Ep. 27 | Ending Body Shame: Raising Kids Who Respect Their Bodies

I knew, from the moment I got pregnant I didn’t want my kid to have the same body image issues I’d spent a lifetime experiencing. To be honest, when I got pregnant and even in the first few years of parenting, I believed that I didn’t want them to have the same perceived “weight issues” as me, but the truth is I wanted them to be thin. That felt like the only solution at the time, because it was the only one I’d ever been taught. Once he started school, and as I left the health and fitness industry behind me, I started to get curious:* Was I really focused on health, or thinness?* Were my actions helping them have a positive relationship with their body, or teaching them to control their body through diet and exercise?* Was I teaching them binary rules around food? e.g that some foods are good or bad? And how do I make that determination?The answer, unfortunately was a resounding YES. Despite everything I experienced at the hand of diet culture, I found myself repeating the same behaviours.It was during the pandemic that my relationship to diet culture really shifted, I started learning more about intuitive eating, fat liberation and after being body shamed - under the guise of “health” in early 2022 - I decided I was done dieting and pursuing intentional weight loss.Thanks for reading The Culture Of It All! Podcast! This post is public so feel free to share it.Unlearning my internalised fatphobia, ditching diets, and healing my body image is one of the best things I did for myself AND my kid. I don’t claim to be an expert, I’m doing my best and figuring it out as I go, but as I share in this episode a number of friends have asked me how I’m building this body positive relationship with my kid and it’s been a topic of conversation on my socials too.So I thought we should take a deep dive and talk about ways we can encourage body respect in young people, and how to end the inheritance of body shame.Topics discussed in episode 27:* The negative impact of restrictive food behaviors in children* Why I don’t believe it’s my responsibility to prevent fatness in my child* How I supported my child after he was body shamed* Language and tools that encourage him to respect his and other people bodies* The negative impact of diet talk and diet culture in the household* Questions I ask myself when navigating body image related questions or experiences with my kidChapters:00:00 Exploring Parental Responsibility in Body Image02:44 The Impact of Fat Shaming on Children03:38 Creating a Trusting Parent-Child Relationship06:01 Breaking the Cycle of Diet Culture09:53 Reflecting on Childhood Body Image14:44 Navigating Parenting with Body Image Issues20:42 Raising A Body Confident Kid & Teaching Body Respect25:52 Parental Responsibility in a Fatphobic World30:42 Questions for Weight Neutral Parenting🗓️ Next week: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cultureofitallpod.substack.com/subscribe