# Your Child Is Not Their Weight | Joey Skelton (Bonus Episode)

An episode of [Minimalist Moms Podcast | Purposeful Life & Parenting Tips](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1159498258), 9 Jul 2026, 31 min.

Audio: https://prefix.up.audio/s/pdst.fm/e/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/mgln.ai/e/35/audio2.redcircle.com/episodes/1073417d-814a-4d0f-9d8d-89bdfafd2a70/stream.mp3

For those that are new around here, I release bonus episodes that serve a niche part of my audience, so if this content is something that doesn’t fit what you’re looking for, check out the other episodes that dropped this week or join me back here next Tuesday for a conversation that you don’t want to miss! ------------------------------------------- When parents are told their child needs to lose weight, it’s a struggle. They want their kids to feel good about themselves and their bodies, but they may also have legitimate concerns about weight-related bullying, anti-fat bias, and long-term health issues. While there are no easy answers, my guest today, leading childhood obesity expert Dr. Joey Skelton, is here to offer lessons learned from the latest science about weight and offers a compassionate, family-focused approach to help improve children’s health without dieting - and without compromising their happiness or self-esteem. Links Discussed in This Episode | • Checkout the podcast storefront for recommendations from Diane. • Ellyn Satter • Dr. Skelton's Resource: Cooks Illustrated • Connect with Dr. Joey Skelton: • Website • Facebook • Book: Your Child Is Not Their Weight: Parenting in a Size-Obsessed World About Joey | Joey Skelton, MD, MS, FAAP, is a professor of pediatrics and of epidemiology and prevention at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He is the founder and director of Brenner FIT (Families in Training), an interdisciplinary pediatric obesity program. He is also the director of the Center for Prevention Science in Child and Family Health, vice chair of research for the Department of Pediatrics, and editor in chief of the journal Childhood Obesity. He is the father of two young adults and lives with his wife in North Carolina. Episode Sponsors | The Minimalist Moms Podcast would not be possible without the support of weekly sponsors. Choosing brands that I believe in is important to me. I only want to recommend brands that I believe may help you in your daily life. As always, never feel pressured into buying anything. Remember: if you don't need it, it's not a good deal! Enjoy the Podcast? Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning into this podcast, then do not hesitate to write a review. You can also share this with your fellow mothers so that they can be inspired to think more and do with less. Order (or review) my book, Minimalist Moms: Living & Parenting With Simplicity. You can contact me through my website, find me on Instagram, Pinterest or like The Minimalist Moms Page on Facebook. Our Sponsors: * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out Cure Hydration and use my code MINIMALIST for a great deal: https://www.curehydration.com * Check out DeleteMe and use my code joindeleteme.com/MINIMALIST for a great deal: https://joindeleteme.com * Check out Wayfair: https://www.wayfair.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

## Transcript

[0:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: For those of you that are new around here, I released bonus episodes that serve a niche part of my audience, so if this content is something that doesn't fit what you're looking for, check out the other episodes that drop this week or join me back here next week for episodes that you don't want to miss.
[0:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's not just about calories and calories out.
[0:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's not just diet and exercise.
[0:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: There's so much into it.
[0:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: When it comes to kids, about half of their body sizes determined by genetics.
[0:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so I have one child that is five foot nine, I have one child that is six to two.
[0:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And they're built completely differently.
[0:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so so much of this is out of our control is what we'd say.
[0:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so much our behaviors are dictated about the world that we live in.
[0:38] \[SPEAKER_00\]: This is Diane Bowden, and you're listening to the minimalist mom's podcast.
[0:42] \[SPEAKER_00\]: When parents are told that their child needs to lose weight, it's a struggle.
[0:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They want their kids to feel good about themselves and their bodies, but they may also have legitimate concerns about weight-related bullying, anti-fat bias, and long-term health issues.
[0:55] \[SPEAKER_00\]: While there are no easy answers, my guest today, leading childhood obesity expert, Dr. Joey Skeleton, shares lessons learned from the latest science about weight and offers a compassionate, family-focused approach to help improve children's health without dieting and without compromising their happiness or self-esteem.
[1:12] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Today we'll talk about why diet culture is bad for kids and why diets don't work.
[1:16] \[SPEAKER_00\]: How to build healthy habits in a balanced way that prioritize kids physical and mental health.
[1:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: While eating disorders are a real risk, even in perhaps especially for children and bigger bodies, how parents should model body positive behaviors and so much more.
[1:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But quickly before we get into the episode, if you have been enjoying the minimalist mom's podcast, I asked you just to pause for a moment or two, hit five stars, leave a rating and share what your favorite episode has been or who has been your favorite guest on the show.
[1:42] \[SPEAKER_00\]: There's so much content to be consumed these days and it doesn't go on notice that you continue to show up week after week listening to the minimalist mom's podcast, so I really appreciate you being here.
[1:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And with that, let's get into this conversation with Dr. Joey Skeleton.
[1:59] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well, Dr. Joey Skelton, thank you so much for joining me today.
[2:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We are going to be talking about your book.
[2:04] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Your child is not their weight, parenting and a size-obsessed world.
[2:09] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Thanks for joining me.
[2:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Great, thanks for having me.
[2:11] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to the listeners?
[2:13] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And then I have a question for you that might be somewhat controversial here at the beginning.
[2:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So go ahead and introduce yourself.
[2:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's a way to start out a Wednesday, right?
[2:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So yeah, I'm a pediatrician.
[2:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm at White Forest University School of Medicine and Brenda Jones Hospital.
[2:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And for the past 20 years or so, I've been part of a multidisciplinary program that focuses on weight management, but focused on kids, but for whole families.
[2:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm the father of two boys, 20 and 24, and married to a pharmacist at Tolerary, it's mixed up.
[2:44] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That's awesome.
[2:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I'm sorry, I shouldn't have scared you with my controversial question, because I see in the subtitle of your book parenting and a size of a test world, I guess my question for you is, even though you are coming at this from a perspective that is considerate and you emphasize family connection to help in this area, it can be nerve wracking, or there can be some apprehension about talking about a polarizing topic, like wait, especially when it comes to kids.
[3:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, it's your question.
[3:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: 100% absolutely.
[3:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, I very nervous and still kind of nervous to this day just because like you said, it's a touchy subject.
[3:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think, you know, on one hand, I think a lot of the world that are working, especially in the field of pediatrics, is we have to dress a beast who have to treat obesity.
[3:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: you know, we have to prevent all these health problems, and then on the other side, having care for families for 20 years of struggling with this as well as really kind of diving deep, both, you know, reading, podcasting, listening different podcasts and writers, and realizing that there's a lot of harm that can come from this big focus on weight.
[3:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so we talk a lot about
[3:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: help those that are struggling with weight, but on the other hand, recognizing that it'd be very easy that we fall into this propagating issues of what's a perfect body, an ideal body, and the sort of culture that we have that thinks that weight and health are 100% connected.
[4:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And that's really sort of the tension of, and I recognize that tension is that so many people
[4:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: think that we've overblown the obesity epidemic, but also every day in clinic I see kids with the diabetes that are they're really struggling with these things.
[4:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So yeah they're very nervous.
[4:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Obviously, we don't like children to feel shame, regardless of what their body is like, but as a pediatrician specifically, we want to emphasize health.
[4:38] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I know that this is health that all sizes movement, but also you have legitimate concerns about weight-related bullying, and say fat bias and long-term health issues, like you said diabetes.
[4:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So,
[4:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: All of that to say, people will come to you and probably want to get put their children on diets.
[4:55] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But why do you think that might not be the answer necessarily for long term stable weight loss?
[5:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: very complex.
[5:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We always joke that we could play a drinking game.
[5:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Every time we say that we're a complex, she can drink, but it is true with that, and so maybe I could try to boil it down to sort of two points with that.
[5:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If we just go into trying to get our kids into a smaller body, the majority of the time, that can result in harm.
[5:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You know, I think very simple comments that we make as pediatricians or any health professional to say, hey, your child needs to eat more fruits and vegetables, your child's a picky eater, we need to address that.
[5:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Without guidance, what would you do when you go in and hear you need these vegetables, you need these vegetables, you need to put your screens away, we have to go outside and exercise all that results in pressure and whether that's pressure to eat more of something or less
[5:49] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That pressure ends at backfiring in children.
[5:52] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Your younger children, it's something that's very sort of subconscious that, you know, we tell child, you need to eat your broccoli, they're going up not like them broccoli.
[6:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Hey, you can't have dessert tonight, they're going to become that much more obsessed with dessert.
[6:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So that pressure ends at backfiring and when it comes to the world-of-weight management, that actually leads to increased weight gain as well as causing conflict, you know, causing pressure.
[6:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: When we hear a kid as sneaking food,
[6:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think a lot of us think, oh, they have bad habits, they have a bad sweet tooth, they have excessive hunger.
[6:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: What actually most of psychology that tends to show is if you really dive into it, why is that child speaking food?
[6:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Well, they don't want to be seen eating in whether that's an amount or a certain food.
[6:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: they want to hide that and why is that, why is eating sort of a come sort of a shameful thing.
[6:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So one of the things is without proper guidance that not only can harm happen in affected relationships, but also the opposite of what you want to happen as far as eating vegetables.
[6:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And the second thing is kids are not little adults.
[6:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's I think when you decide to become
[6:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: A pediatric health care provider, I think, can invisible tattoo goes on your heart and this is children are not little adults and it's true and even beyond that, it's sort of the 2.5 I've already gave you one thing that the 2.5 of that is is not only are they not little adults, most of our approach is in adults to lose weight.
[7:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: or to manage whether change behaviors are not informed by science or not informed by best practice.
[7:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So we're oftentimes taking this sort of adult approach which most of time isn't very good anyway and trying to put that on kids.
[7:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And actually I take that back.
[7:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm going to do a third one on that is most people out there telling you what you need to do when it comes to
[7:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: being healthy ranging weight have never so to have that struggle there they don't understand here goes again the complexity of weight that this is not our our perception of weight is very very incorrect and really even over the past 20 years but really over the past five to ten that's really become clear that you know it's it's not just about calories and calories out it's not just diet and exercise there's so much into it you know when it comes to kids
[8:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You know, I have one child that is five foot nine, I have one child that is six to two and they're built completely differently and so so much of this is is is out of our control is what we'd say in so much our behaviors are dictated about the world that we live in so that sort of third point of most of our decisions that we do relate the way they're not informed by what reality is.
[8:27] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And sticking with the topic of diet, culture, and dieting, I'd love for you to, I know we're here to talk about kids, but I would love for you to speak to adults that are constantly talking about diet culture and their diets around their children and how their kids are internalizing some of that.
[8:43] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And why we need to shift away from that language in general.
[8:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Oh, yeah, you're not, you're not shifting to adults, you're shifting to kids, absolutely.
[8:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's a whole chapter in the book.
[8:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Is the idea of looking at what we do is parents.
[8:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You know, something that would commonly hear of, I tell them, I'm teaching them, I'm trying to get them to do that.
[9:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If you want your child to do something, the two point advice of that is, model the behaviors that you want to see.
[9:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And if, you know, what, we, one of the biggest things we tend to encourage.
[9:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: for healthy living is sort of a general meal schedule, not like military, you know, 12 pm sharp is only lunch, but hey, we eat during certain times of the day, breakfast lunch, after a second dinner, I think applies to majority of kids and families out there.
[9:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so you need to follow that too.
[9:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You know, if you want your kids to eat vegetables, you need deep vegetables.
[9:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You don't only need to serve them, you need to eat them yourselves.
[9:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm not the biggest tomato or cucumber lover.
[9:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It causes major issues in my household because I married into a family that
[9:40] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think 30% of their blood is tomatoes and cucumbers, and I've practiced that.
[9:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'd learned I'd demonstrate to my kids because my kids saw me picking a tomato office and which they started to do the same.
[9:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so you want to model these behaviors.
[9:53] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You don't need to tell them, you need to model them.
[9:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And the other is set the environment up for that.
[9:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If you want your children to need a well-balanced meal, telling them that meal is not going to work.
[10:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You set up a schedule for that.
[10:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You offer the foods without pressuring with that.
[10:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So that extending to the idea of weight loss and parents, if you're making negative comments about your body, your kids are going to have negative feelings about their body.
[10:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If they are in a bigger body, you know, a few.
[10:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: if you're making some statements that aren't really science-based about how evil carbs are, your kids are going to mirror that too, or the opposite of what you want to happen, they might become even more obsessed with them.
[10:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so kind of recognizing what we do and say, one of the titles our book is how to not talking to your children about weight.
[10:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and being very sensitive to it, if your child comes to you and wants to talk about their weight because they're being teased or they have concerns, then first thing you do is you listen and then talk about what you want to do about it, you know, ask permission to give advice or what can you do together as a family instead of making you feel bad, parents who come and say, you're gaining weight and you need to lose weight, you need to quit doing this.
[10:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: What do you think?
[10:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: How do you think that's going to make a postcomic and feel very bad?
[10:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So,
[11:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: building healthy habits as a family can bring families closer together instead of harming relationships.
[11:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Absolutely.
[11:08] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I guess then the next piece to this is how diet culture can cause eating disorders.
[11:12] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Again, this whole idea of control for children.
[11:15] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I guess how young can eating disorders develop.
[11:19] \[SPEAKER_00\]: You said kids will hide food and maybe that's a sign or that's a red flag that they're uncomfortable eating around us.
[11:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, wow, you're, you're doing my greatest tits here.
[11:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: This is perfect, but it's, now you're tech wreck, because this is a big point of the book is, you know, a lot of what we can do as a society kind of feeds into some of these English orders.
[11:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So this wonderful report came out from the American Academy of Pediatrics and they revisited a few years ago and said, yep, this really holds up that there's four big overlapping areas with kids, especially teens, and a bigger body as well as any disorder risk.
[11:52] \[SPEAKER_01\]: One of those is white talk.
[11:54] \[SPEAKER_01\]: within the family.
[11:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So, you know, which is kind of tough when, you know, I'm actually seeing families that want to address their weight.
[12:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But, you know, the constant, just like you talked about before, the constant talking about calories and weight and how I'll look in this, in these pants and the shirt and things like that.
[12:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So, talking about weight, especially in the family.
[12:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: weight teasing, especially within the family.
[12:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's hard to control that outside of the house, even though if your child is being teased and bullied about their weight in the school, we always say that's a, that's an adult problem.
[12:24] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That is something for the teachers, a principal, the parents, that is not something.
[12:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I mean, you kids can learn ways to sort of deal with that.
[12:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and pushed back against that, but kids do not need to be teased about their weight.
[12:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We think that something that seems to be accepted in this world, that because we have the suppression that the kids in a bigger body because of what they did.
[12:43] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so that is absolutely not true.
[12:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And the adults in that child's life need to...
[12:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: we need to stop that as a society so way teasing but especially in families and that can that happens in families and forced like quite often being unhappy with their body you know and which is again how tough is that in this culture whether it's sort of this idealized body type
[13:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And again, that's where some of the modeling of the behavior by parents can come.
[13:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And actually, I would extend this to everyone.
[13:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Everyone this listening is not just parents, but all adults don't make comments on people's bodies.
[13:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so, when kids don't like their bodies, they tend to put them at risk for any sort of which I absolutely recognize is a very tough thing in school that we live in.
[13:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And then the fourth thing is dieting.
[13:24] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And what I mean by dieting is good of national traditional dieting.
[13:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm trying to cut back on calories.
[13:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm giving up this food group, I'm eating.
[13:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You're younger than me, but the way I was called the low fat 80s and 90s, and that really didn't do us any good.
[13:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Then it was a low carb 2000s, and so when, yeah, when we give up whole categories of food, or we're really trying to cut back on calories, that I'm going to eat smaller amounts, or eat very clean in order to lose weight.
[13:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: those four things together is really what setting kids out for name the sword and so I think as with what I do and so I you know this is what we teach a lot of people we have a whole online training that we have for physicians that doesn't really talk about here's how you help a kid lose weight so to see her here's how you approach that here's how you thread that needle and how do you address weight safely in a population of high-risk wing disorders kids and bigger bodies have a two to three times higher prevalence of
[14:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: how do you approach any of this in a population at such high risk for such a tough tough disorder?
[14:29] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yes, which goes into my next question, how do we approach this?
[14:32] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Because I don't want to only focus on the negative and the things that we're doing wrong.
[14:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's like we can take back control and we can start to build healthy balance habits in our kids and in our homes.
[14:42] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So where would be a good place to start?
[14:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, this is this sound kind of cheesy, but you start with health, you know, we know that when we focus on health and healthy habits to be healthy that we have a much lower risk of eating disorders that we're much more likely to have success with it and you're much more likely to build healthy eating habits and so as a family.
[15:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: whether there's people in the family and bigger bodies or not, just as a family you have this focus on, hey, I don't want good eating habits, you know, I want you to be a good student, I want you to be a good kind, polite human being, and I want us to have healthy habits that will last a lifetime so we can be strong, we can be smart, we can be healthy, we can feel good, and so usually starting from that, the reason why is health, the reason why is not weight loss.
[15:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If you want to look at it from sort of an old fashioned redneck point of view or jump from east to the sea so I can speak redneck, but it's, you know, it's a watchpot never boils.
[15:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so if you just focus on changing health habits to lose weight, you're setting yourself out for not only for failure, but for risky behaviors.
[15:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so it's really about, let's set ourselves up.
[15:49] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Why do we eat this way?
[15:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We do it because it's healthy.
[15:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And also, we like, we wouldn't have a good relationship with food.
[15:54] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We and I did like relationship with move.
[15:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: having pizza in movie night where you're eating pizza in front of the movie with your family, but that's also its a special treat but it's not something that would do every day.
[16:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So trying to focus on, well I was having to use the one thing that we like to start with their family meals.
[16:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: People have always said if you, if you had one public health campaign that you would pursue, for me it would be family meals sitting at the table.
[16:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It might be at a restaurant and might be able to take out.
[16:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It might be with a meal service and might be a food that you
[16:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and having a breaking bread together is a family that the benefits of that go on and on.
[16:33] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Absolutely.
[16:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I want to make sure we touch on picky eaters.
[16:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I have a few of those in my home.
[16:38] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I was just telling my mom that the other day.
[16:40] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Anything that I cook, I have to make variations of it because one child doesn't like salmon.
[16:47] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So it's like, okay, what do I do on that name?
[16:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We kind of just came to the point where we're like, if you don't like it, then you don't eat.
[16:53] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm not going to be a short order cook here, but also I do want my kids to, I want them to be well feds.
[17:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So I really do struggle with the picky eaters and again, just wanting to nourish them and to help support their grind body.
[17:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, that pic eating is a major one.
[17:08] \[SPEAKER_01\]: There's been a lot written about that.
[17:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And oftentimes, at least in the broader world or in my world of pediatrics, there's not a ton of great guidance with that.
[17:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think for a lot of families out say, this is your kid's palate and trying to fight against pic eating is going to be a lifelong thing.
[17:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's not something that you can fix.
[17:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's not a problem that you could fix very shortly.
[17:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But also to kind of,
[17:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: you can kind of give up some control and I hate saying this because I remember someone telling me it's like you don't tell someone this depressed to cheer up.
[17:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You also don't tell someone that's worried about their kids eating the, I don't worry.
[17:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So I'm trying to say this or that's not going to worry.
[17:43] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But also recognize, you know, it's a long term thing.
[17:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Overall, kids will be fine.
[17:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: This is a behavior.
[17:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's not something that kids are born with.
[17:52] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We are born with some different tastes.
[17:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You know, the whole thing of, you know, does,
[17:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Solantro tastes like soap to you will you have this gene and it's okay that you don't like cilantro I don't push cilantro a lot of people for that reason and you know there's some genetics when it comes to things like bitterness But overall picky eating is not a it's not a genetic thing.
[18:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's not something that you're born with it something that every kid will go through periods of that and if your kid is picky it's not because you did anything wrong But also know that this is something that over time can sort of be undone with that kids go through a natural sort of
[18:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm going to call it picking us, they're just toddlers, you know, toddlers or toddlers, you know, toddlers can be difficult.
[18:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And oftentimes, they go through food jacks where this they eat a food for three days straight, and then they just sort of stop eating.
[18:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Foods that they eat very regularly, then suddenly they just won't eat.
[18:40] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And what I would say, and I try to tell parenthesis,
[18:43] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Most often times it may not because they don't like the food, it's just that they're toddlers and they just do stuff like that.
[18:49] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And then when kids start to come out of that sort of school age, you know, six, seven, eight, nine years old, it's, you know, continuing to offer.
[18:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: The old saying is you got to feed a food to a kid 15 times before they're accepted regularly.
[19:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Pretty old studying, it was sort of one study, but there is a lot to that because familiarity with the food is what brings kids to eventually sort of eat it.
[19:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: kids only to food one day and not the next just what I try to do is just not let them sort of labeled they can say they don't like something not a big deal don't make a big deal about it but just continuing to offer that food and that's that familiarity over time without pressuring it if we pressure them to eat it they're not going to eat it if you try hiding it in something they're going to feed it that out it's a learn behavior and a lot of it's cultural the foods that you're sort of exposed to grow enough
[19:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Um, and so a picky eating, it's a lot of what we try to do with sort of any feeding of kids is stick to a schedule, don't let kids be grazers that also prevents if your, um, I tell people to get away from the snack on the man, um, you know, kids seven, eight years old and younger.
[19:52] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Um, they're pretty attuned with their hunger.
[19:54] \[SPEAKER_01\]: when they're hungry, they're hungry, they have a meltdown and stuff like that.
[19:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But actually starting around age, you know, 789, they get to be a little bit more like us.
[20:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We're most of our hunger cues come from external cues.
[20:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It comes from around us.
[20:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so at that age, 789, especially if you have a kid that's picky,
[20:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They know after a meal, if they say, I'm hungry, they're typically going to get a salty crunch of your sweet snack.
[20:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so if they know that they can get that on the man, they will continue to do that.
[20:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But like you said, if they know the food that's being served to them is the food that they're going to get.
[20:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They're going to get hungry, and there's an old saying, I think it was from a book about hungers, the best sauce, or hungers, the best spice.
[20:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And, you know, it'll help them.
[20:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Now I'm not saying starve your kids and bring them to meal and feed them food this very foreign to them.
[20:42] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But letting kids know, we eat at certain times, and I eat from the food in front of me, and really battling back against that, I'm hungry, I'm hungry, or trying to be a shorter, short, or
[20:54] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Ellen Satter has written a lot of clinical approaches to this.
[20:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: She calls it be considered but don't cater so your child doesn't like the salmon.
[21:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Have something on there that you know they're going to eat.
[21:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If you know they like bread, if you know they like salad, you know you're going to try to serve a balance meal knowing that there's something there they're going to like.
[21:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That can be pretty tough if you've got four kids and they all have sort of different tastes that can get kind of challenging, but also no kids hungers go up and down all day.
[21:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Most kids eat like one really big meal a day whereas we think as parents are supposed to eat three square meals a day and average amounts.
[21:24] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's why I don't like talking portion sizes because you know my 20 year old.
[21:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: He has meals that he eats an ungodly amount.
[21:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: His hungers just get to him.
[21:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And other days, you're always kind of shocked.
[21:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's like, are you my kid?
[21:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You're eating kind of a small amount.
[21:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And you come from this big family.
[21:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Hunger goes up and down.
[21:42] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And there's so much that influences that.
[21:43] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And not having to have three perfect meals a day.
[21:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But having that scheduled snack instead of letting a snack be a way for them to get around eating what they're supposed to be eating in meals.
[21:55] \[SPEAKER_00\]: There was one more thing that I was gonna say, or I guess just in addition to that, I do kind of look at feeding my children and nourishing them as a whole for the week.
[22:05] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Like, we don't necessarily need protein every day, but like as long as we're getting protein throughout the week, kind of like you were saying, if we look at it as a whole as opposed to like, it has to be three meals a day, and you have to eat a certain amount, I think that's been really helpful for me too, just taking the pressure off of myself that it has to be perfect, and you have to get your vegetable, your protein and your starch.
[22:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: 100% absolutely.
[22:24] \[SPEAKER_01\]: There's also an old pediatrics saying my partner, Crime Gal Cohen, who's one of the doctors I work with, she learned in her training that over a month's time, kids will feed what their body needs if we just stay out of the way.
[22:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That, you know, this meal they might.
[22:40] \[SPEAKER_01\]: eat a ton of bread or as we say in popular vernacular, they're loading up on carbs and the next meal, they turn in these little carnivores.
[22:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: There's an old study, I think, from the 1920s.
[22:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Claire Davis, she was a pediatrician in Chicago, and had a, she did the study with the children that were orphaned and lived in this sort of group column, these children, some of them were protein malnourists, some of them had rickets, 15 kids, all,
[23:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: you know, very ill, very malnourished and we're in this orphanage and she trained nurses defeat from this collection.
[23:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think it's like 36 or 37 Whole Foods.
[23:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Some of the stuff is just ridiculous.
[23:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's like, you know, chicken livers spelt and you know, a lot of these foods that we know sort of out there, but are not some of the eat a lot, but they were still Whole Foods and she trained the nurses taking care of them to not
[23:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: force feed them or feed them what they thought they should get but let the kids sort of choose what they need it and what she found is after a month or so all the kids corrected their vitamin nutrient malnutrition they all grew to be healthy and they all ate different amounts of different foods.
[23:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Now, that's not saying that in today's world, our kids can become the sort of zen eaters that eat exactly what they're writing needs, but it shows that kids are more in tune with their hunger than we are.
[23:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And if we, and especially when they're younger in a household or where their main environment, they know how to sort of nurse their bodies.
[24:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I think with adults and intuitive eating, that's what that sort of gets to is coming to meal hungry, eating to you feel full and satisfied.
[24:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But there's a lot that sort of interferes with that.
[24:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: that the advertising of food, that's why in Europe that most countries aren't allowed to advertise to children under a some countries under 12, because they're way too susceptible that advertising, where's the sample that advertising?
[24:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I always talk about why some restaurants you go in and you know, you can smell.
[24:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: fresh bread baking, and we know that that causes us to eat more when we go into a restaurant.
[24:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You know, so many things sort of set us off to eat.
[24:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm not hunger right now.
[24:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'll decide to tell this in clinic all the time.
[24:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm not hunger right now, but if someone walked in with the plate full of devil eggs, I would eat it doesn't have them.
[24:43] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I would fill my stomach with hurt afterwards, because I would write, but it's because we're so susceptible to these food cues around us.
[24:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Absolutely.
[24:53] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well, you have given us so much to think about.
[24:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Is there any other final word of encouragement?
[24:57] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Again, I know this is somewhat of a polarizing topic, but I think you're very balanced in your approach to it.
[25:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I don't think we have to be a shameful or critical in order to see that there are a lot of negative side effects that come.
[25:09] \[SPEAKER_00\]: If our children are struggling with their weight and we're just trying to help again holistically here.
[25:15] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But is there any other final word of encouragement you want to leave with listeners today?
[25:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, I, I think, recognize we live in a world that mixes very hard.
[25:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so even though I could tell a child and a larger body all day that you need to learn to love your body, I recognize what they go through and what they feel on a daily basis with that.
[25:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And we always say this this book.
[25:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: is sort of standing in between, again, I'm stereotyping, but two parents that might be struggling.
[25:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: One parent was raised in the toxic dye culture, and they don't want to do that to their child.
[25:43] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They were made away, and they were drug-to-a-weight loss group with their parents.
[25:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They, it's really heavily affected their relationship with food.
[25:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And that's actually who our book is dedicated to.
[25:52] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's for parents that were raised in these toxic dye cultures and were taught to hate their bodies.
[25:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And this is a book for them that says, you know what, but you can, we do want to raise
[26:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: kids to have a good relationship with food to nourish their bodies and to be healthy.
[26:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yes, there's no doubt that eating some foods too much are going to be harmful to our health and eating other foods will be helpful.
[26:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And you can do that without being scared of that and we hopefully offer some tools that they could do that.
[26:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And on the other side for a parent that the child is unhappy with their body or they have pre-diabetes or they're worried about you know you have like my family got a lot of heart disease in the family and you want to present that and it's hopefully that hey here's a safe way that you can go about it because if you go into it wanting to weigh your kid on a daily basis only give them proper portion sizes get them a calorie counting app that's all going to do harm.
[26:43] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And this is for those families at our wanting that there are concerns about weight for whatever reason that might be.
[26:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Here's a safer way to do it in a way that hopefully can get you guys sitting around the table, eating meals together, enjoying your time together, enjoying food, your food traditions and cultures, and they're not caused harm to that.
[27:01] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well, where can listeners grab a copy of your book and connect with you if they want to hear more?
[27:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, I wrote this book with the Derrick Arner Edwards, who's our my associate director and the counselor and our program and Melissa Moses, who's our dietitian.
[27:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And she runs our wonderful teaching kitchen.
[27:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They keep a very updated website.
[27:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You just Google, Brenner Fit, families and training.
[27:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We have a lot of information on their way.
[27:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Have a wonderful channel on YouTube.
[27:24] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Our book can be found on the AP website, probably the easiest way is to order it through Amazon.
[27:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's also available on Barnes and Noble.
[27:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I have to give a shout out to my friend Bradley Addison.
[27:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: There's a childhood friend of mine that named Sam Barnes and Noble story.
[27:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: He says, always mentioned that.
[27:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's available on all the sites, but yeah, we have a great Facebook page, we have a great website and YouTube channeling, find information on that about all the things we talked about today.
[27:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Perfect.
[27:46] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well, as a wrap things up here, I'm just going to ask you the final two questions I ask every guest.
[27:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: These are just a little bit more rapid fire to get to know you.
[27:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The first one is what has been a beneficial resource in your life that you want to share with the listeners and it doesn't have to do with what we talked about today, just something that's been impactful.
[27:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Wow, a beneficial resource to me.
[28:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Wow, that's a really tough one.
[28:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I think that probably changes throughout the years.
[28:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Whew, I think if I just had to answer today, I loved to cook, but I was not raised cooking.
[28:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: My mom was a good cook, but I was a youngster for kids.
[28:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So it was sort of survival of the fittest.
[28:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I have loved the cooking magazine Cooks Illustrated, because it
[28:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: provides me the science of cooking, and I think cooking sort of feeds my soul, feeds my family, some of my wife and I do together.
[28:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And then it allowed me to build food-related memories with my children, with my extended family and extended friends.
[28:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: My husband will often rent that from the library, like he'll get those from the library and bring him home.
[28:40] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They're fun to look at for sure, cook still is treated.
[28:42] \[SPEAKER_00\]: All right, my last question for you is, what is something you can't stop talking about?
[28:49] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I almost need to get this to my wife to let her sort of answer that question.
[28:53] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But I really am, I would say a foodie, and I love, I think, probably as of recent, I'm of Appalachian Heritage and people say, oh, that's like Southern.
[29:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's like, no, you know, all bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon.
[29:08] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so people describe that like Appalachia that a lot at least Southern Appalachian culture is quite distinct from Southern culture and I really kind of gotten into that over the past couple of years.
[29:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so people kind of get sick of me correcting them by saying, in the Southern United States, it's not Appalachia, it's Appalachia.
[29:26] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Oh, yeah.
[29:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and there's a saw on a billboard one time.
[29:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If you say Appalachia, I'll throw an Appalachia.
[29:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so people kind of get sick and be talking about that in the difference in Southern and Appalachian food.
[29:38] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Oh, that's funny.
[29:38] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah.
[29:39] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well, this was an awesome, hopefully really helpful episode for people listening.
[29:44] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And again, just taking a more balanced approach to this conversation, it's so important.
[29:48] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So thanks so much for joining me today.
[29:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Great.
[29:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Thank you for having me.
[29:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: What did you think of the episode?
[29:54] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I hope you enjoyed the conversation.
[29:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: To learn more about today's guest, including links, resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at minimalismomspodcast.com where you can find the entire podcast archive as well as my book, minimalismoms, living and parenting with simplicity, or other ways to connect or work with me online.
[30:15] \[SPEAKER_00\]: If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, or YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and leave a rating or review of your favorite episode.
[30:27] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Lastly, sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends and social media is very helpful and will encourage others on their journey to think more and do with plus.

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