What if diet culture in schools is more impactful than we think? That's what we'll be exploring today, holding up a magnifying glass to the subtle influences our children encounter and discussing how we, as parents, can support them in navigating these murky waters. We'll be examining the systemic issue of curriculum standards at a state and nationwide level, and asking the tough questions about the necessity of health or nutrition lessons.
We're not just challenging the status quo but also talking solutions. We'll be weighing in on the power of food education, a subject distinct from health or nutrition curriculum and an essential tool to discuss food in a neutral, non-judgemental way. Plus, we're going to be diving into the importance of making our children media literate and empowering them to critically evaluate the information they are exposed to. The goal? To equip you, dear listener, with the tools you need to foster positive relationships with food and body image for your children. Let's get into it!
Show Links:
Questions about today's episode or do you have topic requests for future episodes? Please send your feedback via email to hello@crystalkarges.com or connect with Crystal on Instagram.
What if diet culture in schools is more impactful than we think? That's what we'll be exploring today, holding up a magnifying glass to the subtle influences our children encounter and discussing how we, as parents, can support them in navigating these murky waters. We'll be examining the systemic issue of curriculum standards at a state and nationwide level, and asking the tough questions about the necessity of health or nutrition lessons.
We're not just challenging the status quo but also talking solutions. We'll be weighing in on the power of food education, a subject distinct from health or nutrition curriculum and an essential tool to discuss food in a neutral, non-judgemental way. Plus, we're going to be diving into the importance of making our children media literate and empowering them to critically evaluate the information they are exposed to. The goal? To equip you, dear listener, with the tools you need to foster positive relationships with food and body image for your children. Let's get into it!
Show Links:
Questions about today's episode or do you have topic requests for future episodes? Please send your feedback via email to hello@crystalkarges.com or connect with Crystal on Instagram.
Hey there, mama, you're listening to the Lift the Shame podcast. I'm your host, crystal, mama of Five and your family's intuitive eating dietitian, here to help you cut through the diet culture clutter so you can enjoy freedom with food as a family. I'm on a mission to help you end the generational legacy of diet culture in your home so you can experience motherhood free from food guilt and body shame. Listen in weekly for guidance on how you can ditch diet culture, heal your relationship with food in your body and confidently raise intuitive eaters. Let's dive in and lift the shame together. Hey, mama, welcome back to the show. I'm so glad that you're tuning in today, and over the last couple of weeks we have been diving into diet culture and how it can show up in our kids' schools, sports teams, et cetera, and so today we're going to continue that conversation by answering a question that has come up in different ways that I thought is totally valid and important to explore Because, again, our kids are often exposed to diet culture in very subtle ways, and at the time of this recording, it is October and my kids have been in school for a little over a month, and I've already had them coming home telling me things, kind of regurgitating some of the vernacular that's been brought up in classes and that they've heard from other kids and teachers talking about food in a more polarizing way or talking about we need to eat healthier foods and things that are better for our bodies all of that, and so it's definitely out there, it's definitely happening and I think, as parents, when we can be aware of it, we can better support our children in navigating through it Because, again, we cannot keep our kids in a bubble. We cannot prevent them from hearing or potentially engaging with some of these messages that are out there in various forms. However, we can continue to build them up and help them to become impervious to these messages so that they recognize it for what it is. They recognize that it's contradictory to the things that are necessary to listen to and trust their bodies. And I'm also just here to encourage you in doing the work, continuing the work, in building the foundation at home.
Speaker 1:I know sometimes it can be really disheartening when you're doing all this intentional work to support your kids in learning how to trust their bodies, in developing a good relationship with food and really making the effort to shift your family's legacy away from the trauma of diet culture. It can be so frustrating when you're putting in all the work to do this, only for your child to encounter these messages outside of your home, and I just want to encourage you because all of that work is not going to waste. That is what is creating this essential foundation for your children to grow and learn and to have a safe place in which they can explore what feels good in their bodies when it comes to food and learn how to trust their bodies and have a place that isn't defined by food gill or body shaming in any shape or form. And that is what you are creating, and anything that your child is encountering in the world does not cancel that out. And so I just wanted to start by saying that one common question or concern that can come up as we're talking about health curriculum, nutrition lessons that are incorporated in schools, that are maybe being talked about or discussed on your child's sport team or a health class and again, this is coming at all different stages of school, from kindergarten to high school and college and everything in between. And another important thing to remember is that curriculum standards are often influenced at a state and nationwide level and they kind of trickle down into our school system. So this is definitely a systemic issue and I always think it's important to keep that in the forefront of our minds as we're navigating and encountering diet culture through our school systems.
Speaker 1:So, since it often is a predominant part of curriculum, it begs the question is it necessary, is it valid, is it important for our kids to have this exposure to health or nutrition lessons or curriculum? Is this an important piece of shaping their overall health and wellness? And this is a valid question and I think it's important to have a discussion around it, because the likelihood of your child encountering this in the school system is very high and because it's such an ingrained part of curriculum across the nation, at least here in the United States. We do want to examine critically what is the impact and is this necessary and this is something that I've heard from parents that I've worked with is is it important to incorporate some of these things into how I talk to my kids about food? Am I potentially robbing them of something crucial or essential to their overall health and wellness if I'm disrupting these lessons that are coming home or asking the teacher for a different assignment for my student or child? This is an important question to examine and that's what I want to talk about today and when we can unravel what is at the heart of these things. It does empower us to better support our children as they navigate these issues at school, and we want our children to become literate in media and understanding diet culture and how it influences our children.
Speaker 1:By the way, we will have some upcoming episodes just on how to talk to kids about diet culture and explain to them what it is, and that is the whole topic in itself. I want to make sure that you have some resources for that, because I know it can feel daunting to talk to our kids about that, but again, we want them to learn critical thinking and to be able to question things that are coming up and not just take everything at face value, and I think that's something that's somewhat characteristic of traditional school systems, where it's just like here's the material and we want you to learn this and we want you to be able to regurgitate it on a test or an exam and not really understanding the importance and how does this fit in the grand scheme of my life and why is this important for me to learn? And this is something that I think can be helpful to examine when it comes to nutrition lessons, nutrition curriculum, health classes, all of these things we want our children to understand A is it helpful and important for you? And B what is the purpose, how is this serving you and what is this doing for your life, for your overall wellness and well-being? And when we can look at this question ourselves first, as parents, it can give us some better tools and better content, so to say, when we're having some of these hopefully discussions with our own children in various shapes or forms. So first, I think it's important to ask the question what does it mean to be healthy? This is a huge topic in itself. I do have another podcast that goes into this a little bit more and I will link that for you in the show notes if you're interested.
Speaker 1:But to summarize, health is highly contextual and very individualized. What is healthy for one person may not be healthy for somebody else. The other thing is that health encompasses so many different domains of our life and diet. Culture is defined by its means of associating health with weight and body size, and nothing could be further from the truth, and there's so much scientific literature and data and studies that show that, that our health is not defined by our weight alone. There is our risk of disease or our ability to be functioning thriving people. And this is the lie that diet culture sells us in order to make its many different diets that come in many different forms more appealing, so that we get stuck in this multi-billion dollar industry, and it's infuriating when we break it down and think about it that way, but I think this is an important question to keep asking ourselves when our kids are being exposed to these concepts like this is healthy for you or this food is healthy, this food is unhealthy, and asking our kids these questions to help them start to think critically about some of these topics.
Speaker 1:What does health even mean and this does look different for all of us depending on our situations and, again, understanding that it encompasses many different domains of life, including our mental health and wellness, and this is something that I think is always important for us to understand as parents is that if our children are dealing with any type of food shaming or body shaming, or feeling anxiety around what they should be eating or what they shouldn't be eating, or worried about what they're eating, or having fear around what they're eating or the foods that they're exposed to. All of those things have a negative impact on their overall health and wellness, especially mental health, and these are things that I know you may have experienced growing up I know I did and we have to look at the big picture, especially when it comes to health, and understand that having a healthy child does not mean having a thin child or a child that's in a smaller body. And these are often the underlying messages that are connected to health curriculum, and this is something that is important to challenge, because at the heart of this is a very damaging message and it's often presented in a way that's almost like a wolf in sheep's clothing. Like this is good, these concepts are helpful, these concepts are important to making you an overall healthier person, and we have to understand what is at the core of it, and we can't put health in a box and we can't define health by weight and remembering that most health curriculum is driven by an agenda to make kids smaller and make kids be in smaller bodies, and that is not what health is, and we have to continue to challenge that and just examine that.
Speaker 1:But also for ourselves, many of us have internalized that bias in one sense or another as a result of living in a predominant dieting culture, and so we ourselves need to examine this question and continue to do the work for ourselves. When we're asking ourselves, well, I want my child to be healthy. I would ask the question for you to reflect on what does that mean to you? What does it mean for your child to be healthy? And for some people, that might mean I want my child to be in a thinner body. And I want you to also understand, if you're reflecting on this question and asking yourself what is connected to the meaning of health for you, for your child. Please do so without any shame, for model world raus is harsh towards people in larger bodies, including children, and many children in larger bodies are the brunt of bullying and weight stigma and weight bias, and saying or wanting your child to be in a smaller body often has a deeper meaning to it. What you really might be saying is I don't want my child to be bullied, I don't want my child to suffer or to go through difficulties in relationships or friendships, or I don't want my child to be singled out on the sports team because they're in a larger body, and that is valid and I think that's important to recognize, but also to understand that the solution is not to make your child smaller, but to help your child naturally develop into the body that they're meant to have and to have a trusting relationship with food and their bodies, because ultimately, that is what will be healthier for them over the long run.
Speaker 1:And these are hard things to unpack because oftentimes it's coming from us, and this is why we need to continue to do the work ourselves to ask ourselves what am I attaching to when I say I want my child to be healthy? What is the attached meaning or what are the hidden agendas that may be there? And oftentimes those hidden agendas can come from our own trauma around food and our bodies, because if you grew up in a larger body and you were bullied at school or you were encouraged to diet, all of those things are going to surface when you see your child in similar situations. That is parallel processing. We've talked about that here on the podcast many times. So when it comes to bringing this back nutrition curriculum and health education this is where we really have to ask the question what are the hidden agendas attached to these lessons or the way that this is being promoted in our schools.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes it is coming with an attached agenda to make our kids smaller, and again, that is not a proponent of health, and this is why we have to keep asking ourselves this question and also explore that with our children in age appropriate ways, but helping them understand that health is not just about what we eat. It's not just about what we weigh or our body sizes. There are so many things that influence our overall health and wellness, and having those conversations with our children can help them to start thinking about this in a more critical way, because the way it's promoted or often promoted in school curriculum is very black and white these foods are good, these foods are bad. You need to be exercising this amount, you need to be doing this and not be doing that, and that is very characteristic of diet culture a rigid way of thinking about food and our bodies, and we know that that can be a trigger for disordered eating down the road, and we don't want that for our kids. We want to help prevent that at all costs, and so this is one of the things that we can explore with them, but also just question critically when we see it coming through our kids' school and the different interactions they have with their curriculum throughout their schooling years.
Speaker 1:Another point I want you to just think about or consider is intent versus interpretation. So let's break this down. Often times, curriculum is presented with the intent to help our children, and that is why I think we can get sucked into it sometimes as parents, because of the way it's presented. Well, we have the best of intentions. We want to help our kids. We want them to be healthy and thriving and strong. This is how health curriculum is often packaged and promoted, especially in school.
Speaker 1:Now what's important to understand is how our children interpreting what's being presented to them, because intention and interpretation are two different things. Meaning is the intent actually landing on how our kids are interpreting this information. And while health curriculum may be promoted to our children with the best of intentions, it's often interpreted in ways that can be harmful to our children and how they think about food and their bodies. So, for example, this idea of talking about healthy versus unhealthy, or eat these foods before you eat those foods because that's going to give you more energy and help you feel better during the day. Those might have good intention behind them, but because of the way our children's brains function developmentally. They are concrete thinkers and they will not interpret that information in the manner in which it's being presented to them.
Speaker 1:Children are taking things very literally because of how their brain is functioning, and so children are often interpreting these messages to mean something other than what the intent was. So, for example, a child that hears we should eat these foods before those foods might internalize that message that I am bad if I want to eat these things or I can't trust my body because I want to eat these things that are now classified as unhealthy or bad. Remembering that our kids take these things very literally because of how their brain is functioning at their ages, and they cannot generally understand the many nuances that are a part of health and nutrition concepts. These are complex topics. Our children do not think in abstract ways. They're thinking very literally, and this is why I do think it's important to challenge these things or just examine them.
Speaker 1:Or if we're having conversations with teachers or professionals expressing concerns or sharing these concerns with them, this can be a helpful approach. And what we're saying is I see your intention and I appreciate your intention, and I'm concerned about the interpretation. I'm concerned about how my child might be interpreting what is being presented to them, and this is where, as parents, it also helps us to understand this in a bigger picture, because we want to be aware of what is being presented to our children and also understand that they are likely interpreting these things in a different way, and this gives us a platform and opportunity to have these conversations with them again to spark that critical thinking. So this is something that I wanted to share to you because, again, I know that our teachers and providers that care for our children do have the best intentions for them and the best interest in them. They wouldn't be a teacher or provider that works with children if they didn't. And I think there is a dissonance, there is a gap in understanding the impact of some of these concepts as they're being presented to our children with the best of intention. The interpretation is different than the intention, and that is where problems can happen and problems can arise or things can start to backfire because our kids are now interpreting and internalizing different messages than what was intended and when we can understand that, too, as parents, I do think it can help us just approach these things with more compassion, especially for providers and teachers, who are often being handed this curriculum and told to teach these concepts and incorporate them in your classrooms or during your lunchroom, whatever that might look like. When we can have compassion for the people in our lives, especially the people that are involved in our children's lives, it can help us to plant seeds that are maybe better received, so I wanted to share that too.
Speaker 1:Another thing is just this concept of weight stigma. This is a whole topic in itself. However, we cannot overstate the damage of weight stigma on children and their overall health and wellness. One of the most damaging things about nutrition curriculum in the school system is that the hidden agenda or maybe not so hidden, because this is actually actively promoted is to and I'm saying this in quotes fight the childhood obesity epidemic. This is very damaging because it leads with weight stigma and weight bias, and it's essentially telling our children that are in larger bodies that your body is wrong, your body's not okay, and you better believe that. Our children are internalizing these messages at a very young age and that can be something that can cause so much harm and damage throughout the rest of their lives, and many of us have experienced something similar growing up, whether in the school system or with a healthcare provider. Weight stigma is very alive and well and is very harmful to our children, and we can't forget how this is rooted in many forms of health curriculum and nutrition education.
Speaker 1:We do have some studies that show the impact of nutrition curriculum in the school systems that are being driven by this obesity prevention angle. It is actually perpetuating weight stigma which is creating a whole other host of issues for our children, because we know that children who experience weight stigma are more likely to experience mental health issues, including depression and anxiety. They're more likely to be at risk of eating disorders and more likely to be dealing with a host of health complications throughout their life. And it really just infuriates me that there is so much push and agenda around preventing obesity while conveniently glossing over the impact of weight stigma on our children. Some children are naturally going to be in larger bodies and again, that doesn't define their health. That doesn't define their abilities or their wellness or their aptitude in any sense of the way. And yet, because of diet culture, this is often overlooked. Where our children's bodies are singled out as the problem and because of the way that we're approaching it, especially in school curriculum, we're actually seeing a whole other host of issues arising. We've also seen some literature that has shown that school care providers, including teachers and coaches, may have lower expectations of children that are in lower bodies, which can actually prevent them from helping or engaging with these children in reaching their potential as a student in their classroom or on their team. This is very damaging as well. So we cannot overlook the impact of weight stigma and how this is often perpetuated in health curriculum, because health curriculum is rooted systemically in weight stigma.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to make sure that we talked about that, because this is not what we see at the surface of health or nutrition curriculum. On the surface it can seem harmless, it can even seem helpful, but we really need to understand all angles of it in order to know the potential implications or effects that it may be having on our children. I wanted to give you these things to think about, but I also want to end this episode with some encouragement, because I know it can feel again very daunting to know that our kids are being exposed to these things, and sometimes what's challenging is feeling like we don't have any control over it. I know that can be really difficult and challenging, but I want to give you some practical things to think about, but also to implement in your home to help counteract some of the things that your child may be exposed to at school. When it comes to health curriculum and that is first understanding that there is a big difference between nutrition curriculum or health curriculum and food education these are two different things and I do think it's important for us to understand the difference between them, especially if you are a parent who is working on healing your relationship with food and wanting to do things differently with your child.
Speaker 1:I tend to see that there's almost a fear of talking to our kids about food at all, because we're worried about saying the wrong thing or worried about our child potentially interpreting a message about themselves or their bodies based on the things that we're saying about food or how we're talking about food and bodies. So sometimes we worry about saying anything at all, and this is where I think we have a great opportunity to integrate food education and to really steer away from this health curriculum. Food education is what it sounds like, like talking to our kids about food, where it comes from, how it grows, what it looks like, how it tastes, textures, flavors all of these things are under the umbrella of food education, and this can be such a beautiful place to inspire and encourage curiosity in a safe setting for our children. This is a stark difference from health or nutrition curriculum, which often has the hidden agenda of making our kids smaller or changing the way that they eat or changing the way they look in their bodies. Health curriculum often comes hand in hand with control. It often is promoting external rules about food or bodies that can actually remove our kids from their innate intuitive eating abilities, and that is how you can ultimately recognize it for what it is. Food education, on the other hand, is intended to spark curiosity and it should not come with any type of hidden agenda.
Speaker 1:This is something that I had the opportunity to see with my kids over the summer. My husband planted garden boxes for us, and I've shared this before, but anything I've tried to grow in the ground has died. I just don't have a green thumb, and as much as I've tried to garden in different ways, it hasn't been successful. But, all that to say, my husband was amazing in helping us grow some plants and we grew. We tried to grow different things and we grew some tomatoes and green beans and spaghetti squash. Not everything was successful. A lot of our plants ended up dying, but some of them did survive and we did get some different fruit and veggies. But it was just fun to have that as kind of a platform to talk to my kids about food in a neutral way. That did spark curiosity and it was very child led, where they were curious about planting the seed and we have to water it and we need to give it sunlight and make sure that we pull out the weeds and the mushrooms that are growing over it, and it was very natural. It wasn't anything that felt forced. It was something that they got to participate in and, as a result of that, learned different aspects about food that they had never learned before. And this is just an example.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that you need to garden or plant a garden in order to teach your children about food, but what I want you to see is that there are many opportunities to engage our children in food education to just help them learn about all kinds of foods, and this is not just about fruits and vegetables. This is about all kinds of food and this can help them establish positive relationship with food that isn't fear driven, that isn't laced with control or external rules. It's really about examining all kinds of food from a curious lens and understanding what feels good in your body and what doesn't. And again I want to make it clear it's not just about fruits and veggies, because I see this a lot on different platforms that promote learning about food, particularly fruits and vegetables, but there's this hidden agenda of getting our kids to eat them. And again, we're not about hidden agendas here, because those can backfire, but this can be about anything. I think cooking with kids can be a great way to integrate food education in a way that sparks that curiosity. Whether it's making pancakes or cookies or whatever it is. That can be a natural way to segue into different aspects about food and how food can be an integral part of caring for our bodies and ultimately, when our children are free to explore food from that curious lens, they feel better about it.
Speaker 1:When food is promoted from a place of hidden agenda, it often comes hand in hand with fear and control, and those things are not going to help our children develop positive associations with food or feel confident in their bodies. So this is something that I wanted to share with you just to think about. Are there ways that you can naturally engage in food education. Helping our kids develop a healthy relationship with food is not just about steering them away from all the things that we shouldn't be saying.
Speaker 1:So many of us grew up hearing food talked about in ways that were negative, in ways that were harmful and ways that were shaming, and we don't want our children to grow up hearing food talked about in that same way, and for some of us, that can cause us to clam up where we feel like I don't know how to talk about food because it was never talked about or discussed in a way outside of a shaming narrative, and so it can feel foreign. It can feel comfortable, it can feel scary to think about approaching food with our children in a more neutral lens, and this is where food education can come into play, where it's about thinking through the lens of curiosity and trust and making it something that feels natural, not forced. These are the things that can help our child naturally feel more confident with food and not internalize a fearful or shaming narrative or messaging about food or their bodies. So I hope this was helpful and gave you some things to think about. I know sometimes I can ramble on and on, but I just wanted to share some of these things with you and just be able to explore this topic with you from a critical lens where we can break some of these things down and peel the layers away. And, ultimately, I just want to encourage and help you build confidence in the approaches to food and bodies that you're taking in your own home, because I know that you're intentional about rewriting that narrative and you're doing such a great job.
Speaker 1:Thank you, as always, for spending time with me and if you have any feedback or questions that I can answer for you, I'd love to hear from you. You can always connect with me via email hello at crystalcargiscom and I cannot wait to see you next week. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Lift the Shame podcast. For more tips and guidance on your mother-her journey, come connect with me on Instagram at crystalcargis. Until next week, mama, I'll be cheering you on. Bye for now.