you
have a picky eater and you're sneaking food, you risk
a loss of trust with your child and an absolute
flat out losing that food entirely if they find out
that you've adulterated it. So I actually don't use sneaking
at all. I've done it accidentally a couple of times.
(24:10):
It's really backfired. But there are so many other things
that you can do rather than sneak. I love getting
kids in the kitchen. Hey how about you help me
make this smoothie. They put it all in there, and
then they can't see it, they can't smell it, they
can't taste it, but they know they put that in there,
and that the knowing part and the putting it in
that was a great exposure. And then, you know, help
me make this. And then the more we can get
(24:31):
kids involved in tasting, smelling, touching foods, the more they
are likely to learn to like them, and the more
that they show up. So like my real easy weekday's
meal plan that's a rotation menu, Like the things show
up all the time, and his kids see them over
and over and over there like oh my gosh, purple cabbage.
I've seen that a whole bunch of times in the
past month, and maybe I'll just taste it this time,
(24:53):
you know. Interesting. I remember when we had Caitlin Denayan
who's in Washington, d C. Actually she's a trainer, and
she talked about trainers that motivate their clients by saying,
you know, do this push up to earn your food
or whatever it was. So she called it lazy training.
And again I'm not a parent, so no judgment to
any parent, but just given how you just framed using
(25:15):
that technique, it's almost like lazy feeding because you are
going to get the child to eat a nutrient. Yes,
you know you are going to get somebody to do
a push up, but have you taught them anything about
what that means for their own body or let them
experience this deep wisdom and connection to either you know,
their strength and her example or the food in your example.
(25:36):
And so yes, um it is. It is so hard,
and you go for the short gains and you can
pressure your kid and you can't get them to eat
healthier in the short run if you're kind of craminate
down your throat is for sure, But there's also this
opportunity for the long winds of how can I teach
my kid to really trust themselves and learn to eat
foods for themselves and learn to like healthy foods on
(25:58):
their own timeline. And that's where you see these really
long term gains of health and and confidence and learning
to like healthy food and that's where I have my money,
And that's the connection. You're forming a deep connection to
the food, which you know, I personally didn't have growing
up because as born in the late eighties and nineties,
it was a lot of like TV dinners, and I
(26:20):
didn't grow up in a diet household by any means,
but I was just so disconnected to food, the process,
the growing, seeing it regularly, and I think when it's
part of your normalcy, there's like a beautiful familiarity to
it and peacefulness that comes with it. And again I
think that that's true for kids, or if you're listening
right now and you don't have kids in your thirty
(26:40):
four years old and you're like, I don't have a
connection to food, Really, it's never too late. So I
guess I'll just piggyback off of what Jennifer was saying
and get in the kitchen, touch some foods, go to
the grocery store, feel things out, get grabbed some color.
So Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us today.
You're a very much needed important guests, So we just
(27:02):
thank you so much for taking the time. Well, thank
you so much. It was so wonderful to be here MH.
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