Podcasts about amee severson

This month's Deep Dive series is about flouting parenting rules and advice that don't work for us. Listen to a Spotify playlist of all the episodes in the series here. Who makes the parenting rules? And how bendable are they? From picky eaters to sleep routines to playing outside, we all have to navigate the line between what we supposedly should and shouldn't allow as parents. But sometimes it's okay to break the rules if it works for you and your family. Amy and Margaret dive into the details in this listener-driven episode. In this episode, Margaret and Amy discuss: The different types of parenting rules Which parenting rules they have broken "YOYO" dinners Other episodes we mention: Amee Severson on Intuitive Eating Ask Amy: Helping Kids Deal with Comparison and Envy  Christina Martin on How Children Learn Through Play What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can't wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltour  We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/ mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid's behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, bad advice, bad parenting advice, parenting rules, family rules

Joy and Adam, with returning guest host Amee Severson, share stories of their religious traditions and how those experiences affected their eating disorder recovery. Processing and overcoming religious guilt as well as adapting to one's body after realizing the harms of purity cultures are discussed. Our hope is for those religious and non-religious among the survivor community better understand each other, and, though we may have similar histories, the outcomes of those stories may be starkly different.

Our first of a two part episode with dietitian and author Amee Severson, Joy and Adam discuss her co-authored book, How to Raise an Intuitive Eater, and what challenges there have been getting buy in from parents, "my kids will never eat veggies and only candy all the time if i ever tried that!!!". Fun Fact: Kids need to be exposed to a food approx. 18 times before they decide whether or not they like it.A must listen for parents and those asking, what exactly is Intuitive Eating?Part Two, next month, we switch gears and talk about eating disorder treatment while recovering from religion.

Many of us grew up being told we must be members of “the clean plate club” or that we shouldn't waste food because there are starving children in other countries. The diet industry rakes in billions, profiting off messages around striving for an unattainable “thin ideal.” All of this contributes to the development of unhealty relationships with food and our bodies. As parents, we are at risk of passing along unhealthy messages and patterns. In this episode, Jill interviews Sumner Brooks and Amee Severson about how we can break these patterns and raise children outside the toxic diet mentality so they have healthier relationships with food and their bodies. Listen and Learn: What is meant by “intuitive eating.” What is diet culture and why is it problematic The inaccuracy of data around obesity and morbidity/mortality The three keys to raising an intuitive eater Why it's important to talk about bodies The power of modeling healthy attitudes and behaviors toward food and bodies  The difficulty and importance of letting go of over-control How Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can help Resources Sumner and Amee's book, How to Raise an Intuitive Eater Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resche's book Intuitive Eating The ALLHAT study about the surprising relationship between BMI and cardiovascular risk. About Sumner Brooks and Amee SeversonSumner Brooks is a mom and licensed registered dietitian nutritionist (LD, RDN) based in Oregon who has spent over 13 years working in the field of nutrition and eating disorders. Her experience includes providing nutrition therapy for adolescents and adults, public speaking and pursuing advanced training in trauma-informed, weight-inclusive healthcare. She is also the founder of the online training platform Eating Disorder Registered Dietitians and Professionals (EDRD Pro).Amee Severson a Registered Dietitian (RD) in the Washington State (CD) with a private practice outside of Seattle, Washington. Amee specializes in eating disorder recovery, healing and preserving food-body relationships, and focuses on gender-inclusive and LGBTQ+ affirming care. She is a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, and a Certified Body Trust Provider.Related Episodes Episode 231. Eating Skills and Emotional Eating with Josh Hillis Episode 68. Body Image and Eating Disorders with Emily Sandoz Episode 129. Yoga for All and Body Kindness with Jennifer Webb Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Many of us grew up being told we must be members of “the clean plate club” or that we shouldn't waste food because there are starving children in other countries. The diet industry rakes in billions, profiting off messages around striving for an unattainable “thin ideal.” All of this contributes to the development of unhealty relationships with food and our bodies. As parents, we are at risk of passing along unhealthy messages and patterns. In this episode, Jill interviews Sumner Brooks and Amee Severson about how we can break these patterns and raise children outside the toxic diet mentality so they have healthier relationships with food and their bodies.  Listen and Learn: What is meant by “intuitive eating.” What is diet culture and why is it problematic The inaccuracy of data around obesity and morbidity/mortality The three keys to raising an intuitive eater Why it's important to talk about bodies The power of modeling healthy attitudes and behaviors toward food and bodies  The difficulty and importance of letting go of over-control How Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can help Resources Sumner and Amee's book, How to Raise an Intuitive Eater Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resche's book Intuitive Eating The ALLHAT study about the surprising relationship between BMI and cardiovascular risk. About Sumner Brooks and Amee Severson Sumner Brooks is a mom and licensed registered dietitian nutritionist (LD, RDN) based in Oregon who has spent over 13 years working in the field of nutrition and eating disorders. Her experience includes providing nutrition therapy for adolescents and adults, public speaking and pursuing advanced training in trauma-informed, weight-inclusive healthcare. She is also the founder of the online training platform Eating Disorder Registered Dietitians and Professionals (EDRD Pro). Amee Severson a Registered Dietitian (RD) in the Washington State (CD) with a private practice outside of Seattle, Washington. Amee specializes in eating disorder recovery, healing and preserving food-body relationships, and focuses on gender-inclusive and LGBTQ+ affirming care. She is a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, and a Certified Body Trust Provider. Related Episodes Episode 231. Eating Skills and Emotional Eating with Josh Hillis Episode 68. Body Image and Eating Disorders with Emily Sandoz Episode 129. Yoga for All and Body Kindness with Jennifer Webb Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Raising an Intuitive Eater just got a bit easier, with the new book How to Raise An Intuitive Eater, by Sumner Brooks and Amee Severson, both Registered Dietitians and moms. Today Gina interviews Sumner about a range of topics, including whether it's possible to raise an Intuitive Eater when you're still struggling yourself, and how to pull back the reins of control when it comes to your kids food choices.     Patreon | Love what you're hearing? Help fund ongoing episodes through donations as little as $1/month. Learn more here! Leave a review | When you leave a five star iTunes review, it helps others with similar interests and passions find us when they're looking for new content. Thank you in advance! Resources and Show Notes How to Raise an Intuitive Eater (the book) @intuitiveeatingrd We Are the Luckiest, The Surprising Magic of Sober Life Quit Like a Woman Bake Believe's No Sugar Added Baking Chips, Bars, & Wafers (letsbakebelieve.com) Hail Mary Snacks

Who makes the parenting rules? And how bendable are they? From picky eaters to sleep routines to playing outside, we all have to navigate the line between what we supposedly should and shouldn't allow as parents. But sometimes it's okay to break the rules if it works for you and your family. Amy and Margaret dive into the details in this listener-driven episode. In this episode, Margaret and Amy discuss: the different types of parenting rules which parenting rules they have broken "YOYO" dinners Other episodes we mention: Amee Severson on Intuitive Eating Ask Amy: Helping Kids Deal with Comparison and Envy  Christina Martin on How Children Learn Through Play Special thanks to this month's sponsors: Beam's Dream Powder is their sleep-promoting healthy hot cocoa. 99% of people experience better sleep quality when taking Beam Dream! Get $20 off at beamorganics.com/fresh with the code FRESH. Betterhelp online therapy is affordable, confidential, and effective! Give it a try and see if online therapy can help lower your stress. Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/fresh. Daily Harvest delivers delicious harvest bowls, flatbreads, smoothies, and more, all built on organic fruits and vegetables. Go to dailyharvest.com/laughing to get up to $40 off your first box! Firstleaf is a wine club that curates and ships wines that are personalized to your tastes! Get 6 bottles of wine for $29.95, plus free shipping, at tryfirstleaf.com/laughing. Home.Made.Podcast is a terrific new podcast offering stories about the meaning of home in America. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts! KiwiCo projects make science, technology, engineering, art, and math super fun. Get 30% off your first month plus FREE shipping on ANY crate line at kiwico.com with code MOTHERHOOD. Ladder helps you find life insurance without the hassle! Answer a few questions online to apply for up to $3 million in term life insurance coverage. Go to ladderlife.com/laughing today to see if you're instantly approved. Mathnasium is the place for online and in-person math education– whether your kids are a little behind, or need to be further challenged. Get your free consultation at mathnasium.com. Native products keep you feeling and smelling fresh. Get 20% off your first order by going to nativedeo.com/fresh or by using the promo code FRESH. Parade underwear and loungewear are sustainable, size-inclusive, comfortable and fantastic! Go to yourparade.com/laughing and use the code LAUGHING for 20% off your first order. Peloton has a workout for every goal, day, and mood: everything from boxing and dance cardio to yoga and meditation. Visit onepeloton.com to learn more. Prose now makes supplements personally tailored to address your specific cause of hair shedding. Get your free in-depth consultation and 15% off your custom hair supplements at prose.com/laughing. Renzo's Vitamins “melty vitamins” taste great and give your kids the vitamins they need- without all the sugar of gummies! Go to renzosmagic.com and use the code FRESH to get $5 off. StoryWorth is an online service that helps you and your loved ones connect through sharing stories and memories and preserves them for years to come. Save $10 off your first purchase at storyworth.com/whatfreshhell. Thrive Causemetics beauty and skin care products have clean, skin-loving ingredients– and are truly high-performance. Get 15% off your first order at thrivecausemetics.com/WHATFRESHHELL. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anna Lutz and Elizabeth Davenport chat with Amee Severson, MPP-D, RDN, co-author of How to Raise an Intuitive Eater, about how a dearth of safe, inclusive resources for people raising children was one of the main inspirations for the book. Amee emphasizes how the conversations we have with kids about body image and food are less impactful than what they learn from watching the way we interact with food. We discuss: How perfection with parenting doesn't exist. The importance of modeling positive behaviors, but also ensuring that children know it's ok to fail. The importance of creating space for learning and growing. Advice for parents who want to give up the diet mentality but have a lot of unlearning to do. The importance of having a structured yet flexible eating schedule for kids. Things parents can start doing right away to help support their kids as intuitive eaters.   Links:  Prosper Nutrition and Wellness Sunny Side Up Nutrition Podcast  Lutz, Alexander & Associates Nutrition Therapy Pinney Davenport Nutrition Amee Severson is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist whose work focuses on body positivity, fat acceptance, and intuitive eating through a social justice lens. Amee focuses on providing safe and inclusive care for the LGBTQ+ community. Amee identifies as a queer and nonbinary. Amee holds a Bachelor's degree in Food and Nutrition from Montana State University, a Masters Degree in Professional Practice from Iowa State University, is a dietitian registered in the State of Washington, and is a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. Amee is the co-author of How to Raise an Intuitive Eater.

Brittany and Aleen are joined by registered dieticians and co-authors of How To Raise an Intuitive Eater, Amee Severson and Sumner Brooks! They dive right into what intuitive eating is, before getting into - the principles of it and the most important things for parents to understand. They also discuss how to navigate "off-limits food," and language to use (and avoid) when talking about food. Plus, they chat about the right time to introduce intuitive eating to your kids, and whether it's actually "too late" to teach intuitive eating. Finally, they close with the importance of ditching the diet mentality, celebrating bodies of all types, and unlearning toxic thoughts and habits.

Amee Severson (she/they) joins this episode to chat about a few big life changes—publishing a book (How to Raise an Intuitive Eater, co-authored with Sumner Brooks), changing their Instagram handle to open up more possibility for what they share on the platform, and sharing their identities as non-binary and queer. We catch up on all of the above! Learn more about Amee's work:  Prosper Nutrition Practice How to Raise an Intuitive Eater book IG @ameeistalking  Reach out anytime: RDRealTalk at Gmail.com Leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts!  Your host: Heather Caplan RD , on IG @heatherdcRD RD Real Talk Podcast on IG @RDRealTalk

#212: How does baby-led weaning fit into the intuitive eating model? and What can I do to teach my baby mindful eating? In this second part of the 2-part interview series with the authors of the book ‘How to Raise an Intuitive Eater: Raising the Next Generation with Food and Body Confidence', I have the pleasure of having the second co-author, registered dietitian and intuitive eating counselor, Amee Severson, MPP-D, RDN. In this episode we will be discussing further the topic of intuitive eating, the need to focus on the well-being of babies and the need to support their natural intuitive eating instincts.     Get your copy of the 100 FIRST FOODS list on Katie's free BABY-LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS workshop: https://babyledweaning.co/workshop   Follow @babyledweanteam on IG: https://www.instagram.com/babyledweanteam/   Shownotes with all the links mentioned in this episode are here: https://blwpodcast.com/212   Learn something you liked in this episode? Would you kindly subscribe, rate and review where you're seeing this? (...it really helps other parents find this BLW info too!) 

#212: How does baby-led weaning fit into the intuitive eating model? and What can I do to teach my baby mindful eating? In this second part of the 2-part interview series with the authors of the book ‘How to Raise an Intuitive Eater: Raising the Next Generation with Food and Body Confidence', I have the pleasure of having the second co-author, registered dietitian and intuitive eating counselor, Amee Severson, MPP-D, RDN. In this episode we will be discussing further the topic of intuitive eating, the need to focus on the well-being of babies and the need to support their natural intuitive eating instincts. Get your copy of the 100 FIRST FOODS list on Katie's free BABY-LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS workshop: https://babyledweaning.co/workshop?utm_source=Shownotes&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_campaign=Episode%20Link   Follow @babyledweanteam on IG: https://www.instagram.com/babyledweanteam/   Shownotes with all the links mentioned in this episode are here: https://blwpodcast.com/212   Learn something you liked in this episode? Would you kindly subscribe, rate and review where you're seeing this? (...it really helps other parents find this BLW info too!)  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the podcast, Amee shares how people new to intuitive eating often get sidetracked when they treat intuitive eating as the “screw it” diet. She shares how being free of guilt and worry around food helps improve your own health and dieting may feel necessary to do for folks when people around them are dieting too. Amee also shares the importance of safety and choice for everyone, but especially for those that live in marginalized bodies where safety isn't readily accessible.    Amee Severson (she/they) is a Registered Dietitian whose work focuses on body liberation, fat acceptance, and intuitive eating through a social justice lens. Amee's passion is providing safe and inclusive care for the LGBTQ+ community.    Amee is the co-author of  How to Raise an Intuitive Eater How to Raise an Intuitive Eater: Raising the Next Generation with Food and Body Confidence https://www.amazon.com/How-Raise-Intuitive-Eater-Generation-ebook/dp/B092T7JZXB Learn more about Amee's work at www.prospernutritionwellness.com Follow Amee on Instagram @ameeistalking

Our society connects thin bodies not just with better health, but with greater happiness. And many of us have been duped into believing that the rewards of eternal thinness are available to anyone who "eats right" and tries hard enough. But teaching our children "intuitive eating" suggests a different path: putting our kids' relationship with food and their bodies and their mental health on the front burner, and appearance and weight on the back. Amee Severson is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist who identifies as queer and nonbinary. Her work focuses on body positivity, fat acceptance, and providing safe and inclusive care for the LGBTQ+ community. Amee is the co-author of the new book How to Raise an Intuitive Eater: Raising the Next Generation with Food and Body Confidence. In this epsiode, Amee explains why the well-meaning strategies of concerned parents around food and weight usually end up backfiring how raising kids who eat intuitively means engaging with the complicated messages around food or dieting that we may have ourselves received the "three keys" for embracing a new path toward intuitive eating for our families Intuitive eating is definitely a back-to-one sort of thing, a resetting of expectations that we need to revisit often. But here's why that work is worth it: our kids deserve to feel lovable, worthy, and accepted, no matter what their bodies look like.  Find HOW TO RAISE AN INTUITIVE EATER in our Bookshop store! Special thanks to this month's sponsors: Betabrand has reinvented comfort and style with their dress yoga pants, and we love ours! Get 30% off your first order when you go to Betabrand.com/LAUGHING. Daily Harvest delivers delicious harvest bowls, flatbreads, smoothies, and more, all built on organic fruits and vegetables. Go to dailyharvest.com/laughing to get up to $40 off your first box! Home.Made. Podcast is a terrific new podcast offering stories about the meaning of home in America. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts! flowkey lets you learn piano at your own pace. Go to flowkey.com/whatfreshhell to receive 7 days of flowkey Premium for free and 20% off an annual subscription.  Indeed is the only job site where you're guaranteed to find quality applicants -- or else you don't pay! Upgrade your job post with a $75 sponsored job credit through March 31st at indeed.com/laughing. KiwiCo projects make science, technology, engineering, art, and math super fun. Get 30% off your first month plus FREE shipping on ANY crate line with code MOTHERHOOD. Membrasin is the totally natural, estrogen-free, clinically-proven feminine moisture formula. Go to membrasinlife.com and use the code FRESH10 to get 10% off. Native products keep you feeling and smelling fresh. Get 20% off your first order by going to nativedeo.com/fresh or by using the promo code FRESH. Parade underwear and loungewear are sustainable, size-inclusive, comfortable and fantastic! Go to Parade.com/Laughing and use the code LAUGHING for 20% off your first order.  Peloton has a workout for every goal, day, and mood: everything from boxing and dance cardio to yoga and meditation. Visit onepeloton.com to learn more. Prose now makes supplements personally tailored to address your specific cause of hair shedding. Get your free in-depth consultation and 15% off your custom hair supplements at prose.com/laughing.  School Toolbox makes shopping for school supplies for your kids easier– and also creates fundraising opportunities for your school! Find out more at schooltoolbox.com/whatfreshhell. Thrive Causemetics high-performing beauty and skin-care products are made with clean, skin-loving ingredients. Get 15% off your first order at thrivecausemetics.com/whatfreshhell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode we talk to co-author Amee Severson about their new book How to Raise an Intuitive Eater: Raising the Next Generation with Food and Body Confidence.  Amee talks about the book, working with kids to sift through diet culture crap and working with those with eating disorders.  You can find Amee on Instagram @ameeistalking  You can find the book at your local independant book store or in Canada at Indigo

“I think in general, we all know too much about nutrition. I say that as a dietitian. Even the most intuitive eating of kids will be a picky eater. And that’s fine. We don’t need to nutrition them out of that. There isn’t of a nutrient in broccoli or kale that they can’t get from something else, I promise.”Welcome to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast about about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and health. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. I’m the author of The Eating Instinct and the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia.Today’s guest is Amee Severson. Amee is co-author of How to Raise an Intuitive Eater with Sumner Brooks, RD. Amee is also a registered dietitian who specializes in eating disorder recovery, healing and preserving food/body relationships, and provides gender-inclusive and LGBTQ-affirming care.Amee joins us today to discuss their new book. We will be talking about feeding kids but also about doing your own work and why we need to forget everything we know about nutrition.If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us in your podcast player! And make sure you’re subscribed to the Burnt Toast newsletter for episode transcripts, reported essays, and so much more. (Here’s a 20% discount if you’d like to go paid!)Have a question or a topic you want us to tackle in a future episode? Post it as a comment on this episode of the newsletter or send it to virginiasolesmith@substack.com. Episode 26 TranscriptVirginiaI am so excited. I’ve interviewed you a few other times for articles and things, but it is always such a pleasure to chat with you.Today we are talking about your new book, How to Raise an Intuitive Eater. This is the book I’ve been dying to be able to hand to people. This is a resource we desperately need. I think a lot of people are expecting that they’re going to pick up this book and be told, “Step one to feed your child. Step two to feed your child.” Instead you spend the first 150 pages or so—really half the book—talking about parents. Why we as parents need to do our own work and how we can do that work. So, why start there? Especially because it is so hard, Amee. You’re making us do really hard work.AmeeI know. I wish I could make it easy and just have it be a complete step-by-step guide, but we would have been missing a lot.It’s not an uncommon question: Why make so much extra work in there? I remember when I was a kid, every woman in my family had super short hair. Over the age of like 35 or 40, everyone just cut their hair short. I had this assumption that you got old (because that was old to me when I was seven) and you cut your hair short. You didn’t have long hair when you were old. That’s ridiculous, you know? There’s just this assumption that this is what you do. And it was the same for dieting for my family. You reach teenage-hood and you joined Weight Watchers. You hated your body and you tried to lose weight. I just assumed that’s what you did as an adult. I know that I’m not alone because we see it everywhere. The way parents or caregivers talk about not just their body, but food in general. You don’t ever have to say anything explicitly to your child. You never have to say, “I think your body is wrong,” or “I think you’re eating wrong,” or “This is your fault.” If you are saying it to yourself, if you are living your life like that, your kids are tiny sponges who soak up all that and reflect it back in the world.VirginiaSomething I hear a lot from parents is, “My child is three or my child is thirteen and I’m now realizing I need to do this. And is it too late?” They’re wishing this was something they fixed about themselves before they became parents. Of course, we cannot go back to our pre-child selves and work on this. AmeeJust like with intuitive eating, it’s never too late to start working on it. I think at a certain point, it is probably more beneficial for your older teenage child to do their own work, as opposed to you having different rules or attitudes around food. It can feel so overwhelming to start, like, oh, I have to fix myself and master the first half of the book before I’m allowed to start trying to introduce these concepts to my kid. Especially when your kid is older, it can feel more urgent, too, like I need to do this now. I already screwed up so much. As a parent, I get that. You, as a parent or as a caregiver, are repairing your own relationship with food while continuing to foster your kids having a good relationship with food—those two things can happen concurrently. It can be very important, especially if your relationship with food isn’t what you want your kid to grow up with or if you get that sinking feeling that this is not what I want to see my kid doing in 20 years. Then doing it concurrently is important.VirginiaI think that’s reassuring, too, because it lets us know that we don’t have to fix it completely to do better for them. I hope people find that liberating. I know I do! I just think, okay, I don’t have to be getting an A+ on this, you know? I was trying to get dieting perfect for so long and now I have to get this perfect?AmeeYeah, there’s a lot of pressure to be the perfect parent all the time. Especially in this way I am so tired of, like “My kid eats kale, so they’re perfect.” My kid knows that kale goes to work with my husband. He puts it in a seafood case at work because it’s pretty, but we don’t eat it. And that’s totally fine! Because perfect parenting is a myth, I think. Sumner Brooks and I really emphasize throughout the book how faking it till you make it is totally okay. Having a lot of compassion for yourself for not having it all figured out and not being perfect is fine.VirginiaLet’s talk about your Three Keys concept. This is what you see as the building blocks of the feeding relationship. The first key is providing unconditional love and support for your child’s body. Am I right that this is often one of the hardest parts for folks?AmeeYeah, it definitely is. Partly because I think that it can be hard to recognize that we aren’t providing unconditional love and support for our kids. If someone is picking up this book, if someone’s listening to this podcast, if someone is looking up any sort of parenting advice online, they’re probably trying their damnedest to help their kid as much as possible. It’s not malicious, it’s none of that. They’re trying their best and hearing that we can be harming, for lack of a better word, our kids through setting expectations on their bodies or even praising bodies—any of that can be hard to hear. Like, oh crap I’m doing something wrong. We live in a society that has put conditional love and support on bodies and we want to change that, because one of the least important things about a person is what their body looks like or even what their body can do.VirginiaWhat is an example of when someone may think they’re providing that support, but they really aren’t? AmeeI think praise is a big one. Like, “You’re so pretty,” or “You’re so strong,” or “You’re so handsome.” It also can be subtle things. Something like, “are you sure you really want to wear that? You look really pretty. But are you sure you want to wear that?” It’s a lot of the buts, the “You’re doing really well at this thing, but your body is taking away from it.” And those are those unintentional jabs that build up over time.VirginiaI was just interviewing someone for my book and we were talking about athletics. Kids get told way, way, way too young that they don’t have “the body” for a particular sport, even if they love a sport. You might love running, but you don’t have a “runner’s body” or “You’re not tall enough to play basketball.” Even if you’re still putting your kid on the team or encouraging them to love that sport, you’re letting them know that they won’t be the best at it, and so that it’s somehow not worthwhile because of their body.Key number two is to implement a flexible and reliable feeding routine. This is something that you all articulated so well in the book that was really helpful for me. Often, we can either be very structured about meals or have zero structure and both can be really problematic. You said that what kids really need is to know they’re going to get enough food. The point of structure is to let them know that this is a need that will be met. I was like, oh, it’s not about trying to get the kid to eat on a certain schedule. It’s about reassuring that they are going to be fed. How did you come to that realization and why that is so important for parents to realize?AmeeOne of the reasons why it felt so important to talk about enough-ness is because of the central importance of enough-ness in all of nutrition. It’s not about what you’re eating or the timing of it, or anything. It’s just enough-ness, overall. It can feel really uncomfortable to say no, because that’s often how we’re told to do it as an adult for ourselves is if you want something, you eat it, regardless of when you want it, regardless of how you want it. That’s totally fine. Absolutely encourage that. Kids have very one track brains. They’re not quite as prefrontal cortex-developed as we are as adults. It can be harder for them to recognize, like truly recognize, that if I’m hungry and I don’t eat now, I will get enough food later. Especially if there has been a time where they were maybe presented with food, like a dinner for example, that they didn’t want to eat. It’s a lot of food, maybe on a plate, that they don’t enjoy. They’re going to probably leave the table hungry. And the same with snacks, the same with lunches, breakfast, all of it. If they’re not given enough and given the option to have enough, they develop the sense of okay, I need to get it when I can. And we want to make sure that they know that if you don’t eat all your lunch, that’s fine. And you can have more when you get home. I have an elementary school kid. And elementary school lunches are a whole thing where they only get like 10 minutes to eat food. My kid is a very slow eater. So I know she never finishes her whole meal. So she comes home hungry. We’ve fallen into the routine that she gets  another lunch when she comes home from school. Because otherwise she’s hungry. We want her to know that like, okay, you don’t have to feel sad or upset that you didn’t finish your lunch. You don’t need to feel chaotic when you come home and just go for whatever food is available. You can make yourself some mac and cheese, or we can. She’s figured out the microwave and it’s beautiful. So she can do more.VirginiaWe love that. Yeah, my eight year old has the toaster and the microwave down now.AmeeSame! It’s beautiful. It’s a lovely day as a parent when that happens.One other thing that comes up in that space is if we’re about to have dinner and she’s hungry, I will say “No, we’re not gonna have a snack right now because I want you to eat dinner. It will come and it’s food that you like. There will always be one part of it that you will eat. So I want you to be hungry for that.” It’s normal to be hungry leading up to a meal and there will be enough food for you to eat. My seven year old does not understand that whole sentence, but her brain will conceptualize and understand if we do it again and again. And that’s the goal.VirginiaYes, that’s helpful. I think you’ve just articulated this thing that parents struggle with. There are times when kids want to eat a lot of food and it’s not, in our brains, a time to eat. We think you had lunch at school but now you’re coming home starving. But you’re compensating for a lack, where she’s not getting enough time to eat her lunch at school. Versus, it’s 20 minutes to dinner and I’m not creating a lack by saying no at this point. Your enough-ness will be achieved very shortly, I’m just helping you understand 20 minutes. When you’re saying no, are you saying no in a way that’s restrictive or supportive? AmeeThat phrase right there—restrictive or supportive—is a conversation Sumner and I had a lot as we wrote this book. How can we phrase this in a way that is supportive and not restrictive? VirginiaYes. That’s a helpful phrase for us all to keep in our hearts and come back to in those moments when there’s a request for food that’s catching you off guard. And then the third key is to develop and use your intuitive eating voice. What is my Intuitive Eating voice, Amee? AmeeIt’s the voice that tells us we are hungry, we want food, that we don’t really want to eat this food tonight, but we want to eat that one. It’s I want to move my body today because I feel like I’ve got energy. It’s I don’t have energy and I think I need to take a nap. We are all born with that voice, all of us are, and sometimes we shut it down. Sometimes we’re just raised and in this culture that is not allowing us to foster that, not allowing us to hold on to that and to trust it. So, by developing and using that intuitive eating voice, we get the chance to pull it out of hiding and keep it from being lost. By doing that as a caregiver, as a parent, we show how safe it is, how okay it is to do that. We get to be the home base forever, for these kids. Like, this is what my my family did and it was fine. This is what I learned is safe and okay. We can really allow that space to be held for ourselves. For our kids, it looks like not letting this thing that is really cool and really important fade away and be locked in a deep dark corner of our brain. Because it’s a really cool space where we get to trust our bodies.VirginiaI’m almost tearing up as you talk about that because it’s really such an honor to be able to do that for our kids. It’s a privilege that we can be that space for our kids. So, you take us through these three keys and then we start to talk about nutrition. I love how late in the book nutrition comes because all too often this is where the conversation starts and stops, right? Why do you think it’s so important to shift the focus off nutrition? When is there a place for nutrition in the conversation?AmeeI think in general, we all know too much about nutrition. I say that as a dietician. 90% of the work that I do is un-teaching nutrition to people because there’s so much that’s contradicting itself or so overblown. How the heck are you supposed to navigate all of that? The last thing Sumner and I want to do is throw on even more rules. The rules are not the point. We didn’t want to make it the main focus of the book because it’s not the main focus of intuitive eating. It’s not the main focus of raising kids. If you are shoving vegetables on your kid, they’re not gonna eat it. My kid ate a bite of a carrot last night. That was it. Her vegetable for the day was a single bite of a carrot. And that was fine. I was glad she ate a bite of the carrot because they were good. Because when we obsess about nutrition—did you eat enough vegetables, did you eat enough fruit, protein, fat—we take away from that intuitive eating voice. We take away from that instinct that it’s okay to eat food. It’s okay to to not like things. It’s normal to have a picky kid. It’s not a screw up on parents part. it’s not a broken thing within your kid. Even the most intuitive eating of kids will be a picky eater, and that’s fine. We don’t need to nutrition them out of that. There isn’t of a nutrient in broccoli or kale that they can’t get from something else, I promise. We can expose our kids to these things, expose them to us as parents, normally eating food andtaking the pressure off of ourselves and off of them to find the most important thing that we could possibly eat on our plate is the brussel sprout. It’s just a piece of food, same as this chicken, same as this french fry. I don’t need to fight with you about this one. I’m allowed to not like this and I’m allowed to try it. That comes up, too, how many exposures it takes for a kid to be willing to try a food, to be willing to accept a food. It’s a lot, like 18 to 20 exposures, which is just looking at the food existing.VirginiaRight, without pressure to eat it. I think so often people hear that exposure number and think that means they have to push it on their kid 18 to 20 times. They just need to be in a room with it.AmeeYeah, It’s like sparkling water, like if the essence of it exists in a room with you.VirginiaIt’s the Lacroix of vegetables. Just a waft. Check, we got another exposure down. The hyper focus on nutrition and the anxiety parents have about nutrition so often gets in the way of the meal being relaxed, fun, maybe you have a conversation you enjoy with your child. All of that gets lost, right? We’re not getting that opportunity for food as connection and food as comfort. AmeeYeah, when it turns into a food fight at the table, like just eat this food, it takes takes the focus away from a time where we can hang out or just be together. My daughter, she’s almost eight and she goes in and out of more picky periods, but she’s also a kid and her tastes do not line up with that of mine and my husband’s. I like really spicy curry. She does not, to my great disappointment, like really spicy curry. So if I’m going to make curry, I don’t expect her to eat it. I don’t even really expect to present it to her because she knows what it is. She isn’t gonna touch it. But I know she’ll eat some of the dino nuggets I keep in the freezer. So she can have that and some white rice and she’ll eat one of those things.The other night we had fish tacos, again spicy and fish, two big no-no’s. So, we made her a quesadilla because we figured she would eat a quesadilla. It did not land that night. I don’t know why, could not figure it out. But it was not the ticket. And she was visibly really sad. She ate a couple bites and was like, “I’m full.” And we were like, “No, you’re not, like, we know you’re not full. What’s wrong?” Just very quietly, she was like, “I just don’t like this tonight.” And we’re like, “Oh, just go get something else then. You can make yourself a sandwich or have some mac and cheese.” Like, “Eat food, please.” She got up and made herself an easy mac. It was beautiful.VirginiaYes, that’s awesome. It does get easier when they can use the microwave themselves so you’re not the one having to get up and make the whole second meal. That’s the tension, right? Is all the labor that goes into that. AmeeThe food she can make herself, she can switch out a dinner for. That’s the rule.VirginiaThat’s a great rule. That’s a great way to put it.AmeeAnd we always, always have some foods that–well, there’s a really weird Uncrustables shortage right now. It’s very sad, actually, because it makes lunches a lot harder to pack. But, even before she could use a microwave, we would have Uncrustables in the freezer, and she would just pull those out and eat those. Or a bowl of cereal, which is totally fine, too.VirginiaI think folks are gonna find this deeply reassuring. I want to talk a little more about the nutrition piece. I liked how you said that you do a lot of un-teaching in your work because I think a big problem is we’ve absorbed so much of this nutrition knowledge and accumulated it so intensively over the years. Is there a way to incorporate nutrition in a more useful way into your life? Or is it a matter of just letting a lot of that information go? AmeeYeah. I think there is a little bit of case-by-case for that because there is some nutrition information out there that is really valuable for some people, given their circumstances in life or what’s happening for them. And some of that same information is really not useful for anyone else. For example, my partner is diabetic. He needs to count carbs because he needs to dose insulin. If he doesn’t, It could be bad. I however, don’t need to count carbs. Neither does my kid. The only reason my kid is learning any carb ratios at all is for “Daddy has low blood sugar. Can you please go get him a soda?” She did absolutely bring him a Diet Coke one time.VirginiaLove the effort but…AmeeSo, we’re learning this one has carbs so we need you to bring this one to Daddy. But so many of those little specific nutrition like tidbits can be really important for one person but really unimportant for another. We are in such like a black and white society that if this thing is important for one, we assume it’s important for all. If this thing is unhealthy for one person, we assume it’s unhealthy for all, but that’s not true. We can pick and choose what is important and for the most part, we also get to pick and choose that forever. For example, I like to use my husband’s example. He doesn’t drink sugar sodas, for example, because he didn’t drink them growing up and he doesn’t think it’s worth his insulin. But Fritos and queso, like Fritos scoops and the crappy Fritos queso, is his jam. He will eat an entire bag in 30 minutes. That’s one of his Christmas presents every year. That’s worth his insulin.There are a few exceptions to that, like allergies is one. But for the most part, we get to pick and choose when it’s important and when it’s not. We don’t have to cut anything out ever. If it will kill you, then maybe. But for the most part, we don’t have to. If we are interested in or willing to do the work to unpack our own internal diet culture beliefs, internal fatphobia, and the way we externalize that as well, then we really get to pick it apart, which is a lot of work and sometimes not the most fun work. But that’s what leads to having a better relationship with all of this. I find most of the work we do around nutrition is unpacking what’s not important.VirginiaThat’s a really empowering way to frame it. I think people think they don’t get to choose. Nutrition is given to them as the set of cardinal rules they have to follow instead of something you can filter through your own life and your own context.I really love that you call the last chapter of the book “what to do when this feels harder than you thought.” I do not want to give away the ending of the book. There’s so much more in this book than Amee and I have talked about—you need to read the whole thing. But I do think when people are working on divesting from diet culture and fatphobia it just feels so hard some days. You hit these brick walls and you don’t know where to go. Then you end up worrying that what you did caused more harm because you’re trying to reduce harm. So what do we do when we hit those brick walls? AmeeI think accepting, believing, expecting that we will hit a wall at some point. There’s always a wall, whether it’s exhaustion or just confusion or frustration because we all have limits. We don’t have to be ready for every circumstance that’s gonna come our way. And we can have a lot of compassion for ourself in that space. I expect it to be hard. I haven’t met a single person that’s like, “Oh, my God, that was the easiest thing I’ve ever done.” Most people come to me, as a clinician, and are like, this is so much harder than I thought it would be. It is challenging. And it is for our kids, too. The longer we’ve been stuck in our own diet culture mindset, the harder it can be to encourage our kids to re-trust this space. It can feel really frustrating and hard and that’s okay. I think self compassion is probably the most important thing we can hold.In our house we have a lot of conversations about how we’re not going to have any more candy right now. We’re gonna save this candy for later and you can have more tomorrow. Or no, you don’t get to eat more Halloween candy before bed because you just brushed your teeth and I’m tired. You’re going to bed and you can have more tomorrow.VirginiaI had a cool moment with my four year old recently. We had popcorn and we hadn’t had popcorn in the house for a while because my kids are really messy with popcorn so I stopped buying it for a few months. Then I was like, Oh, they love popcorn, I should get popcorn again. And the first day we had it, my four year old wanted only popcorn. At dinner she was having a plate of popcorn. And then she wanted another plate of popcorn and another plate of popcorn and I could see Dan, my husband, getting a little tense. Like, are we gonna watch her eat a whole bag of popcorn? Is that okay? I knew that it was just because it was new and we hadn’t had popcorn for a while and she loves it and she was really happy to have it. I said to her, “Just so you know, I want you to have as much as you want with dinner. We can also, if you’re getting full, save your plate and have this popcorn with breakfast tomorrow.” Immediately her posture changed and she was like, “Oh, oh yeah, I’m full.” and gave me the plate and we put it aside for breakfast and she ate it for breakfast the next morning. And it was clearly that she was just like, “I better eat all the popcorn right now because I don’t know when I’ll have it again.” As soon as I explained that it’s here in the house now and we’ll have it again, she was like, “Oh, Okay, got it.” That was very cool to watch happen  in real time with her.AmeeYeah, once you see your kids start to do it, it’s really cool. We had a similar experience with a chocolate orange, those ones you whack on the table and they break apart. That fun, interactive food is really exciting for my kid right now. We found one at Trader Joe’s and she was so excited about it, and we bought it. She ate that first one within a few days. Then we went back to Trader Joe’s a couple days later and there was another one. So we got it. It’s been like a week and a half and it’s still sitting in the cupboard and she keeps forgetting it exists because it’s just not exciting anymore.Butter For Your Burnt ToastAmeeWe are currently watching—we’re late to the game—Succession. That is what we spend our nights doing. I’m very invested in all these people that I really hate so if you want to hate watch something…VirginiaIf you have not read it yet, the New Yorker profile of Jeremy Strong is a fascinating and hilarious read. Definitely check it out.It turns out he is just as horrible as Kendall Roy is. He’s not actually acting at all. At times I even found it a little triggering because I find all the men on Succession a little triggering. I was like, “Oh, God, he’s like so many like, boys I had crushes on in high school who turned out to be these theater jerks.”AmeeThat’s the whole reason we stopped watching House of Cards after one season. We’re like, this is too close to home. We have to stop.VirginiaExactly. Okay, my recommendation is also something to watch. It is a movie I watched recently. As folks know, I do a monthly movie club with my siblings. My siblings are significantly younger and cooler than me, so we each take turns picking movies and my movie is always a terrible pick and then they all pick these amazing things. This was my brother-in-law’s pick, actually, it’s called The Sound of Metal. It is a really moving film about a musician. He’s a drummer in a heavy metal band and he loses his hearing overnight. He goes completely deaf and you never really find out why he loses it. But you watch him coming to terms with being deaf. It’s also a powerful story about addiction. He’s in recovery and you see his quest to get his hearing back almost as like a form of relapsing. It’s just a beautiful movie, it takes you into the deaf community. It’s very thought-provoking about addiction, mental health, and disability and it’s beautifully shot and acted. So Amy, thank you so much for joining us. This was such a great conversation. The book is How to Raise an Intuitive Eater. Tell folks where they can find more of your work.AmeeMy website for my professional work is Prosper Nutrition Wellness. I’m based in Washington State. You can find me on Instagram or Twitter at Amee Severson. Thanks so much for listening to Burnt Toast! If you’d like to support the show, please subscribe for free in your podcast player and tell a friend about this episode. Or consider a paid subscription to the Burnt Toast Newsletter. It’s on sale this month for just $4 per month or $40 for the year. You get a ton of cool perks and you keep this an ad- and sponsor-free space. The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by me, Virginia Sole-Smith. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter.Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting independent anti diet journalism! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit virginiasolesmith.substack.com/subscribe

Listen now (36 min) | How to Raise an Intuitive Eater with Amee Severson

Today on The Messy Intersection, Diana chats with Amee Severson, co-author of the brand-new book How to Raise an Intuitive Eater. Resources: How to Raise an Intuitive Eater on Amazon How to Raise an Intuitive Eater on Bookshop Book website: intuitiveeating4kids.com More about Amee: Instagram | Website | Twitter Follow Diana on Instagram: @anti.diet.kids Join the Raising Anti-Diet Kids Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/antidietkids)

Children are born intuitive eaters in a society where diet culture dominates. Parents are concerned about how to best feed their children, and nearly everyone is offering solutions on how to tackle the childhood obesity epidemic. But these solutions miss the most important thing: a healthy relationship with food. The absence of this healthy relationship can lead to disastrous consequences: weight cycling, low self-esteem and eating disorders can result from this fear-based approach to food that has become the norm for us all. How to Raise an Intuitive Eater is a compassionate guide for parents to help improve the health, happiness and well-being of their children. Based on their experiences working with parents and children, Sumner Brooks and Amee Severson understand that parents want their kids to live their best lives in the bodies they were born to have.

Please support EndoGenius by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, leaving a 5-star review, and sharing with your friends and family!While dieting itself might lead to short-term results, it often results in constant weight fluctuations, decreased muscle mass and metabolism, and even an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes. Toxic diet culture almost unanimously uses fear and shame-based marketing to convince you that you're fat, unhealthy, and unworthy. This makes diet and exercise feel like a punishment rather than a form of self-love. Instead, we should celebrate food and fitness and choose to fuel ourselves with compassion and gratitude.In her book, How to Raise an Intuitive Eater: Raising the Next Generation with Food and Body Confidence, Sumner Brooks and her co-author Amee Severson provide a guideline for priming our kids to love themselves and listen to what their bodies tell them. Sumner Brooks, MPH, RDN, LD, CEDRD is a registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) and certified eating disorder specialist (CEDRD) based in Portland, Oregon who has been working with clients on all levels of the disordered eating spectrum for 15 years. Sumner is a mom and has put her knowledge, intuition, and parenting skills of Intuitive Eating to the test of real life. She is also the founder of an online training platform for weight-inclusive eating disorder professionals geared toward dietitians, called EDRD Pro. In this episode, we discuss: The fundamental principles of intuitive eatingMisconceptions about intuitive eatingHow to understand your body's biofeedbackThe problem with diet culture Why intuitive eating is important for kids How to promote self-awareness and acceptance in ourselves and our children  Connect with Sumner:Book(s): How to Raise an Intuitive EaterWebsite: https://edrdpro.com/ Instagram: @intuitiveeatingrd Connect with Ahmed:Website: https://ahmednayel.com/ Facebook: Ahmed NayelInstagram: @the.ahmed.nayelTwitter: @theahmednayelYouTube Reminder: Listening is great, but don't forget to apply what you learned in your life. Thank you for tuning in!

In this episode Lori speaks with Sumner Brooks, one of the co authors of the new book "How to raise an Intuitive Eater: Raising the Next Generation with Food and Body Confidence. Sumner goes over some of what you can find in the book, her writing process and how her and Amee Severson came to write this particular book.   If you are interested in connecting with Sumner check her out on  IG: @intuitiveeatingrd How to Raise an Intuitive Eater is available for pre-order!! Pre order link for Indigo Canada Pre order link for Amazon Canada

Hi Burnt Toast subscribers! I'm back from vacation and I've missed you all! Today we've got an audio newsletter (recorded before my break). Tomorrow I'll have a Friday Thread for you. (Do we need to talk about Sarah Paulson's fat suit? Or any other burning questions on your mind? Comment below and let me know what you want to chat about!) And the big Tuesday essays will resume next week. Now on to today's episode…Hello and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast! This is a newsletter where we explore questions (and sometimes answers) on fatphobia, diet culture, parenting and health. I'm Virginia Sole-Smith, a journalist who covers weight stigma and diet culture and the author of The Eating Instinct and the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia.Today is another solo episode. I'm going to answer a bunch of your questions that all relate to each other, because they're all on the theme of “How do I talk to other people about this?” I see this a lot. So often, we are in a place where we're starting to work through our own stuff around food, our own stuff around bodies, or we're really committed to doing things in a different way for our kids than how we were raised. But explaining this to a partner or explaining this to your parent or explaining this to your child can be so difficult. This is something I talked about with some podcast guests recently: In my conversation with Janet and Nyemade we were saying how this is an issue that we all feel sort of nervous to own, in a way that we don't feel as nervous to stand up for ourselves around other controversial topics: Facism, homophobia, etc. Even with COVID, I think people who are firmly pro-vaccines are comfortable being firmly pro-vaccines. There are certain topics where we kind of know where we stand and feel good about standing up for ourselves. But this is one where we have internalized so much doubt and so much anxiety that advocating for ourselves or advocating for our kids can just feel super complicated.So I just want to say up top: It's okay if you don't have the right thing to say in every moment, in every interaction. None of us do. This is hard work. If this is someone you have a good relationship with, someone who's in your life in an ongoing way, like your partner, or your child, it's okay to get it wrong in one conversation and come back and have a follow up conversation. It's okay to say, “I wish I hadn't approached it like that, and I want another try.” That's such good modeling for our kids, it's good for our relationships when we can do that. I think we can give ourselves all some grace as we try to navigate this, because we probably are going to mess it up a couple of times, many times, and we can try again.The other thing I wanted to say: It's not your job to convert everybody you meet to intuitive eating, or to make everybody in your life aware of the dangers of fatphobia. You know, it even is my job, and it's also not my job. I don't fight these fights in every conversation I have with a friend or every party I go to, every family gathering. I'm not navigating this all the time. There are lots of times when I just let something go, because it's more important to me, in my relationship with that person, that we have a nice time and that it doesn't become tense. And that is okay.It is also true that those of us with a lot of privilege always have the option not to stand up and fight the fight. And people in marginalized bodies don't.So, if you're a person with thin privilege, I do encourage you to push yourself out of your comfort zone when you can to take this on. For sure, it is worth calling out fatphobia when it happens around us, especially with our kids. This is very important. But there is some nuance here to how successful we're going to be at doing it every time and if it even makes sense, if it even feels safe, to do it every time.Enough big picture and talk, let's dive into your questions.Q: My teenage son is going for his first solo visit to Atkins Crazy Grandma. Do I tell her to back off before he goes?A: First of all, I really love “Atkins Crazy Grandma,” I'm picturing that on a mug or something.I'm going to link to my piece, The Grandparents Are Not OK. If you haven't read it, definitely start here. It will give you a good overview as to why grandparents struggle with this issue so much and why so many Boomers are steeped in diet culture to the extent that they are. It is not entirely their fault. It is the water they have been swimming in for a very long time. They are navigating concerns around gender expectations, body expectations, aging expectations. And all of that is intersecting in a way that Gen X, millennials, Gen Z, none of us are dealing with it in quite the same way that boomers have had to deal with it. So try to hold some space in your heart for that.Photo by CDC on UnsplashRemember that the goal of this trip is for your teenage son to have a strong relationship with this grandparent. I mean, I'm assuming this is the goal of the trip. And that's why you're sending him there, on his own, to have time with his grandmother. If that's the goal, it is not that helpful for you to get in and interfere and set ground rules about what they can talk about, and try to moderate their relationship in that way. This is something I didn't state as clearly as I could have in that grandparents piece. It is not our job to control the relationship that develops between our children and their grandparents. That is its own independent relationship, quite separate from us. And if you want your kids to know your parents, as people, they're going to know them as people, which means they're going to learn that they are flawed, and they're going to have things they disagree on and part of their relationship is going to be figuring that out together.Now, I do think you can set some boundaries. If you're worried that your mom is not going to feed your son adequately because her dieting is so restrictive, I think that would be a place to intervene. And certainly, if you think she's going to talk negatively about how your son eats or his body, that's a different thing. Because then she is directly causing harm. And as parents, we want to obviously step in and mitigate that. But if it's more like, she'll make lots of food, but she won't let herself eat the bread, or she'll make comments about how she's eating with him—if it's more self-directed, as this diet talked often is because people criticize themselves before they direct it to others. In that situation, I think you can talk with your son ahead of time about how this is something she struggles with. And say: “Yeah, it's a drag that grandma doesn't eat bread, but there's no reason you need to stop eating bread.” Let him know where you stand on this, certainly, and give him some tools to navigate this. But don't feel like you have to make your mom or your mother-in-law act differently around your son than she would otherwise. This is something they can figure out themselves. Your son's a teenager, he's old enough to start to really understand his grandmother as a complicated person. I wouldn't feel like I needed to mitigate unless it was going to be directly harmful to my child.If you are worried about her saying things directly to your child that might be harmful to him, there is a line that I absolutely love from Amee Severson and Sumner Brooks, from their forthcoming book, How to Raise an Intuitive Eater: “My body is none of your business.” I love that. I actually taught that line to my own kids the other day, and it was hilarious to watch my three year old stomp around saying it unprompted and in response to absolutely nothing: Do you want Cheerios for breakfast? “My body is none of your business.”So I think you can start to think about ways that your child can advocate for themselves in those situations. If you have a younger child, or if the relationship is, you know, really toxic, you are going to be at the front line of that advocacy work. Otherwise, give your son some tools, talk about it ahead of time, support him in navigating this issue with his grandmother, but don't feel like you have to block the relationship with this person. Q: My daughter is 12 and your work tends to address younger kids. Any resources for supporting parents of teens in intuitive eating and helping me break through my judgment of her body size?A: My work does tend to address younger kids, partly because that's the stage of parenting that I'm in. But also because I think that dealing with these issues when kids are young is really important. As I talk about all the time, we know that kids between three and five are starting to understand fatphobia and internalize it. So I do think the work starts there. But of course, your 12-year-old is not a lost cause! There's a lot of really important work that has to happen in the tween and teen years on these issues. So I'm really glad you are trying to do it. And I'm really glad that you are recognizing that this is your work to do, that you want to break through your judgement about her body size, rather than seeing her body size as the problem and that she somehow needs to fix it. So, just want to give you a big high five for that, because that's a really important first step.Something I think is useful to sort of hold in your heart as you navigate this is: I'm guessing your feelings about your daughter's body are tied to your feelings about your own body. This is really, really common. 12 is puberty and big body changes. And this is often an age that we experienced a lot of negative feelings about our bodies, or internalized lots of negative messages. So a lot of what might be coming up for you is your own stuff. And if she looks similar to how you looked at her age (or how you look now!) that may be kind of bringing it all together for you. So as much as possible: Recognize that this really isn't anything to do with her, that this is you working through your own seventh grade bullshit, because Lord knows, we all have that. A therapist who works from a weight inclusive Health at Every Size perspective could be helpful. The HAES Community site has a searchable database of providers.I'm also linking to this piece and this one, both of which I wrote for the New York Times about parents navigating body image issues with their kids. I think the parents quoted in those articles do have younger kids, but the advice is applicable to all ages. And the experts quoted in those pieces might be folks that you want to look up on Instagram or online other places and follow their work. A couple of folks I really love, who do a great job about talking about teens and eating: Katja Rowell MD is on Instagram. She is a responsive feeding expert, and a parent of a teenager. And she talks quite a lot about intuitive eating and teens in a really great way. Also, as I just mentioned, Amee Severson and Sumner Brooks, their book will be geared towards parents of teens as well as younger kids. I'm going to throw a few other links in the transcript: @teenhealthdoc on Instagram is a great resource for all things teen health but definitely comes from a body positive perspective. I also like The Intuitive Eating Workbook for Teens by Elyse Resch and You Are Enough by Jen Petro-Roy; they are meant to be read by your kid but you will get a lot out of them too! But I think, as much as possible, focus on the fact that this is bringing up stuff for you. And what you really need is support for you. It's less about their age, and more about how you're navigating this.Q: My teenage daughter has postural issues. I am afraid to point them out to her because I don't want to say anything about her body. But she is unaware her posture is problematic and therefore can't work on it herself. Or should she? Is that just more dieting culture nonsense?A: This is interesting. I think, if there is something about your child's body that does not conform to societal beauty standards, and you are worried that it will sort of create a “problem” for them, the last thing your child needs is to hear that information from you. What your child needs from you is radical acceptance of their body. They need to know that you do not see their body as the enemy, you do not see their body as the problem. And that is related to whatever size their body is, certainly their posture, if they have acne, if they have anything about their body that is atypical —scars, disabilities—they need to know that you as their parent view their body as a miracle and something really special and unique and wonderful and worthy of taking care of. They need to know that you trust their body so they can trust what their body is communicating to them.On this question of posture, I think it's very normal for teenagers to have awkward posture because their bodies are growing really fast in lots of different directions. It's normal for a kid to not be fully aware of how she's holding herself through space. That's part of being a teenager and figuring out your adult body. And I really would not think that it's your job as her parent to speak up about it and point it out in some way because you're only going to make her super self-conscious about it. I think your instincts are right on.If you want to support her from a more body-positive, empowered place, I think you could look into something like taking yoga classes together, ideally with a weight-inclusive, body-positive teacher. You know, strength training can be really positive and powerful. Maybe you follow someone like Meg Boggs on Instagram who talks about strength training in a weight-neutral, weight-inclusive, body-positive way. Tally Rye is another body-positive fitness trainer and I also love fitragamuffin. So maybe you start exploring the world of joyful movement with her. But I don't want you exploring this, because you're thinking, “if we do yoga, it will fix her posture.” That's not the goal, just like it's not the goal to be like, “if we start running together, she'll lose weight.” That's not the goal. We're not motivated by this perceived flaw about her body. We're motivated by wanting to help this kid find ways to move her body that she loves, to find ways to feel strong in her body, to feel joyful in her body. So you're giving her tools to take care of her body in different ways. If that addresses her posture, great, if it doesn't adjust her posture, great, that's not really the issue. It's really about helping her feel what it's like to be in her body and really be embodied in her body in a positive way.Q: Any thoughts about eating in front of the TV? It seems unsupportive of intuitive eating—but it's one of my kid's favorite things. And I don't want to nag him around this other than an occasional ask, “Are you listening to your body when you're eating in front of the TV?”A: First of all, it kind of is nagging to say to your kid, “Are you listening to your body when you're eating in front of the TV?” I know you're really trying hard not to nag. But kids are smart. And I think they know that obviously, the implied answer is “No, I'm not. And you want me to stop doing this.” Photo by mahyar motebassem on UnsplashI think maybe back off direct questions. It is true that eating every meal in front of a television or in front of any screen—whether that's eating every meal while you're playing video games, or while you're on your computer, while you're Virginia and you're writing your book so you're eating lunch at your desk while reading chapter drafts—these are all ways that we are disconnecting from the experience of eating and distracting ourselves. We're not eating in a very “mindful” way. We're getting fuel or we're snacking because it feels good while we're doing this other thing. So no, this is not, “mindful eating.”But is this intuitive eating? It can be. Because it can be realistic to say, I'm so busy today that I'm going to eat lunch at my desk, because I know it's really important that I eat, I know I'll feel like garbage if I skip lunch and work straight through lunch. But I don't have time to stop and savor this experience for 45 minutes. So I'm going to eat this while I'm working, so that I have some fuel in my body and I can keep going. But no, it's not like the most enjoyable lunch I've ever had in my life. That is not anti-intuitive eating, that's assessing what you need and meeting your needs in a variety of ways.Similarly, I think, for a lot of us, eating delicious snacks in front of a TV show we love is a very comforting and joyful activity. And I don't think that that's anti-intuitive eating to say it's the end of a long day, and I want to zone out and watch Monty Don on BritBox and eat chocolate because that is what I like to do in the evenings. Or for your child—I'm guessing your son doesn't watch Monty Don, maybe he does, I hope he does—but whatever he's watching, and snacking, you know, this can be really relaxing. My now eight-year-old loves to watch nature documentaries or Simpsons reruns and eat various snacks. And this is something she often does on the weekends for an hour or two while her little sister is napping (or not napping, but we're pretending she's napping).I don't see that as a problem. I see that as nice, relaxing, it's fun to unwind and watch a favorite show and eat some good snacks. If she did that for every meal, I would be concerned. But it's a couple times a week. During lockdown (and over the last few weeks of summer break) it was more than a couple times a week. But it's still just one part of the day. It's not every eating opportunity in the day. That's how I think about TV.Obviously, you're going to hear more rigid viewpoints on that. There's certainly folks in the intuitive eating world, in the Division Of Responsibility world, who would say “no meal should ever happen in front of a screen, that's a terrible habit you should break.” But to me, that kind of rigidity, that's like a diet culture mindset coming in saying we have to have this hard and fast rule.Do I think it's great for every meal? I do not. Do I make a big effort to make sure that we as a family eat dinner at a table looking at each other? Yes. Every now and then do we say, “Hey, guys, do you want to eat dinner in front of the TV?” so that my husband and I can actually talk to each other during dinner, and they can enjoy a show? Yep. We definitely do that. So I think it's not something that you need to set hard and fast rules around. Is this happening to a degree where it's replacing other kinds of eating experiences? Or is this just like one of your kid's favorite things that they like to do on weekends? And sort of find some “balance” in there, as opposed to having rules, like you can only do it on Fridays, or you can only do it three times a week. Because that may be setting it up so it won't feel like enough and they'll want to do it more, and you'll end up with this fixation. So I would look at the overall balance.If this is how they eat dinner every night, you might say I want us to start eating family meals again. But if this is something they do a few times a week, it's a relaxing thing, it's bringing them joy, it's not replacing time that could be spent in other ways, then I would let it go.Q: My husband is limited in what he eats. It's pretty much all fast food or heavily processed food (chicken fingers, pizza, Panda Express menu items, etc.) and treats (candy, soda, etc). He doesn't like to go to other people's houses because he's afraid he'll have to eat something he doesn't like. He has traumatic memories from childhood about being pressured to eat things he didn't like. I can only imagine how terrible that must feel.But now my kids (ages 5 and 7) are starting to limit what they eat to processed foods, too. I will never force my kids to eat anything, but it's important to me to serve vegetables and whole grains and encourage them to try new things, alongside the processed stuff they already like. But whenever I try to serve a meal that's not part of their limited palate, they have serious meltdowns. My husband is now their ally in this. It feels like the three of them are pitted against me. He tells them they're not allowed to have Pizza Hut every night, not because they need a balanced diet, but because “Mommy won't let us.” He's constantly adding more and more sweets to the kids' breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. (I think this is his way of showing love.) Now, they've stopped eating the sandwiches and fruits I put in their lunches. They're starting to steal candy and cans of soda that my husband has hidden around the house. I realize my husband is dealing with his own childhood issues, but I fear that all this fighting over food is going to create issues for all of us. It's definitely creating tension between me and my husband. (We've talked about this many, many times.) Now, I dread dinnertime. I don't enjoy eating any of the things we have for dinner. It's stressful for all four of us, and I'm sure I'm making things worse. What can I do to make eating less stressful for my family?A: So this is really tough. This happens when one or both parents have different sorts of unresolved eating issues. And this is similar to what we were talking about in that first question, when our kids hit certain stages, which are very normal for kids to hit. It's very normal for five and seven year olds to be pretty cautious about trying new foods, and prefer comfort foods and predictable foods. But then when that intersects with a parents own issues around those same foods, you're going to kind of have this powder keg moment with all of these different tensions coming together.I think your family sounds like you would really benefit from some professional help. My suspicion, you know, keeping in mind that I'm just a journalist who researches this, I'm not a trained professional—this is not a medical diagnosis of any kind—but my suspicion is your husband would meet criteria for avoidant restrictive food intake disorder, otherwise known as ARFID, which is basically an eating disorder that centers around fear of food rather than body image issues, although it can get kind of all intertwined. (Here's a piece I wrote about ARFID a few years ago; there is also a chapter devoted to it in my first book.) But often, at its core, ARFID originates because kids have had really punitive experiences of being forced to eat certain foods, and where their caution around new foods was punished or demonized. Sometimes it happens when kids have choking experiences or they gag, they have really strong sensory responses to different textures with foods. And the problem builds and builds until it's this intense phobia around different foods.ARFID is treatable, but it is a very poorly understood eating disorder. And it is difficult to treat because it's often treated the same way you treat anorexia, which is to refeed and insist that people eat huge amounts of food, and for someone with really deep fears of specific foods that can pile on the trauma. So it's really important to get good help for it. Some folks I know who work on ARFID and who do it in a really compassionate and thoughtful way are Katja Rowell MD (again), Grace Wong RD, and Lauren Mulheim, PhD. So this will hopefully give you some starting points. I'm hoping your husband will be open to talking to someone about this because it's not easy, and he needs support, and I love how much empathy you are holding for his struggle.But it is also true that his struggle is creating a lot of problems for you. I'm also going to link to Anna Lutz, RD, and Elizabeth Davenport. They are dietitians who specialize in family feeding dynamics and write the blog Sunnyside Up Nutrition, which is a great blog about feeding families. But they're both also experts in these disordered eating dynamics that can have these ripple effects throughout families. So I'd really encourage you to reach out to some therapists and dietitians who can support you, because it does sound fairly entrenched. Especially because you're referencing that he's hiding a lot of food around the house, the kids are now finding the food that he's hiding, and they're sneaking his sneaking food. I mean, there's like layers of food sneaking here. So yeah, there's a lot going on.In terms of how to start to navigate this as a family, I would encourage your husband not to have to hide food and to let the let the kitchen be full of foods everybody loves. So your fruits and vegetables and whole grains, right alongside his, you know, Panda Express, candy, soda, etc. Let it all be out in the open, nobody needs to feel ashamed about the food that they love in your family. Something else you might talk to a therapist about is, you know, you haven't talked a lot about your own stuff here. I appreciate that you're saying you don't want to force your kids to eat anything they don't like, but it does sound like you are focused on the vegetable/whole grain side of things, which is understandable. But you might want to consider whether you have some rigidity about that. It could be helpful to get some support to work through that, so just throwing that out there as a possibility. I think in general, though: all foods fit. There's permission around all foods, there's no need to be banning these foods. And maybe as you're approaching family meals, you can have it all on the table. And if your kids are gravitating towards the “processed” stuff more than the other stuff, let that be okay. That's very normal for their ages, it's very age appropriate.And they are fixating on these foods more because the dynamic between you and your husband has given them so much power, because he's saying things like “Mommy won't let us.” And so there's this idea that these foods have to be forbidden and that you are the one forbidding them. I mean, this is not a fair situation for anybody. But it's really unfair for your kids to feel like they have to sort of pick sides on food. And it's not surprising that they're picking the side of the foods that tastes really good to them. It's very understandable. But you can start to give these foods less power if you can say, “I know you love Pizza Hut, that's so great, and we're having pizza tonight, and we're having salad and we're having, fruit on the table, and you can have as much as you want of what's on the table in whatever order you want.” If they don't eat something, it's fine. One food is not more special or better than the other. It's just this is what's for dinner, they can pick from what's offered. So I would definitely lean into making sure that there's always some of these preferred foods on the table along with the other foods that you're hoping to expose them to.At the same time you have a right to eat food that you like for dinner. I mean, I like a lot of processed foods. But if I had to eat mac and cheese every night, I'd be pretty grouchy about it. It's not my favorite So if this means that you guys are sometimes serving two dinners, you know, I think that's okay. I was talking to a friend recently and he was like, “Yeah, our kids eat with us maybe two nights a week and the rest of the week we are making two dinners and sitting down together, but they have their chicken nuggets, and my wife and I are eating what we want to eat.” And I thought, Oh, that's genius. His kids are 5 and 7 too. And for those of us who have kids in this age range, we know that it's just not realistic to come up with a meal seven nights a week that every member of your family is going to like. This is probably not realistic for any group of people. But it's particularly difficult when you're in this under eight, hyper cautious stage, when they tend to have a pretty short list of foods they want to eat, and they want to eat the same things over and over again. It's totally normal. And it's exhausting to try to cater to that, and also still have other foods.So, maybe you have nights where you order from a restaurant where everyone gets to pick something they like, and it's a restaurant that does serve something you like and something that everyone else likes. Maybe you have nights where you make a big salad that looks good to you, and you know, you're serving chicken nuggets alongside it, that's great. Don't be hemmed in by rules about what the meal should look like, or do these foods even really go together? You know, we went through a phase where we were putting Eggo waffles on the table at dinner a lot because they were a preferred food. And Eggo waffles don't really fit in with any menu I might be trying to plan, but it sure takes a lot of pressure off if my kid who really likes them knows that they're there, and she can have those. And she can also maybe try other stuff if she's in the mood. So I think bringing some more flexibility all the way around to the situation is going to help. And I think it's very fair to ask your husband not to throw you under the bus about food. I think it's very fair to say we're going to keep serving the foods that I like to eat—especially if you're the one doing the work of making the foods—but at the same time know that any rules you are putting around processed foods is only going to make them more appealing, or that your kids are more prone to fixating on.I hope you're going to reach out to some professionals who can help you navigate what sounds like a really difficult situation. I'm also hoping folks might chime in in the comments on this one. Because I think there's a lot of different ways to handle this. I certainly welcome anyone who's either dealt with this firsthand and has some lived experience or any of my followers who are professionals in the responsive feeding world, feel free to chime in. Because this is a complicated one. Hopefully that gives you some starting points. If you liked this episode and you aren't yet subscribed, please do that! If you are a subscriber, thank you so much and please consider sharing Burnt Toast on your social media platforms, forward a free weekly essay to a friend, or purchase a gift subscription.Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Jessica McKenzie who writes the fantastic Substack, Pinch of Dirt. Our logo is designed by Deanna Lowe, and I'm Virginia Sole-Smith. You can find more of my work at virginiasolesmith.com or come say hi on Instagram and Twitter where I am @v_solesmith. Thanks for listening! Talk to you soon.

For this episode, I got to chat with Amee (@amee_rd) about the pros and cons of dieting.

Fellow anti-diet dietitian Amee Severson joins us to discuss why intuitive eating is NOT a weight-loss plan, her experiences as a fat dietitian, how she moved from the weight-management paradigm to Health At Every Size®, the social-justice side of HAES and intuitive eating, how social media can be helpful and harmful in recovering from diet culture, and so much more! Plus, Christy answers a listener question about what to do if your hunger cues are absent. (This episode was originally published on October 14, 2019.) Amee Severson is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist in Bellingham WA whose work focuses on body positivity, fat acceptance, and intuitive eating through a social-justice lens. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Food and Nutrition from Montana State University, is completing her Master's in Professional Practice in Dietetics from Iowa State University, is a dietitian registered in the State of Washington, and is currently working toward becoming a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and a Certified Body Trust Provider. Find her online at ProsperNutritionAndWellness.com. Subscribe to our newsletter, Food Psych Weekly, to keep getting new weekly Q&As and other new content while the podcast is on hiatus! If you're ready to break free from diet culture once and for all, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. You'll get all your questions answered in an exclusive monthly podcast, plus ongoing support in our private community forum and dozens of hours of other great content. Christy's first book, Anti-Diet, is available wherever you get your books. Order online at christyharrison.com/book, or at local bookstores across North America, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Grab Christy's free guide, 7 simple strategies for finding peace and freedom with food, for help getting started on the anti-diet path. For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, go to christyharrison.com/foodpsych. Ask your own question about intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, or eating disorder recovery at christyharrison.com/questions.

Dear Listener, Today, join me and the wonderful Amee Severson for a conversation about fatphobia and how social justice fits into conversations around health and nutrition. Amee also shares her thoughts on why some individuals have a hard time accepting the existence of things like sizeism and thin privilege. Amee is a Registered Dietitian whose work focuses on body positivity, fat acceptance, and intuitive eating through a social justice lens. With a mission to break the stereotype that all RD's live in small bodies and only eat certain foods, Amee cultivates rebellion and liberation on social media, showcasing the possibility for health and happiness in any body. Amee encourages the belief that food can be enjoyed without guilt or shame. She believes that recovery from disordered eating is possible for everyone and that every person deserves to feel trust in their body. Amee doesn't believe in one-size-fits-all nutrition and health, so she works with clients to make health and nutrition fit into their current life, not the other way around. If you'd like to learn more about Amee and her work, you can find her on IG @amee_rd or on her website at, https://prospernutritionwellness.com/. Thanks for listening and don't forget to tap those five stars if you enjoy today's episode! Yours Chewly with gratitude, Claire

Episode 11 of the Hello Body! podcast with your hosts Melissa and Katy. In this episode, we interview Sumner Brooks and Amee Severson. Both are registered dietitians who practice a weight-neutral, Health at Every Size® approach to intuitive eating and nutrition — and they recently joined forces to write the book entitled How to Raise an Intuitive Eater. Naturally, we peppered them with questions related to the struggles we've faced feeding our kids with a gentle nutrition approach while also existing in a fatphobic world that views our children's health in terms of their body size. We also talk about how their upcoming book works with Ellen Satter principles and also how it departs from her work. We address some of the socioeconomic issues around nutrition, including access to food, and also address food rules with neurodivergent kids and the ongoing hysteria around sugar and children. Enjoy! Sumner is a registered dietitian and eating disorder specialist, and the founder of EDRDpro, the international online training platform for eating disorder dietitians and health professionals. You can also find Sumner on Instagram @intuitiveeatingrd. Amee is a registered dietitian whose work focuses on body positivity, fat acceptance, and intuitive eating through a social justice lens. Find Amee at Prosper Nutrition and Wellness, and on Instagram @amee_rd.

Non-diet dietitian and activist Amee Severson joins us to discuss what parents should know about the research behind the Health At Every Size® paradigm. We're digging into why diets don't work, the origins of BMI as a measurement, the health consequences of “fat” vs. fat stigma, and why health can't be measured by weight or body size. Get our ABC Guide to Body-Positive Parenting. Join our body image group for parents. Read the full show notes for this episode.