The Voice You Never Meant to Pass On: Breaking the Cycle of Diet Culture

Dr. Wendy: When you're worried about your child's eating habits and their weight, been taught to focus on the very thing that's actually causing the harm. this isn't on purpose. It's not that someone like told you this is how you harm your child. It's honestly the default. culture and practice ⁓ and ⁓ all up together, and you don't even it because it's ⁓ the the water, the culture that you're swimming in each and every day. I've been doing this for families now for over 20 years, both practicing pediatrics and general medicine, thank you to the US Navy. And in all that time, I have watched worries grow and grow along with families. I to talk about what it is that we're actually getting wrong, why it sticks around ⁓ even when hate it, and what you actually start doing about it. And I'm gonna start with you, the parent, not your child. So stick with me here. know moment when you open your mouth ⁓ and your mother's voice just tumbles out when the thing that you swore that you would ⁓ never say And there it is, like the tone and the look across the dinner table and the comment about seconds, or perhaps about the way that clothing's fitting, or are you still hungry? Are you sure you're still hungry? You didn't sit down and script it out and say, you know what, this is what I'm gonna say tonight. You honestly absorbed that a long time ago. And it just lives inside of you now. And then one day it comes tumbling out of your mouth. Well, that's the whole thing right here. The harm doesn't get taught on purpose. It is something that we were handed years ago. It's been living inside of us. ⁓ Welcome to Family in Focus. I'm Dr. Wendy Schofer, the pediatrician helping parents lead meaningful change without harm. Here we focus on the connection and practical shifts help families thrive at every size. Let's get started. Diet culture, restriction, control, all the food fights. We're not teaching our kids with some kind of lesson plan. It's really just something that we're teaching them by being the voice that they are growing up hearing, and the exact same way that somebody's voice got built into us. That voice of self-doubt, of self-monitoring, and then giving yourself grief when you're like, can't believe I did that. So think about the way that you talk to your own self. You know, perhaps, perhaps you find yourself trying to control your body, lose the weight, get ready for bathing suit season. And it's like there's an internal tripwire that gets hit and everything in you goes, you're not the boss of me. And then the moment that you feel that you failed because you can't willpower your way through it, here comes this other voice that says, you failed. You suck. You'll never do it. that voice didn't start as yours. ⁓ picked it up somewhere, probably a long time ago, ⁓ now it's really hard to see that it's anything apart from you. That's the harm. It was never really about the food. it's voice. ⁓ it's gets internalized. And if we aware it, we can hand it down to our kids ⁓ without even noticing what's on. Here's something that's happening right now that is really showing just how sneaky these voices and these messages are. So I've noticed that there's a whole ton of ads right now that are on social media coming across the feed focused on Parents who are worried about their children's weight, go figure. The algorithm knows that I'm looking at this. But they are really getting very smart at Talking to us, and yet you have to be very mindful of what it is that they're saying. ads not selling you the old diet anymore. ⁓ at least not out loud, okay? ⁓ Now they're all the right things. So they're saying, hey, you're worried about your child's weight, ⁓ and you to build a better relationship. You want them to build their own better relationship with food. The ads say no restriction. They say no diets. They say no food battles. using the language of doing no harm. They sound like the good guys, the ones who are like, yeah, sign me up. And when you keep paying attention, there's before and after photos, there's the close-up. ⁓ On exactly the pain that you feel watching your child grow, the worry that they know that you carry late at night when you're trying to go to bed. And the promise, the one that they slip in there that your child can lose weight, and I quote, without even knowing it. Dude, sit with that for a second. So they are promising weight loss on a child and dressing it up as connection, dressing it up as help without harm. And yet, this is still diet culture. They're just putting it in a prettier package, but you open it up and it's exactly the same thing inside. It's still about the body. It's still setting the bar at weight and shape and contour to decide whether a child is healthy or not, to decide if you are succeeding as a parent or not. I'm not telling you this to make you feel like you've been snookered here, because of course it works. It works on us as parents because it's speaking right to that voice that we have already been carrying. The one that is subconsciously saying, you know what? I'm concerned about my child's weight. And the answer that I've always known is diet culture, restriction, control, management. And yet, because you can now see it and name it, you don't have to fall for it and fork your money over to programs and products aren't working. They just ⁓ attractive. They look appealing because they're just touching on the pain that you feel right now. And yet it's also the pain that we inflict on our children if we continue to pass it on. So this isn't actually about fixing your child. It's really about equipping you. We cannot teach what it is that we're not already modeling. So if your own relationship with food and your body ⁓ running ⁓ control and shame, well, that's the relationship that your kids are learning. ⁓ from your rules. ⁓ They're not even really listening to the rules. They're learning from watching how you actually live in your own skin. And I mean, this is actually the part that gives me a lot of hope because we can change. So often when I talk about parents modeling the changes that we want. Our children to experience and what we want our children to see and become. Parents like, I can't be the model. You are always the model. How cool is it to become the model of saying, I can learn, I can grow, I can change, just like what I'm working with you to do over time. I'm living proof. And I'm gonna be very honest with you, I'm still in it, still working on my own stuff because that is the process. It is us creating changes for ourselves. We're living in that, and then we get to share it with our children. So, yeah, if we want our kids to change, the way we get there is by modeling the thing that actually is the change, which was never. control and it's never management it's learning and growing together that's what real change is so you don't have to have any of this figured out before your kids can benefit just being a parent who's willing to learn out loud ⁓ let them watch you do it let them be a part ⁓ the the journey and the process ⁓ offer an experiment. So ⁓ often I'm working ⁓ with ⁓ we up with an experiment ⁓ at the of our time together. ⁓ And gonna offer one to you right now. Slow down. Just start with one question and ask yourself ⁓ how all this makes sense right now. The way you eat, the way you move, that that voice ⁓ that hear in your head. Don't change a single thing yet. Just witness it. Just take notice and get curious about it. Because you really have to see what's going on before you start trying to mess with it or start trying to create change. And I get it. I know you're going to get an itch. You're going to think, aha, you know, that that's it. This is the thing that I should change. I triple dog dare you to give yourself a whole week. Before you change anything at all, and just keep asking yourself, what else? What else do I notice? Help without harm comes from understanding first. This pause, this slowing down, this receiving is the work. And the bonus is that your kids are watching you do it too. Be the change. We'll keep building all of this here at Family and Focus. If you're listening and you want more now, check out the show notes and learn more about my programming and specifically about the support applying this in your own family. That's exactly why Family and Focus exists. And please remember: while I'm a doctor, I am most definitely not your doctor. This podcast is for education, not medical advice. Take what fits, leave what doesn't, and be gentle with yourself you lead change without harm in your family.